Marketing communication strategies to enhance competitiveness after the effect of covid-19 crisis through the perspectives of high-ranking executives in modern trade business
Abstract:
This research is aimed to study marketing communication strategies to enhance competitiveness after the effect of covid-19 crisis through the perspectives of high-ranking executives in modern trade business by using qualitative research methodology to guide the study, gather the data through in-depth interview and conduct documentary research for presentation. The research results will be ordered by 5 steps of marketing communication strategies, consisting of the review of the marketing plan, determining objectives of marketing communication, identifying marketing communication tools, determining budgets and timing and evaluation. From the research, it was founded that modern retail trade had a review of the marketing plan from different perspectives in order to align with covid-19 crisis which is based on uncertain, difficult to predict and endless problems. When analyzing situation by using SWOT analysis, it was founded that strengths or competitive advantages of modern trade consist of 1) Vision and capability of leaders with courage to adjust quickly 2) Readiness of technology, innovation and customer data base to drive business 3) Wide coverage numbers and strength of branches 4) Development of interfacing channels between off-line and on-line in forms of omni-channel and 5) Expertise and capability of employees For weaknesses, they include 1) A lot numbers of branches may become burden of business 2) Skills of employees have not yet support immediate adaptation 3) Retail store management has not been developed completely 4) Modern trade involves a lot of stakeholders. However, the effect of COVID-19 crisis helped enhance competitiveness of modern trade through following opportunities 1) Most people will spend their life and work from home continuously 2) The advancement of technology catalyze on-line platform development to overcome constraints 3) Societal trend builds popularity on products 4) The hand-shake alliance and cooperation of business increases. For threats of the operation, they are 1) Uncertainty and unpredictability of COVID-19 situation happened immediately 2) Consumers spent carefully and had decreasing purchasing power 3) Numbers of competitors increased 4) Measures of stimulating and recovering economy of public sector 5) The enforcement of the Personal Data Protection Act, B.E.2562 or PDPA. Hence, the review of marketing plan covers specific marketing objectives where COVID-19 crisis causes modern trade to identify marketing objectives focusing mainly on sales and profit. To identify target market or core customers, the analysis through STP Process covers identifying marketing strategies which attempt to use product, price, place and marketing promotion to create competitive advantages. From the second step; determining objectives of marketing communication, it was founded that the alignment of marketing objectives focusing mainly on sales and profit started from building awareness and ending at taking the purchasing action. The identifying of marketing communication tools of step three helped us know that the laid-out marketing communication plan in advance was revamped completely by adjusting it to be more flexible and align with stipulated situation. And, it was called Covid Plan. Moreover, modern trade business foresaw the importance of Integrated Marketing Communication: IMC which combined different types of tools in order to enhance competitiveness from the effect of COVID-19. In the following step of determining budgets and timing, it was founded that modern trade business identified 2 types of marketing communication, i.e. topdown and bottom-up approaches in budgeting. The identified types depended on structure, policies and culture of each organization trying to shorten operation plan and make it easy to follow-up and evaluate. For the evaluation part, which is the last step, it was founded that modern trade business would evaluate success of the overall marketing communication (overall evaluation) by considering mainly sales and profit. For the evaluation of each marketing communication tool (task evaluation), it was founded that each tool had different evaluation criteria which mostly cover 3 areas; Awareness, Engagement and Sales. The key success factors behind the marketing communication strategies in order to increase the competitiveness after the impact of COVID-19 pandemic comprise of 1. Vision of the leaders 2. The Modern trade business with readiness in terms of investment, technology, innovation, human resources and customer database 3. Implementation of Marketing strategies based on customer centric concept 4. The use of customer insight for customer relationship management to deliver a seamless experience to customers 5. The use of public relations tools through Corporate Social Responsibility : CSR or Creating Shared Value : CSV together with any type of sales promotion tools 6. The creation of message or content that touches on emotion and feelings of customers (emotional marketing) from the COVID-19 pandemic crisis 7. Marketing communication strategies that are concise and adaptable to customers behaviors or situations at the moment immediately.