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Introduction
Huel is an abbreviation of ‘human fuel’, which is a UK based organization established in 2014. Huel is one of the largest organizations in the United Kingdom with offices in England, Germany, and the United States; the company provides a wide range of services including power, bars, granola, flavour boost, accessories, chocolate bars, milk products, and many more hygienic products. The company has major competitors in the market such as MANA, Soylent, Ambronite; the company has innovated the use of artificial intelligence in their services and products to create a positive brand image in the food and beverage industry. Huel was created by the world renowned nutritionist James Collier BSc (Hons), the company provides a 500 calorie nutritionally perfect and affordable meal to people of all ages in just $2.35; which is why Huel established highest food manufacturing standards in the world. The company uses safety standards and equipment that is world-class; Huel promotes zero food waste ideology and is ranked as the most environmentally friendly company in the UK (Huel, 2019).
Since innovation is necessary for every company nowadays for sustainable competitive advantage, which is why Huel’s marketing strategy plays an important role to diffuse innovation in its products and services and earn a higher share of the market. Innovation is also necessary to develop a strong marketing portfolio for customers to respect and admire you, which is why Huel should go beyond traditional marketing activities and think strategically to address customer’s needs. It will help the company to develop unexpected innovation and overcome barriers to growth in the international market. Therefore, novel marketing strategies are associated with innovation that the company should adopt by using new marketing instruments and plans to ensure the country's economic growth and its own success. (Amirkhanpour, 2014)
The Need for Marketing Innovation
Since the economic growth of many developed countries relies mostly on new innovations and technology, innovation is extremely vital for the company’s growth. In Hull's perspective, the company uses artificial intelligence to produce personalized nutrition and uses several marketing and promotion strategies such as social media, TV campaigns, and newspaper advertising, however, the company should be able to sell its products at a lower price as compared to the other companies in the food and beverage industry. The company’s products such as powder, flavour boosts, bars, granola, and accessories are high quality, but the company should bring more innovation into its marketing plan by acting strategically and converting potential customers into repeat consumers. Therefore, the goal of sustainable development and improves sales can only be achieved through wise and innovative strategies that involve technology and marketing innovation to bring success to the company. (Chelariu, 2014)
The role of marketing in the food and beverage industry is indispensable; companies like Nestle are already producing and promoting their products with an implementation of innovative technology and gaining a higher competitive advantage. Firms can apply innovation capabilities in the market successfully so they can sell their products efficiently. Therefore, in order to become more innovative, the key attributes for Huel should be to become market-oriented, determine their distinctive capabilities and skills to match the customer's needs and values. Such an innovative approach will enable the organization to achieve a positive brand image and achieve superior performance. (Chelariu, 2014)
Barriers to Innovation
The process of innovation is often complex and long which requires a lot of resource utilization and faces a high risk of customer rejection. Once the company adopts innovative technology or solutions, the management should be able to reap benefits from them for several years or decades. Therefore, the time of innovation is directly proportional to the extent to which customers resits innovation and refuse to purchase the innovative products anymore. For example, the innovation of mobile and telecommunication technology took 40 years; the customers reject the old products and demand new features and services with the passage of time. Unless customers are not fully aware of the benefits and hazards of innovative technology and products, they will not be able to accept or purchase the products. Therefore, it is vital for an organization to develop an innovative strategy for marketing that helps to overcome such barriers and provides guidance to management to identify the time of innovation adoption. (Correia, 2015)
The strategic marketing approach is extremely crucial for promoting innovation in the organisation, which is why marketing managers at Huel should develop a strategic marketing approach to overcome existing innovation barriers and commercialize their innovation successfully. Most, for example, provide a free trial of their new and innovative products to the customers to test their innovation; this method ensures that the risks are identified with the innovation. According to a recent survey in the United States, 50% companies reveal that they have new and innovative ideas but they are not able to commercialize them successfully, which is why many ideas are not even implemented. Therefore, marketing strategies at Huel should understand the innovation barriers to promote marketing strategies to foresee all the risks and challenges to successfully introduce innovation in the market. (Correia, 2015)
Managing Marketing Innovation
While introducing new services and products in the food and beverage industry, many companies face a need to develop innovative marketing methods. Nowadays, there are many challenges faced by marketers such as rapid globalization, resistance to change, oversaturated markets, and environmental barriers. The marketers can make a choice either to use the existing marketing methods or strategies or to increase their efficiency of output by introducing innovative marketing strategies, which is why innovative companies often try to connect their innovative products with innovative marketing strategies (Mogilko, 2016). A large part of the marketing budget is spent on personal sales activities and promotion, which is why Huel should focus more on spending financial resources on information systems database, internet and media, marketing research and development. Therefore, innovation is the next most important shift in marketing strategies nowadays to help the company become sustainably competitive (Executive summary of “Self-efficacy, 2014).
It is crucial to see how digital marketing strategies work in the marketing industry today that involve the use of a wide range of innovative and technological devices to ensure effective customers reach. Communication is the foundation of social media and digital marketing, which is why innovative digital marketing strategies at Huel can help to increase the customers by reaching a wider global audience (Bakeberg, 2016). The company can also make use of cloud marketing technology that can promote innovative marketing; cloud marketing can increase use of personal marketing instead of mass marketing. Therefore, modern marketing methods should be able to focus more on customers and grasp a lot of customers without discrimination. The company’s intentions to move towards sustainability reveal that Huel should use a number of green innovation technologies as well as ecological products to improve their role of innovative marketing these days. (Executive summary of “Self-efficacy, 2014)
A study in the United States revealed that marketing managers have two biggest concerns nowadays, the first is the innovation in products and second is business growth. The company should innovate in a way that helps to add incremental value to its business. Indeed, it is a big challenge for the organization, which is why the importance of innovative marketing method is utmost. ( Amatulli, 2017) The company should also welcome the winning ideas and innovative suggestions from the community and scholars that is a tradition of successful companies such as Proctor and Gamble. Therefore, the company should spend a lot of time on branding working in conjunction with its employees and look at the competitors to help them launch innovative products in a successful way (Marketing Strategies, 2016).
For innovative marketing, the CEO of General Electronics states that marketers must be explorers. They should seek to explore new ideas and products to understand what people need in every corner of the globe. The company should ensure innovative by the following strategies and methods:
- Shaping the market early and help the world to understand innovation by explaining to them before they can accept it.
- Incubating new and improved marketing models.
- Inviting other stakeholders to solve the problems.
Innovative Strategies to Improve Marketing
Branding and innovation is the most important function of marketing managers in the food and beverage industry to enjoy a larger share of the market. The first ingredient for Huel is to produce healthy and nutritious food; the company is doing a great job in producing the most hygienic food to its global customers. However, the following marketing activities can further help the organization to promote innovation into its marketing according to the changing global scenario (Gerber, 2014).
- Be sure about the target audience and brand positioning. It is essential for the company to know what the customers expect for its products and what the company expects from them.
- Customers judge a product from its packing, therefore, marketing department should focus on packing with suitable logos and menu cards.
- The company should utilize the power of SEO and social media marketing to make an impact on Facebook and Twitter page.
- The company should host its events at the restaurants in the UK, the USA, and Germany in seasonal festivals.
- The company should provide more discounts and offers too many customers.
- The company should partner with its competitor brands such as Pepsi and Nestle to bring value to their marketing campaigns,
- The company should reinvent its image by improving its website and logo by changing their colour schemes to tell a whole different story to the customers.
New Marketing Approaches For Huel
Marketers at Huel need to adopt new ways to ensure better customer engagement and sustainability for the organisation because customers are becoming more and more learned nowadays and challenging innovations brought forward by the organizations. The new marketing strategies will help the company to get everyone on the same page and increase productivity. Therefore, the company should state its marketing goals first and research its market to gain valuable information for developing an innovative strategy. The following strategies and methods can innovatively help the company to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by using the power of the latest technology and tools (Goduscheit, 2014).
- Paid Search Engine Advertisement and Facebook Advertising
- Content Marketing and Voice Optimized Content Strategy
- Media Attention and Brand Awareness Strategies
- Search Engine Optimization
The justification for Innovative Strategies
The above marketing innovations and strategies will help to alter the organisation and its brand image successfully in the future and will significantly improve its revenues. Social media marketing and paid search engine marketing SEM are the most powerful strategies int eh 21st centuries to drive more traffic to a company’s website to attract more customers. The Internet revolution is changing the face of marketing by harnessing the power of technology using Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and SEM. Whenever a customer clicks an ad, they explore new products and latest innovations offered by the company. The paid search engine is the most effective option for the marketing managers at Huel because it will help to drive more traffic to the company’s website and build organic traffic (Stankovic, 2015). Moreover, the company should use Facebook advertising strategy wisely which is also the most effective way to promote its business and food products globally. To reach the target customers, marketers can use Facebook marketing option to target highly specific locations in the United States and Europe. The technology will help the markers find customers from various ages, locations, and marital status, which is why Facebook marketing strategy can get more sales for the company and help managers achieve goals (Goduscheit, 2014).
Another most effective marketing innovation company can introduce is the content marketing and voice marketing strategy using the power of technology. The latest report by Forbes reveals that 20% of online searches are generated through voice search, which is why the innovative new voice technology can help Huel to achieve its marketing goals by 2020. The number of voice searches is increasing day by day; marketers have optimized content for web 2.0 and mobile technology (Sanoubar, 2015). Therefore, voice search will be more easy for the potential customers seeking Huel’s products in comparison to text and typing methods the company can hire expert content marketing professionals who will provide effective solutions to improve the company’s online presence; therefore, the business will be able to achieve its online credibility through original and fresh content to promote brand awareness and customer’s interest (Kah, 2014).
Companies like Huel can thrive if it engages its local community to promote its products and brand image. The markets should reach out to the local media outlet and record pitches for the TV ads and radio. The marketers can ask people to write comments on their blog and tell a story associated with product’s quality; the company can reap many benefits by media attention and lose no client in the future (Kah, 2014).
The next most important innovative strategy for marketing is SEO search engine optimizing. SEO is not a new term, the company cannot be found by its customers if there are millions of websites selling food products in the United States and target markets. Therefore, in order to make its business stand out, Huel should introduce effective search engine optimization strategies to promote its business online and stand out from its competitors. Google and Bing are the top rated search engines that help the customers search for keywords and help them to find their desired website easily; the marketers can harness the power of SEO and boost its sales sky high (Sanoubar, 2015). SEO can help the business thrive and grow rapidly by embracing methods to help the website work optimally. Moreover, the company can hire SEO consultants to boost traffic through increased visibility and right keyword approach. Therefore, when a business engages in expert SEO strategies, the improved sales and enhanced content quality will provide more return on investment through SEO (LaPlaca, 2014).
Engaging Change Effectively
Change management is the most important attribute and skill for the marketing managers to ensure high performance and adaptability for the employees in the organisation. It is a combination of behavioural tactics that help to ensure the digital transformation of Heul in the future by implementing robust technological tools and strategies to promote innovative marketing. The digital transformations such as mobile technology, social media marketing, voice search, search engine marketing and data analytics will chance very essence of the organization. The employees will be able to get involved and see their new roles using technology and engage customers for sustainable competitive advantage (LaPlaca, 2014).
Implement Change all across the organization
The top management executives in the United States state that change fails if it starts at the lower level in the organization and does not reflect properly across the whole organization (Sanoubar, 2015). Therefore, forward-thinking innovative organizations can bring change in marketing, HR, and management by using new tools and embrace the power of technology. Technology enables change in the organisations, however, if the employees create barriers to the use of new technologies and change, the management should make sure that the change is implemented successfully. To minimize the resisters is the key task of marketing managers in order to bring innovative change in marketing plans (Olejniczuk-Merta, 2014).
Modify and Explain Vision
The company should modify and explain its image to the employees and provide them with a clear conception of what they are trying to achieve. The company should have a clear vision to help the employees move in the same direction. The management should convince employees about what success will look like if they successfully adapt to and implement change (Olejniczuk-Merta, 2014).
Engaging the Stakeholders
The managers should identify people who will be most affected by the proposed changes; the company should involve all the stakeholders including the customers, the government, and researchers to create a new change management vision. This will help the employees understand who needs to be a part of change (Patel, 2019).
Communicate Effectively and Listen
Effective communication is not a one-way process; which is why the organisation stakeholder’s feedback is essential for the managers to listen. Listen to many stakeholders makes it possible to implement the change successfully and make corrections to your marketing vision and plan. Moreover, unless the managers share Tehri goal or vision to the employees, they will not be able to provide a clear vision of goals to the employees. Therefore, the managers should do anything in their power instil their vision across employees (Waluszewski, 2014).
Conclusion
In the global marketing environment, the companies strive for competitiveness and increase of sales to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Huel is a world-class organisation that manufactures and provides food and beverage services to global customers and aims to promote innovative marketing strategies for long term success. Innovation is the most important ingredient to improve the company’s marketing portfolio; it will help the managers to develop long term and effective marketing strategies to overcome barriers of innovation and ensure long term market penetration. The successful commercialization of innovation, however, is not as simple as it seems; Since marketing strategies help the organizations achieve marketing intelligence to look beyond the customer’s needs; the company can finally develop innovative marketing strategies to identify customers groups which are willing to pay for their innovative products. The company should use the latest technologies and marketing strategies such as SEO, voice search, facebook marketing, and SEM campaigns to boost its marketing efforts.
Innovative marketing strategies will allow Huel to overcome customers barriers related to innovation and change. Change is an essential component in the company that should be managed and promoted well. Non- traditional marketing methods will allow the company to bring more innovation into its marketing activities such as green and internet marketing. Marketing innovation is crucial for business growth, therefore, in order to overcome the problem of long lead time, budget constraints, and resistance to change, the company should use innovative marketing methods and new ideas to differentiate from other companies and appeal a wider audience. Since change takes time, the company can change technologies quickly and explain it to their employees that their survival and success depends on the appropriate utilization of latest tools and method associated with change. The management should help employees to think about their new roles and change their minds to build a better future.
References
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