Question:
Disucss about the Communication Strategy of Zara.
Business communication largely determines the success of the organization, as effective business communication provides an opportunity for the company to ensure a clear flow of information within the organization along with communicating with the target customers for selling the products. Therefore, effective business communication helps in gaining a competitive advantage by communicating the products efficiently with the customers (Bovee, Thill and Raina 2016).
This report introduces the communication strategy of Zara, a leading Spanish fashion line that is internationally established. The communication strategies include advertising, types of digital channel and types of digital media the organization uses for communicating.
Zara is an internationally acclaimed Spanish clothing and accessories retailer first established in 1975. Massimo Dutti, Pull&Bear, Bershka, Zara Home and Oysho are the major fashion brands owned by Zara. The business organization manages up to 20 clothing collections in 2017. Zara is a multinational clothing and accessory retailer with its branches present around the world (Zara.com, 2017). The clothing and accessories of Zara of highly or premium priced that mainly targets customers with higher income group. However, Zara also has a clothing line for average people. In this technological age, the company uses digital channels and digital media to communicate their products to the target customers. Zara has used digital advertising for reaching out the various customers around the world along with providing online customer services (Zara.com, 2017).
Identifying the target audience initially is the most crucial aspect of communication strategy that needs to be conducted by Zara.
Zara communicates with the target customers through advertising campaigns that include print media and television. Print media and television are traditional methods of communication that is used by the business organizations for informing the target customers about the latest products and offers (Guffey and Loewy 2012). For example, Zara advertises about the products and offers through commercials during the prime show times. This is a wise communication strategy used by Zara, as the company is able to grab the attention of several customers due to the show times. However, on the contrary, advertising through television commercials prohibit Zara to engage the youth and young customers, as they do not prefer watching television much. As a result, the company fails in attracting the youth and young customers by television and print media advertisement. Moreover, print media incurs additional charges of printing the advertisement, paper cost and delivery cost that Zara can save by opting for digital media and digital channels as their communication strategy (De Mooji 2013).
In this technologically advanced age with the maximum use of digital media, Zara prefers using digital channels such as website newsletter and emails as one of their communication strategy. The use of website newsletter is a cost-effective method of communicating with the customers, as this saves the cost that was incurred for traditional advertising (Huang et al. 2013). Therefore, the use of website newsletter is cost-effective for Zara, as the company saves the cost of paper, printing, postage, and distribution. Moreover, the use of website newsletter is another way of driving traffic to the company website (Ayman and Kaya 2014). For example, Zara has huge online traffic, as the customers are happy and satisfied to get daily updates about their favourite brand instantly thereby, influencing their purchase decision. Additionally, website newsletter is an inexpensive and precise method that is used by Zara for communicating with the target customers because this increases the visibility of the brand for the target customers.
Email marketing solves the inherent issues of marketing problems for Zara for the non-targeted marketing. Email marketing provides an opportunity for Zara to communicate with the target customers regardless of the location of the customers. Moreover, email marketing also provides an opportunity for Zara to customise the messages sent to the individual customers thereby, fostering a higher rate of conversation. Sending personalised messages to individual customers make them feel significant for the brand thereby, allowing Zara to make loyal customers (Salehi et al. 2012). Email marketing allows Zara to increase the brand awareness for the target customers thereby, increasing the sales. For example, when the customers need products from Zara, email marketing stands a better chance of turning those leads into clients and the clients to loyal customers. In today’s world, email marketing is a must, as this provides an opportunity for Zara to communicate with their customers regardless of the time, location, language, and preferences. Email marketing is shareable, credible, and measurable and the most cost-effective approach that Zara uses for communicating with the target customers (Castronovo and Huang 2012).
Currently, digital media or social media is one of the most effective ways to connect and communicate with the target customers’ one a personal level (Aral, Dellarocas and Godes 2013). Therefore, not only Zara has an account on one of the social media such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp but operates on multiple social media. Social media is an interactive platform that provides an opportunity for the business organization to share photos, videos, audios and information between the general internet users and the target customers (Kwok and Yu 2013). In this highlight competitive market, the Spanish company, Zara is present on the most popular digital media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The social media platforms used by Zara contain details of their latest clothing line, offers, and discounts regarding the brand. In this modern age majority of the population is present and highly active on social media platforms. Reports suggest that 80% of the internet users are highly active in Facebook thereby, having more than 1.85 million users (Shen and Bissell 2013). Therefore, the major advantage for Zara of using Facebook for advertising the products is that the customers use it daily. As a result, the Zara is able to maintain an effective communication with the target customers through Facebook. Moreover, the use of Facebook provides an opportunity for Zara to reach out the exact customers along with targeting new customers thereby, growing the customer base. The use of Facebook advertisement is extremely cost-effective for Zara, as by using merely $5, the company can reach more than 1000 people (Treadaway and Smith 2012).
The use of Instagram for Zara is also beneficial for communicating with the target customers as Facebook and Instagram are connected with more than 700 million active users (Hu, Manikonda and Kambhaampati 2014). Moreover, the advertisement in Instagram is non-intrusive thereby, mitigating the chances for Zara to annoy or offend the target customers. Alongside, the use Instagram advertisement by Zara provides an opportunity to integrate the application of Shopify easily thereby, selling the products instantly (Scott 2015). The use of WhatsApp will provide an opportunity for Zara to engage the target customers easily by sending broadcasting messages to the target customers at a regular interval thereby, maintaining effective communication (Fouad 2017).
Conclusion
In this report, it can be concluded that Zara can use the use printing media, television, digital media and digital channels as the communication strategies for communicating with the customers. The use of digital media will save Zara the cost of printing, paper, delivery, and transport charges. Moreover, the use of digital media will help Zara to reach out large customer base regardless of the location and time. The use of digital marketing will also allow Zara to communicate the target customers about the latest development about the company, the products, offers, and discounts thereby, keeping the target customers informed and updated regularly.
References
Aral, S., Dellarocas, C. and Godes, D., 2013. Introduction to the special issue—social media and business transformation: a framework for research. Information Systems Research, 24(1), pp.3-13.
Ayman, U. and Kaya, A.K., 2014. Consumption of branded fashion apparel: Gender differences in behavior. Social Behavior and Personality, 42, p.1.
Bovee, C.L., Thill, J.V. and Raina, R.L., 2016. Business communication today. Pearson Education India.
Castronovo, C. and Huang, L., 2012. Social media in an alternative marketing communication model. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 6(1), p.117.
De Mooij, M., 2013. Global marketing and advertising: Understanding cultural paradoxes. Sage Publications.
Fouad, N., 2017. Viral marketing effect on digital knowledge acquisition: WhatsApp as a model. Alexandria, 27(1), pp.10-29.
Guffey, M.E. and Loewy, D., 2012. Essentials of business communication. Cengage Learning.
Hu, Y., Manikonda, L. and Kambhampati, S., 2014, June. What We Instagram: A First Analysis of Instagram Photo Content and User Types. In Icwsm.
Huang, J., Su, S., Zhou, L. and Liu, X., 2013. Attitude toward the viral ad: Expanding traditional advertising models to interactive advertising. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 27(1), pp.36-46.
Kwok, L. and Yu, B., 2013. Spreading social media messages on Facebook: An analysis of restaurant business-to-consumer communications. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 54(1), pp.84-94.
Salehi, M., Mirzaei, H., Aghaei, M. and Abyari, M., 2012. Dissimilarity of E-marketing VS traditional marketing. International journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 2(1), p.510.
Scott, D.M., 2015. The new rules of marketing and PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, and viral marketing to reach buyers directly. John Wiley & Sons.
Shen, B. and Bissell, K., 2013. Social media, social me: A content analysis of beauty companies’ use of facebook in marketing and branding. Journal of Promotion Management, 19(5), pp.629-651.
Treadaway, C. and Smith, M., 2012. Facebook marketing: An hour a day. John Wiley & Sons.
Zara.com. (2017). ZARA India – Official Website. [online] Available at: https://www.zara.com/in/ [Accessed 19 Nov. 2017].
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