How Unilever Should Increase Its Income in the Netherlands
Introduction
Unilever PLC is a global fast-moving quality products (FMCG) company that makes food, drinks, cleaning supplies, cosmetics, and beauty items (Unilever, 2022). Unilever was founded as a joint venture between the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, but the two countries split in 2020. The company produces a vast range of items that clients use daily, making it a fascinating firm. Unilever controls over 400 stores and employs around 149,000 individuals throughout the globe (Statista, 2022). Unilever has a solid and long-lasting corporate structure explicitly established as a differentiator. This report aims to advise the Unilever Board of Directors on how it should increase its Netherlands income by retaining its present clients and attracting more consumers to increase its profits. Customer retention and attraction are vital since they increase a firm’s customer value and revenue.
Problem Statement
In 2020, Unilever split from the Netherlands, becoming a fully English corporation. In Holland, everything stayed similar; its consolidated markets earned revenue worth €50.7 billion, functioning profit valued at €8.3 billion, profit worth €6.1 billion, and €7.7 billion income (Unilever, 2022). Due to currency exchange depreciation, Unilever’s sales decreased by 2.4 percent, which affected Unilever’s income. Sales growth was responsible for 1.9 percent of turnovers; personal care products, except hygiene products, saw a decline in sales, decreasing the company’s net income. Hence, this report will ensure Unilever increases its sales and net income.
Digital Marketing
Unilever should target various individuals, particularly men and women aged between 14 and 40 years. This target is considered to be the most appropriate for Unilever since the company will utilize ads as its lead generation strategies. The company should apply social media platforms (Dwivedi et al., 2021). Most individuals within that age limit are often updated with the trending activities, making it easier for them to access Unilever’s products. Individuals aged 14 to 40 years are the most active in social media channels, and targeting them will ensure the company makes more profits, improving their net income. Advertising using social media will aid Unilever in the comprehension of its target audience as well as the creation of new clients.
The company should retain its customers or loyalty by frequently offering quality and unique goods that meet client demand. For instance, when a company considers the preferences and interests of the target consumers before offering goods to them, the company ensures that it delivers what clients demand, hence attracting more clients. The company can segment its adverts on social media to ensure that new customers can access the commodities as a technique to increase their sales and income. When a business uses lead generation strategies that access a broad group of audience, their sales increase, which further maximizes the company’s performance due to increased net income or gross profit.
Strategic Objective Formulation
The strategic aim formulation includes aiding the sales team in attracting new customers and improving purchaser involvement through retaining and loyalty plans. Among the objectives, the ads lead generation strategy should consider eliminating Unilever’s problems, including creating demand, satisfying clients, generating profits, market share, and building the company’s reputation. Competition increases as more product providers enter the market today, impacting client purchasing behavior and loyalty (Kootenaie & Kootenaie, 2021). High competition has revealed, among other factors, that buyers are more likely to switch to another company if the cost is reduced, which is the case for Unilever.
Marketing management generates demand using various tactics. It comprises conscious efforts towards learning the preferences and interests of consumers. Businesses meet customer requirements by producing the commodities and amenities clients require. Consumers obtain utility about various amenities and items, creating a demand. Before selling clients any commodity or services, the brand administrator must know their needs. Satisfying clients’ wants is more important than selling goods or facilities (Setiawan et al., 2020). Marketing improves a business’s public duplicate with time; the promotion subdivision makes an impression on clients by providing quality products at modest costs. The marketing director should improve the company’s image by launching image-building activities such as sales promotions, publicity, and advertising, excellent quality, affordable pricing, and convenient distribution outlets.
Digital Marketing Touchpoints, Content Strategy, and Lead Generation Arguments
Every link a customer has with an organization is a touchpoint, which starts when clients discover a product and finalizes when they generate purchases, and the business follows up. Cardinal touchpoints are internet and digital connections through which clients cooperate with a corporation. It includes communications on various devices, from phones to tablets, and multiple networks, such as websites and social media. Touchpoints influence customers’ experiences at every journey stage (Krey et al., 2021). It can persuade someone to click on an advertisement, read a blog, go to a website, and eventually convert. One mistake moves, a missing homepage, an outdated social media outlet, or an unanswered live chat might cost the customer for good.
Social media platforms are the marketing touchpoints that will play significant roles in maximizing Unilever’s sales to increase its net income. The utilization of social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram informs a wide range of clients, enabling a company to maximize its sales (Dwivedi et al., 2021). Businesses worldwide spend additional money on marketing and promotions to increase sales and expand their consumer base. Advertising has played a critical role in educating and informing clients by identifying consumer requirements and wants and how businesses must address those needs. More marketing techniques are geared toward addressing consumer demands. The more effective they are at reaching intended goals, particularly sales creation.
Marketing is accountable for understanding consumer necessities and wants and scheming and handling corporate merchandise contributions to encounter those requirements. Another function of marketing is to ensure the uniform distribution of consumed goods and services. Marketing tactics are unsuccessful if the products generated are not consumed. Proper distribution guarantees that all buyers within a distributed cluster have easy access to goods in marketing. People, or customers, must not only access products and facilities but also those items and services at the right moment. Customer satisfaction increases due to proper product delivery, boosting a company’s trust and confidence. Consumers and businesses alike may benefit from effective deployment through a great marketing strategy because it lowers the costs of obtaining products and services. Marketing is answerable for falsifying a solid link between clients and business proprietors to surge trust.
A content policy is a technique for achieving business objectives through content (visual, audio, and textual). An excellent content approach will engage the intended audience at every point of the cycle, even after purchasing. There are various social media channels companies employ as their content strategies. However, suppose Unilever considers generating its content using Facebook and TikTok. The company could quickly increase its buyer consumption since most of the population currently utilizes TikTok and Facebook more than other social media channels. Still, even though individuals utilize other social media channels, most people use TikTok and Facebook. Hence, the two channels will create conducive environments for Unilever to market its products and increase its sales and net income.
Strategy Effectiveness
Among the KPIs, Unilever can use to determine the effectiveness of the ads lead generation strategy include “Cost Per Acquisition” (CPA), Return on Ad Spend (ROAS), and “Customer Acquisition Cost” (CAC). The cost of acquiring a customer (CAC) is an accurate determinant to monitor. It helps determine the efficacy of the customer acquisition approach and make adjustments over time. It is a valuable statistic for investors, as it allows them to assess your company’s sustainability. ROAS is critical for quantitatively measuring ad campaign effectiveness and how it affects an online shop’s bottom line. Findings from ROAS throughout all campaigns, when combined with client lifetime value, guide future expenditures, strategy, and entire marketing direction. The CPA is particularly crucial to analyze because it provides insight into the effectiveness of your ad campaign. The following campaign calendar will perform essential roles since the company will utilize social media, email marketing, and personal selling through agents.
Table 1: Campaign Calendar
Unilever should combine CPA with other indicators like ROI and conversion rate to get a complete view of how well its ad campaign functions. The company will utilize the Buffer software since it helps companies work smarter. Unilever can therefore obtain insight into what works best for them on social media to attain the strategic objectives. Buffer facilitates easy monitoring of business engagement, strengthens audience relationships and can help a company convey its products to a large crowd, increasing its sales.
Sales Strategies
Unilever’s sales objectives include increasing its sales by using social media platforms, meeting customer demand, increasing its performance, and maximizing its net income. During the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, most global businesses were impacted due to the selling and travel restrictions that impacted the normal operations of numerous companies. Hence, Unilever faced difficulties promoting and conveying its products to the target audience, an act that decreased the company’s sales and therefore impacted its gross profit.
Salespeople and Actions
There are various processes involved in the sales cycle, including screening, preparation, approaching, presenting, objection handling, closing, and following-up are all steps in the sales process. Prospecting entails identifying potential clients and deciding whether to demand and afford the product or service (“Sales Cycle Explained: 7 Stages of a Sales Cycle—2022—MasterClass,” 2022). Screening establishes whether a customer requires given commodities. The follow-up phase lets businesses stay in touch with customers after they have purchased something, not just for prospective repeat customers but also for recommendations. Maintaining relationships is crucial since keeping existing clients costs six to seven times less than acquiring new ones. The manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, specialized, industry, importing, and independent businesses will be involved in the sales process during the cycle. Their actions will include prospecting, formulating, approaching, bestowing, handling protests, concluding, and following up on auctions.
Value Hypothesis
Unilever will utilize the value chain to measure its value. Value chains increase a company’s efficiency to give the most benefit for the lowest wages. A supply chain’s ultimate purpose is to give a company an edge by boosting productivity while reducing cost. A value chain consists of operations conducted by a firm in a specific industry to provide valuable goods to the end client. The value chain concept is related to the work view of businesses, which views a manufacturing company as a system composed of components with their inputs, processing operations, and outcomes. The purchase and depletion of energy, money, labor, materials, technology, buildings, land, bureaucracy, and management are all part of the inputs, processing operations, and outputs. Costs and profit are determined by how tasks are carried out.
Conclusion
Sales strategies and digital marketing are vital elements since they determine how a company generates revenues. When a business examines the interests and preferences of its target customers before selling them items, it assures that it delivers what they want, attracting more customers. When a firm utilizes lead generation methods that reach a large audience, increased sales further improve the company’s performance due to higher net earnings or gross margin. Businesses meet customers’ needs by producing the goods and services they require while consumers gain utility from various amenities and products, resulting in a demand. Before Unilever offers a client any product or service, the brand manager must first understand their requirements. It is more crucial to satisfy customers’ needs than selling products or services.
Recommendation
Unilever should use digital marketing strategies such as social media platforms to advertise its products to target consumers to optimize sales and earn more revenue. It should utilize digital tools to set benchmarks to help it meet its goals and the strategies to bring success. The firm should do this by determining what success will look like for the company and developing a strategy to achieve its objectives. Unilever should employ customer-centric sales methods to manage and connect with consumers clients to surge its sales.
References
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