Introduction
The consumption of coffee and its products has increased, attracting more suppliers to the market. The progress has resulted in more advertising strategies to bridge the informational gap between suppliers and consumers. Starbucks was created to avail coffee and its products to the market and became the best seller in the world. The business’ prosperity has seen the extension of its outlets worldwide. The entity introduces the new coffee products to consumers and ensures that a wide range of the population knows about the emerging product. Starbucks uses various promotional mixes to pass the intended information aiming to improve its market globally. Starbucks has impacted the demand for coffee globally and remains the highest income-earning coffee business.
The report below explains various unique techniques used by Starbucks, such as marketing, public affairs, individual selling, as well as sales promotions, to reach the target audience. It also gives practical background information about the target audience and why they should use the product advertised. This report quotes the plans of action, citing cases why Starbucks enjoys a broad customer base.
Furthermore, this report entails information about marketing methods used by Starbucks to promote the products within the marketing environment here. Other businesses competing with Starbucks are identified in the essay, listing their strengths and weaknesses in marketing their products. The critical point in this report is to analyze the methods applied by Starbucks to acknowledge the strength and weaknesses of their coffee product and utilize the information to gain the best sales in the market. All information about the company, its target audience, competitors, objectives, and advertisement media plan is here.
Starbucks Competitors
In addition, to obtain success levels as the oldest coffee seller, Starbucks identifies its competitors in the industry well. Among the many competitors in the coffee, markets are McDonald’s, Costa, Dunkin’ Donuts, and CafĂ© Coffee Day (Clements, 2019). McDonald’s is closely competing with Starbucks because it has many stores worldwide and sells coffee products and other beverages and foodstuff. Dunkin’ Donuts started as a coffee and donuts supplier for shipyard workers.
The owner noticed that the workers preferred the combination to other foods prompting him to open a coffee and donuts retail within the environment. The business has transformed into a world-class competitor in coffee distribution, providing a wide range of coffee products. On the other hand, people have overwhelmingly acknowledged Café Coffee Day for managing its costs by having its coffee production and independently creating furniture for its outlets. As part of its marketing strategy, the business has used an alternative logo to the original one.
Though the competitors target the same audience, Starbucks has managed to cope with the competition because it offers quality customer services as its strategy. Customers describe the business as their third place of preference after their homes and workplaces. The company enjoys vast customer backing because it offers quality coffee that is differentiated from others brands but similar in quality to the different outlets of Starbucks.
In addition, the firm has districted itself from others by having well-trained employees. These employees are good at treating customers and work in line with Starbucks’ slogan. The slogan states that the business aims at inspiring and nurturing the human spirit. Starbucks’ official slogan implies the business’s primary goal is to sell coffee to all individuals in need. With all these strategies, the business can grasp the highest number of customers leading to a higher income than its competitors.
The Target Audience
For every promotional strategy to work effectively, the promoter must identify, understand and educate the target audience. The agent must identify the likes and dislikes of their targets and know how they can help them cope with the current products. In recent years the highest consumption of coffee has been recorded by adults of twenty-four years and above. This information suits well with Starbucks because its target audience consists of people aged twenty to sixty years. Starbucks targets adults because coffee is a stress-relieving product that is suitable for them. Moreover, coffee reduces diabetes and heart failure infections, both diseases common to adults (Li, 2018). Coffee is thus the right product for use by the target audience because it promotes their welfare. Starbucks also targets educated people in society because most of them attribute coffee consumption to healthy lifestyles. Starbucks targets the twenty-sixty years old audience because they are the largest group of the product’s consumers.
Geographically it is challenging to decide the distribution of such demography because it is everywhere around other areas. Therefore, the company has to develop a global advertisement media to reach every location, whether urban, semi-urban, or rural. For instance, advertising via television and social media platforms would reach out to many adults and convince them to purchase the product. The company can also opt for personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations, where they meet with their clients and have one-on-one conversations about the products. In individual meetings, the agency should use interactive programs to draw people and seek the necessary information from them in the process.
Starbucks should know what its target audience prefers about coffee and examine whether it can incorporate the customers’ demands for information about other varieties of coffee. Starbucks has acknowledged the importance of computers in its advertisement strategies because most of its customers have access to smartphones (Li, 2018). The company has created a smartphone application that their customers use to make orders. Starbucks reaches out to a broad group because even older adults use smartphones to ease their lifestyles.
Statements of Objectives
The success of Starbucks is due to the precise statement of objectives from the party. The objective statements of the company comprise the company’s mission statement and purpose statement. The mission statement states that the organization inspires and natures the human spirit towards a better society. The organization promotes the sharing spirit by encouraging one individual, one coffee cup, as well as one locality at a time.
This declaration promotes unity among the target groups by encouraging them to share and maintain peace among them. As a pacesetter in humanity’s demand, the business pays school fees for needy students in Arizona State University. The organization has a purpose statement that dictates its aim of being the best seller of the best coffee worldwide while preserving its categorical ideologies as they advance. The business employs the best coffee makers and service providers in the market to help achieve its objectives. It acquires skilled labor to ascertain its goal to become the number one coffee provider globally (Goh et al., 2020). Furthermore, the company has expanded its outlets worldwide to grow its market base and approach more customers.
Advertisement Channels
The business must identify why its products need promotion for the computation of a media advertisement plan. For instance, Starbucks would require advertisement for its products when introducing new developments in the market. The organization would also be apt for advertising when creating awareness about the continued existence of its products in the market to new customers. Finally, Starbucks would advertise when wanting to inform its customers about specific product composition and structure changes. In all these instances, the business must come into advertisement media familiar to its target audience. Advertising often boosts the product’s performance in the market. The more advertisements the firm makes, the more it enjoys a competitive advantage because the market is already informed about the best product prevailing in the market.
Using different online sites to advertise itself would positively impact the business since most of its target audience are computer literate, using computers and smartphones to ease their lives from too much stress and work. The company should engage in advertising its products by displaying its posters on online media. They could also create short videos that highlight the closeness of the business to humanity and its power to provide the highest quality coffee.
In the process, the sales of the coffee will increase because more of the target audience will receive the information. The posters and the videos should contain a brief explanation of the business and how the management works to provide quality goods and customer care services. After the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in most countries, people quarantined themselves. Since then, the population that accesses online media services has immensely increased. Therefore, the business would stand a chance of reaching out to as many potential customers. We cannot ignore the impact of the disease when addressing current forms of advertisements. Starbucks must focus majorly on platforms accessed by the majority of its target audience and address them directly.
Above using social media platforms, Starbucks may also opt to use print media to relay information to its customers. The print media comprises printed publications such as posters, banners, newspapers, and magazines. It is useful when targeting people who read a lot and those with hearing difficulties. Since social media mainly consists of audio and videos, the business may target the deaf and people who do not spend much of their time on social media but read the newspaper and magazines more often. Reaching every group of people is crucial to the business because the market for their products increases.
The marketing strategy of using print media also helps the company provide good enough information to convince the reader to use their product. Besides reaching a large audience, the print media creates trust between the company and the audience because there is proof of the services offered.
Starbucks has managed to control the beverages market due to several actions to promote its brand and image through product differentiation. To differentiate its product from other brands, the company ensures that its product is similar in all outlets worldwide. Uniformity of the brand within the entire outlets gives the business competitive advantage because customers quickly identify with the product. The firm achieves uniformity because it employs skilled personnel to work on the sites. Trained personnel are crucial because they promote professionalism within organizational operations. Customers appraise the business for its efforts to give them the same feeling of greatness whenever they consume the product. The company achieves consistency in its operations by delivering quality products and quality customer care services.
The business also creates a positive image by allowing its employees to be stakeholders in the industry. Enabling employees to take part in the capital contribution for the company motivates them to work harder to help the business achieve greater heights of service production and profit-making. It promotes the industry’s image in turn and creates a positive reception from the staff and customers.
The business further helps its employees increase their knowledge by paying fees to gain auxiliary academics. Starbucks has promoted its employees by paying school fees for those who want to expound their academics. Such an action creates a good perception about the business among the youth, who more often may volunteer to work in the organization. The company looks into employees’ welfare without hesitation and helps them cope with the current conditions. In return, the employees willingly work for a positive upgrade of the business in penetrating the market.
Apart from advertising its products, Starbucks should also engage in other promotional mix strategies in its bid to improve its sales. Personal selling promotes the relationship between the seller and the buyer. Thus if Starbucks applies the method, direct contact with the customers would influence the organization’s growth. Personal selling promotes direct communication among the parties; thus, the business identifies areas that need to be worked on from the consumers’ feedback. The buyers get information about the firm’s future projects and respond by outlining ideas that may help the firm make financial and organizational decisions. The business aims to show its human character from the mission statement, and thus, personal selling would immensely create the business’s unique image in action.
Additionally, the firm may use sales promotion to promote buying their product. Sales promotion methods stimulate the consumption of the products and create awareness about the product’s existence in the market. The process comprehends activities such as sampling, and giving prizes as incentives to attract customers and contests. The winner in the contests is rewarded with gifts of the products. Sales promotion generally aims to engage with the audience and taste the goods sold in an organization. Sales promotion is essential for the promotion of products, especially when creating awareness about the products. Starbucks should engage in such activities to connect with the consumers and introduce new customers to the product.
Product Differentiation and Execution of Promotion
The advert below is in the form of a poster that Starbucks can post on its social media pages and websites. The poster informs the viewer about the products that Starbucks deals with, which are coffee. It also guarantees the reader the quality of coffee that the company offers and elaborates the mission and purpose of the business in its operations. The poster contains the company’s logo and creates assurance of the information set above. It displays the creativity of the business and its commitment to providing quality services that respect and promote human nature and kindness. The message conveyed by the poster is simple to understand and is precise. Starbucks should use such an advertisement poster to display its prowess in the coffee business.
Starbucks should continue the use unpredictable strategies to promote its products. The firm should advertise when not expected and use alternative methods that its competitors do not operate. For instance, the business could use unofficial means to communicate with its customers. Such moves create anxiousness among its stakeholders, making it relevant in the industry. The company should understand what means it can reach the most influential target audience, such as social media platforms for the modern-day market structures (El Kedra., 2021). In addition, it should also offer competitive customer care service. Customer care services indulge activities such as fast delivery when demand is made, quick response to claims made by customers, and quality reception within the premises of the business outlets. These actions promote branding, image, and product differentiation and act as free advertisement agents.
Conclusion
In summary, Starbucks should execute the above-explained ideas by genuinely communicating with their customers at all times. Moreover, the business ought to use its social media platforms to engage with its customers. They can also display their posters and photographs on the walls of the above websites. Another technique that the company can use to multiply its sales is its website and apps to display its services and outlook. Starbucks’ management can also use television stations to promote its products. With all these actions in place, the business enlarges its customer base and will continue controlling the coffee business in years to come.
References
Clements, M. (2019). Strategic Audit: Starbucks. Web.
El Kedra, A. N. A. (2021). The Impact of Digital Content Marketing on Brand Awareness through Social Media and Customer Engagement: A Case Study of Starbucks in Istanbul (Doctorate). Istanbul Aydin University.
Goh, S. Y., Kee, D. M. H., Ooi, Q. E., Boo, J. J., Chen, P. Y., Alosaimi, A., & Ghansal, M. (2020). Organizational culture at Starbucks. Journal of the Community Development in Asia (JCDA), 3(2), 28-34. Web.
Li, C. Y. (2018). Consumer behavior in switching between membership cards and mobile applications: The case of Starbucks. Computers in Human Behavior, 84, 171-184. Web.