Analysis Of Marley Spoon Marketing Strategy

Question

Task: The student is expected to analyses the external and internal environments (SWOT), identify a relevant strategy (S-O, W-O etc.), identify and describe a target market, and develop a suitable new product or new services for the company to introduce for this target market. Each group has to nominate a company (the client) for this plan.

Students are required to conduct a SWOT analysis, identifying the internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities and threats of the following companies (choose one company only)

1. Marley Spoon (https://www.marleyspoon.com.au/)
2. Oscar Wylee (https://www.oscarwylee.com.au/)
3. Continental Delicatessen (https://www.continentaldelicatessen.com.au
4. Airtasker (https://www.airtasker.com/)

The goal of a SWOT analysis is to identify the critical factors that may affect the proposed business concept (or new product or new services) and then build on the strengths to reduce the weaknesses, exploit opportunities and avoid potential threats. Students are also expected to identify and describe using segmenting variables, one target market being served by the nominated company and devise a brief marketing strategy.

Answer

Executive Summary:
The Marley spoon marketing strategy analyses the external as well as internal environments of Marley Spoon for identifying relevant strategies and target market. To analysing both external and internal factors, a company mainly uses SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) framework. The company delivers delicious recipes as well as fresh ingredients to customer’s home. The company delivers its customers fresh and local ingredients for making delicious dishes. Every week, the company uploads 27 new recipes in its official website for different customers including vegan, vegetarian, healthy, family-friendly fish and meat options. However, those ingredients can be wasted faster compared to any prepared food items. The company has the opportunity to expand its product and service range in future by enlarging its business strategies. Competition in market increases gradually due to the entrance of new companies. The primary target customers of the company are students and couples of nuclear families having both male and female members. The earning of most of those customers, aged from 20 years to 35 years. The company indents to start online cooking videos for them. ?

1.Introduction
The Marley spoon marketing strategy analyses the external as well as internal environments of a company for identifying relevant strategies and target market. The main purpose of the study is to develop and introduce a product or service for the company to this target market. To analysing both external and internal factors, a company mainly uses SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) framework as those factors have significant impact on the feasibility of a project, place or product. According to Phadermrod, Crowder and Wills (2019), SWOT analysis is a technique of strategic planning that helps a company to recognise its condition in the competitive market. Thus, based on this analysis, a company can take proper business strategies to promote a proposed business or a new product in the market considering the strengths and opportunities. Moreover, the company can also successfully reduce its weaknesses and alternative methods to avoid threats for conducting the business successfully in long-run.

1.1 Company overview
For conducting analysis, the report selects Marley Spoon, which delivers delicious recipes as well as fresh ingredients to customer’s home. The main aim of the online e-commerce site is to make the process of cooking as a simple task so that customers can prepare tasty meals at their home. Marley Spoon is a Germany-based company though it operates worldwide including USA, Denmark, Australia and Netherlands and so on. In 2014, Fabian Siegel and Till Neatby founded the business and consequently it has expanded the business successfully (Marley Spoon. 2020). The company offers weekly recipes, developed and tested by developers and chefs, to their consumers. The range of weekly recipes varies from meat, vegetables, and fishes to low calorie healthy items for covering large customers. Hence, the recipe developers and chefs work hard every week to sourcing and supplying good quality ingredients to the customers’ door-step.

2. SWOT Analysis
In SWOT framework, strengths and weaknesses analyse the internal factors while opportunities and threats address the external factors.

• Strengths: Firstly, Marley spoon marketing strategy defines its strengths. The company delivers its customers fresh and local ingredients for making delicious dishes. Every week, the company uploads 27 new recipes in its official website for different customers including vegan, vegetarian, healthy, family-friendly fish and meat options. Customers can get easy delivery at their convenient time while the process of subscription is also flexible. Hence, customers can skip, cancel or postponed their orders or cooking procedures at anytime. Marley Spoon provides seasonal ingredients which reduces the possibility of food waste. The company provides specific ingredients for the mentioned number of members. Hence, it reduces the waste of ingredients (Whitten 2017). With this door-step delivery service, the company supports more than 60 unique suppliers in Australia. The modern packaging system of Marley Spoon also keeps ingredients fresh and convenient for cooking. The company uses insulated box that can keep meals chill. The experienced and talented chefs prepare 6-steps recipe cards so with picture so that people can easily make delicious items without facing any hurdles. The modern company also has good reputations among local customers for delivering fresh items of delicious recipes. It also has excellent as well as well-trafficked location.
• Weaknesses: Marley Spoon has some weaknesses that also need to describe. The company mainly use perishable ingredients and they need to be preserved carefully. Those ingredients can be wasted faster compared to any prepared food items. The pre-proportioned ingredients could not be sufficient for the number of members. Companies need to hire skilled and experienced chefs and recipe developers for updating new recipes every week and to provide step-wise recipes to customers. For hiring them, the company needs to bear costs. Thus, the normal cost of business is higher than any well-known food chain restaurants. For the upgraded packaging system, Marley Spoon also needs to invest sufficient amount of money. The company needs to depend heavily on its suppliers and supply chains. Hence, without ingredient suppliers, insulated box suppliers and a strong supply chain, the company cannot operate its business successfully (Bull et al. 2016). The company does not provide any option where customers can customise ingredients as per their requirements. For instance, some ingredients may not be suitable for customers with different diseases. However, the company does not provide any alternative options for its.  Marley Spoon does not have food delivery app which further restrict its demand in the Australian market as it is not possible for customers to visit website always for searching and ordering any particular recipe.

Thus, it is observed that Marley Spoon has some internal strengths and weaknesses. Along with these, the company also experiences some opportunities and threats that are described below.

• Opportunities: Marley Spoon has unique business idea which is almost new in the Australian market. Hence, the company has fewer competitors like Hello Fresh in the market. The company has the opportunity to expand its product and service range in future by enlarging Marley spoon marketing strategy. For instance, it can provide customise recipes to customers based on their requirements or tastes. Marley Spoon can also provide online recipe videos or cooking classes with their skilled and experienced chefs to develop the cooking skills of people. Along with online site, the company also can build physical retail stores across Australia so that customers can come and purchase fresh ingredients. In addition to this, the company can also start the customer service facility where people can interact with chefs and recipe developers directly to know cooking tips (Damiri and Chan 2019). Marley Spoon supports its local ingredient suppliers which in turn makes a healthy relationship between the company and the suppliers. As the company offers recipes based on season wise, it can collect and deliver fresh ingredients. By developing food apps, the company can achieve potential growth in the market.
• Threats: Apart from opportunities, Marley Spoon marketing strategy also experiences some threats in the market, which are required to consider for adopting new business strategies accordingly. The interesting business idea gradually increases competition in the market due to the entrance of new companies. In addition to this, the company also faces strong competition with local and established restaurants and other app-based services which deliver prepared foods to the door-step of consumers. The uncertain economic condition of Australia can also affect the business growth of Marley Spoon adversely. For instance increasing inflation can increase the price of ingredients while low per capita income can reduce the purchasing power of consumers. Excessive costs of the company to conduct hire skilled chefs can also reduce the profit margin of the company.

The following SWOT table will help Marley Spoon to allocate resources and potentiality in an efficient way for future purpose.

3. Recommendation:
3.1 Target Market:
The target market of Marley Spoon can be segmented in 4 types, which are geographic, demographic, behavioural and psychographic.

• Geographic segmentation: It divides the customers on their location basis, for instance, country, region, city and area and so on. In case of Marley Spoon, the entire people of Australia are its target customers as the company operates across different regions of the country (Sari, Nugroho, Ferdiana, and Santosa 2016). The company will mainly target customers, who live in developed cities as they have very fast life and consequently cannot get enough time for preparing delicious food items. Moreover, people in cities cannot get the opportunity to purchase fresh and seasonal ingredients and fruits always from supermarkets due to lack of time. Hence, the door-service of the company helps them to prepare fresh dishes for their families and friends.
• Demographic segmentation: This type of segmentation separates the entire customers into age, occupation, gender, family status, income and education. This type of segmentation is the most common and useful for any company for understanding the target customers easily. Customers, aged between 20 years and 50 years, mainly purchase recipes with ingredients from Marley Spoon (An et al. 2018). Moreover, both male and female customers, who earn between AUD 30,000 and more, purchase packages from the company. In most of the cases, it is observed that students who live alone or couples or small family members order packages.
• Behavioural Segmentation: This type of segmentation considers usage level, product knowledge, service rating, business awareness and previous purchasing experience of consumers. For initiating Marley spoon marketing strategy, these indicators also play significant role. In most of the cases, it is observed that some customers always provide higher rating after purchasing products from the company (Hjort, Lantz, Ericsson and Gattorna 2016). In addition to this, it is also observed that consumers prefer to order more during weekends and any festival. Moreover, the company also can segment customers based on their purchasing pattern. For instance, some customers generally order non-vegetable items while some prefer to eat vegetable dishes. In addition to this, the dinner-time customers order more compared to launch-time customers.
• Psychographic Segmentation: In this type of segmentations, customers are segmented based on their interests, values, attitudes and lifestyle. This type of segmentation actually helps a company to sell specific products and services, which can influence customers from their different viewpoint. Marley Spoon can segment its customers based on their preferences and consumption habits. For instance, some customers order packages, which have high protein and low carbohydrate for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Moreover, diabetic patients also prefer to order gluten-free recipes.

Based on the segmentation of the market, Marley Spoon can identify its target market to understand its primary target customers and secondary target customers. The primary target customers of the company are students and couples of nuclear families having both male and female members. The earning of most of those customers, aged from 20 years to 35 years, lie between AUD 30000 to AUD 50000 monthly, which indicates that they cannot afford foods of chain restaurants frequently. They generally prefer to consume non-vegetable dishes during dinner-time especially during weekends. The secondary target customers of Marley Spoon are people, aged between 35 years and 45 years, who generally prefer gluten-free recipes. However, they do not order foods frequently rather they generally order during any festive season.

3.2 New product description
Marley Spoon can launch online cooking classes for its Gen-Y customers to get more demand from them. It is known that people, aged from 20 years to 39 years use internet. However, they follow a fast and unhealthy lifestyle. Hence, it will be convenient for them to easily search and see the process of cooking of particular recipes as per their requirement. Moreover, the company also reflects various discounts on recipes for different customers by tracking their food preferences. This service will also bring competitive advantage for Marley Spoon as it can help the company to increase the customer base significantly. Moreover, this service can improve the cooking skills of people. To launch this new service in the Australian market, the company needs to build a specific marketing strategy, which is described by 7Ps.

3.3 7 Ps for Marley spoon marketing strategy:

• Product: Marley Spoon will offer a new service to their customers. The company will start online cooking classes based on their recipes for helping customers to cook new dishes. The new techniques of cooking will help students and young couples to prepare delicious items easily.
• Price: To start new service, Marley Spoon will adopt the penetrative pricing strategy. As per this pricing strategy, the company will charge low subscription fees from its viewers to watch 10 cooking videos in one payment. The subscription charge will be increased as per the demand. However, the company will also provide a free video to each customer to teach some basic skills of cooking. This will help the company to attract customers for paying subscription charge for next videos.
• Place: This service will be available in online only. In other words, it can be aid that customers will get this service from the official website of Marley Spoon only.
• Promotion: The Company will promote this service in the homepage of its official website. Apart from it, Marley Spoon will also promote this service through social media for attracting Gen-Y customers (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch 2017).
• People: Marketing management, Chefs, suppliers and customer service providers will be the main people for this service.
• Processes: Main processes of this service will involve customer-service, IT-supported designs, Business-led and level of customers involvement (Themba, Razak and Sjahruddin 2019). Furthermore, chefs will show new and fast technologies of cooking that will be easy and convenient for users.
• Physical Evidence: Online experiences, speed, cleanness of videos, transparent communication of chefs and service quality of the company will be the physical evidence of this new service.
• Therefore, based on these marketing mix strategies, Marley Spoon can deliver standard and customer-friendly online cooking videos to its target customers.

Conclusion
The above discussion elaborates Marley spoon marketing strategy, which delivers meal kit with recipes to customers. The convenient way of making delicious recipes has attracted many customers across Australia. This German-based company operates its business across different countries since 2014. The company offers a large range of recipes to its customers including vegetarian, meat, fish and gluten free options. Moreover, experienced chefs and recipe developers also provide new recopies every week along with a 6-step recipe guide. From the entire marketing strategy of Marley, it is seen that the company has some strengths and weaknesses along with some opportunities and threats. These factors describe the internal and external environmental conditions of the company. The primary target market of the company is Gen-Y customers, mainly students and new couples, aged between 20 years to 40 years. In most of the cases, it is observed that those consumers order non-veg recipes during weekends. The company intends to promote online cooking service for customers for teaching them new cooking techniques. Marley spoon marketing strategy assignments are being prepared by our marketing assignment help experts from top universities which let us to provide you a reliable assignment help online service.

Reference List
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Damiri, D.M. and Chan, A., 2019. Strategy of Increasing Repeat Purchase in Restaurant Companies: Study in Bandung City, Indonesia. Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research, 8, pp.160-167. Felix, R., Rauschnabel, P.A. and Hinsch, C., 2017. Elements of strategic social media marketing: A holistic framework. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.118-126.

Hjort, K., Lantz, B., Ericsson, D. and Gattorna, J., 2016. Marley spoon marketing strategy. Customer Segmentation Based on Buying and Returning Behaviour: Supporting Differentiated Service Delivery in Fashion E-Commerce. In Developments in Logistics and Supply Chain Management (pp. 153-169). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Marley Spoon. 2020. Recipe Deliveries - How It Works | Marley Spoon. [online] Available at: https://marleyspoon.com.au/how [Accessed 1 Feb. 2020].

Phadermrod, B., Crowder, R.M. and Wills, G.B., 2019. Importance-performance analysis based SWOT analysis. International Journal of Information Management, 44, pp.194-203.

Sari, J.N., Nugroho, L.E., Ferdiana, R. and Santosa, P.I., 2016. Review on customer segmentation technique on ecommerce. Advanced Science Letters, 22(10), pp.3018-3022.

Themba, O.S., Razak, N. and Sjahruddin, H., 2019. Increasing customers’ loyalty. The contribution of marketing strategy, service quality and customer satisfaction. Archives of Business Research, 7(2).

Whitten, S. 2017. Marley Spoon just solved one of the biggest issues with meal kits. [online] CNBC. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/11/marley-spoon-just-solved-one-of-the-biggest-issues-with-meal-kits.html [Accessed 1 Feb. 2020].