Marketing Plan - Menulog Food Delivery Service

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Requirement

MARKETING PLAN - MENULOG FOOD DELIVERY SERVICE

Solution

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Since a couple of years, more than thousands of new business set up in Australia. Most of the business was started by an entrepreneur who was keen to do something new in their targeted market. Some of them were highly skilled and some of them were not that much skill to transform their ideas into reality. This marketing plan report will discuss the marketing promotional plan of a company in Food & Restaurants Sector, “Menulog Food Delivery System”.
The Main Purpose of this report is to discuss the Marketing Promotional Plan for Menulog Food Delivery Services. This report will discuss its competitor's strategy also. Two of its major competitor in Australia are UberEats and Foodora.
This report will discuss the background of the company, various research methods which will include tools, techniques, and resources. It will discuss the current value analysis and marketing promotional plan.  

INTRODUCTION

Menulog was founded in the year, 2006. Since then a lot has been changed within the company within these 11 years. Also, a lot has been changed in Food Delivery market. Menulog's mission is to make the food personally delightful. Menulog has its chains in Australia and New Zealand. It is an e-commerce website with the aim of delivering food and beverages. The companies headquarter is situated in New South Wales, Sydney. Menulog is owned by a British Company "Just Eat" which is a parent company of Menulog. Currently, Menulog is having more than 8700 partner Restaurants and food chain. These also include some of the major brands like "McDonald's", "Pizza Hut", "KFC" and many more. Menulog used to operate in almost every major cities of Australia and New Zealand, with more than 550 partners in New Zealand.  
Menulog was founded by Dan Katz and his partners Kevin and Leon in the year, 2006. It’s been around 11 Years of operation and company has delivered more than 23 million order of food. (Lovelock & Patterson, 2015)
In the year 2015, Menulog and Eat Now decided to merge and form a group of company which was named as Menulog Group LTD. In that same year 2015, in the month of May, Just Eat which was a British company bought Menulog Group Ltd at $855 million. In June 2016 new director was made who was, Alistair Venn. After 6 months in the month of October 2016, Menulog made a partnership with Drive Yellow in Australia. Drive Yellow was a technology for the fast delivery of the food with lots of verities and it was easy for Menulog to deliver the food from the store to customer's doors.
In the year 2012 and 2013. Menulog won the Deloitte Technology Award for Rising Stars, company was awarded this because it has shown the fasted annual growth in comparison to that last three years. They have almost every cuisine, from Fijian to Bengali. From Indian Chilly to Mexican Delight.
Menulog has been targeting people of all ages from 16 to 60 Years, Male and Female both. Currently, the company is focusing on Australian and New Zealand regions only.  
                                       
Menulog works on the same model, on which various e-commerce company works, instead if ordering product, the customer used to order food online. The main advantage of Menulog is that customer get a variety of meal options to choose from. At the ease of sitting in an office or at home, anyone can order food from Menulog by just logging into their website, searching food or Restaurants of their choice and booking the order by making online transactions. (Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent No. U.S. Patent No. 5,991,739, 1999)
Menulog has two major competitors, UberEats and Foodora, now we will discuss Menulog’s current position and market value in comparison to UberEats and Foodora. When we talk about the revolution in food delivery services in Australia, these three names commonly came into our minds. All the three of them used to promise, quality, hygienic and tasty food delivery within time. Those people who don't' have the time or don't want to go to Brick and Mortar Restaurants often prefer these three websites for getting their food delivered. So let’s figure out who’s the best among them. 
When we talk about the experiences, Menulog is an 11-Year-old company which was founded in the year, 2006. UberEats is new among all, it was founded in the year, 2014. Foodora is the oldest among them, although online delivery was started in 2014, they are in delivering food to corporates and all since 15 years. The user eats main focus was to expand the base of customers for Restaurants, as said by Caspar Nixon. Foodora which is German company got an idea of shifting from corporates to all segment. While in the case of Menulog, Menulog aim was to delight the customer with the best quality and tasty food. (Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent No. U.S. Patent No. 4,797,818, 1989)
UberEats have trendy and very high-end food chains and Restaurants, although all are not 5 stars. They have Restaurants who traditionally never thought of doing home delivery of their food. Most of the daytime meal or lunch used to get delivered to offices and in the evening time, dinners used to be delivered in the house of customers. Foodora used to deliver their food by Bicycle or Car, customers can order easily by using their App. Rijkenberg said that food delivery was often used to be in time and taste of food used to be delicious. Menulog is focusing on Vegetarian Food as it is getting popular these days and also there is high demand for vegetarian food. Most of the Restaurants usually provide deliver, but in case of Menulog, it also provides a driver.  
As per the stats by Euro monitor and You-Gov., the combined food distribution in Australia and New Zealand is around $1.6 US Billions. As Menulog is a child company of Just Eat, we will discuss the revenue of Just Eat. Just Eat has a revenue of $213.40 million (Australian), according to a report in Express-News Paper of UK. (Express, 2017). Where in case of UberEats it’s available in more than 120 cities and has revenue of $86.56 Billion (Australian). (Isaac, 2017). Foodora has over 9000 Restaurants and is available in 10 countries. As it is the child company of Delivery Hero, we will show the revenue of Delivery Hero, which is $379.62 million (Australian). (Keane, 2017)

RESEARCH METHODS

There are various ways to discuss the effective market research method. One if the Primary method which includes surveys, observations, focus groups, experiments, and interviews. Another one is a Secondary method, this includes the seeking the data and doing some research. In this, we use the Secondary method as a tool for market research to analyze the data of Menulog Food Delivery. We will use Census data to get the market value and share value. We will research twitter comments, journals and much more to get relevant data of marketing technique used by Menulog Group Ltd. Although we will also use some of the data that we got from a Primary method like surveys and observations.  (Sekaran & Bougie, 2016)
Primary Methods
Surveys: 
In a survey, we will take one-on-one interviews with a different individual in high traffic areas such as shopping malls, multiplex, and traffic lights.  Permission needs to be granted from individual to do a short presentation on any brands/product/food item by Menulog, Foodora, and UberEats. While going through the surveys, I found that Menulog was famous among all of them in Australia followed by UberEats and Foodora. We can say that UberEats and Menulog are two of the winning giants in the field of wars of Restaurants and online food delivery chains. The survey was based on reliability, overall satisfaction, delivery, quality, website and appease and verities of meals. Regarding delivery, Menulog was top amongst UberEats and Foodora. People were having some issues regarding delivery on time with UberEats and Foodora. Menulog allows their customers to order from different platforms such as a website or an App. Customers were pretty satisfied with the ordering of their favorite food on go. (Bryman & Bell, 2015)
Menulog also uses web-based survey that can be found at this link: https://www.menulog.com.au/show_page.php?pageId=1804. In the survey they have asked few questions from the consumer, the questions are very simple and according to their interest.
Mainly survey is done to know what is the current position of the brand in the market, how customers are reacting toward the brand, what are problems and expectation consumers have and what are developments that can be implemented to satisfy the need of the customers. Although online surveys are unpredictable when we compare interviews and survey on board. But this kind of survey used to be inexpensive and wide. (Morganosky & Cude, 2002)
Secondary Method: 
The secondary method usually includes a collection of data from Journals, Books, and Web sites. A website can be any kind of information or can be a business survey websites like Forbes and Statista. Although websites are not trustworthy, we can trust these websites as these websites are widely accepted and are written by a group of professionals. Twitter and Facebook are also used as secondary tools for the collection of data, but these are for just knowledge, we can’t trust the facts of these websites.  (Hair, 2015)
Value Proportion
Value Proportion offered by Menulog consists of three primary values: performance, convenience, and customization.
                                            
Convenience:
Menulog used to analyze all the regional food chain and restaurant to identify among then, who are available for the takeout facility. UberEats used to store the preferences of customers so that right type of restaurants can be shown to them. Also, they used review food order by the customer, so that it can be shown to other people who are ordering the same food from the same restaurant. UberEats not only provide a value proposition to its customers but also to the supplier by informing them about the quality of food, especially in case of bad reviews. Foodora used to provide reliable and fast delivery inconvenience. (Geuens, Brengman, & S’Jegers, 2003)
Promotion:
Menulog used to promote its brand on Social Media, Blogs, PPC, TV, and Radio. UberEats used to promote itself by running a campaign on social media and various online websites with the help of various marketing tools like PPC. Foodora used to do the promotion both offline and online.
Cost Breakdown: Most of the expenditure in Menulog is done on marketing and promotion, after that on the team, support, sales and operational activities. The main priority of Menulog is to spend on marketing. While in case of UberEats and Foodora, they use to spend on promotion, employees and other campaigns.
Menulog's business model consists of maintaining the relationship between customers and suppliers.
Resources:
Menulog has its own software platform, on which it used to serve more than 14 million active users, who used to order food from their app or website. Till date, about 350 updates have been made on the platform. HR used to take care of hiring professionals who will innovate new technology for Menulog. 
Revenue Streams: 
When we are talking about revenue stream it is very important to know that Menulog has 3 streams of revenue, these are Connection Fees, Advertising Fees, and Transaction Fees.

CURRENT VALUE ANALYSIS

Current Value Analysis also is known as Present Value Analysis of cash flow with a specified rate of return or R.O.R. When the discount rate used to go high the future cash value used to decline. Getting the correct value of discount rate used to the key for knowing the future cash flow, whether Menulog will be earning in future or not.  (Ghosh & John, 1999)
If the company have some money in the present day then only they can invest it can get a good return in the future, this is known as Current Value Analysis.
In the third quarter of 2017, the total group revenue was $213.08 Million (Australian). According to the surveys, the group's revenue was up by 47% in the Q3 of the year, 2017.  
A total number of orders were up by 29%. Total 43.1 Million orders were made in the third quarter of 2017. In the year 2016, it was 33 Million till third quarter.
 Also, International order goes up by 43% to 17 Million till Q3 of the year, 2017.

Given below is the table of Five Year summary of Just Eat (JustEat, 2017)
                                         
Now in the below picture is the Revenue Growth chart of Just Eat taken from Statista.com
                                      
According to survey's Revenue of Food Delivery market in Australia till 2018 is $1340 Million. With the annual growth rate of 17.5%, it is expected that by the end of 2022 total revenue of Food Delivery market in Australia will go across $2560 Million. The total revenue of Online Food Delivery Market in Australia till the date 2018 is $1280 Million. If we compare this revenue globally we will get to know that China is on the top with $48,400 Million. (Statista, 2018)
From the above statistics and results, we can assume that Food Sector has a wide scope in future. Menulog with its new innovations and ideas can lead the market in future. But they need to do a lot of changes and work.

MARKETING PROMOTION PLAN

Marketing promotional plan acts as part of an overall marketing plan for Menulog. Marketing Plan uses to demonstrate the overall vision, aim, and objectives of a company. This include pricing strategy, targeting demographically and promotions. Marketing Promotional Plan used to describe the tactics and methods to be used for successful implementation of the marketing plan.
Let's take the example of Menulog's Distribution strategy, in which they have included every part of a society, from a working individual to an individual living in a house. Now for developing this strategy, Menulog have applied several promotional plans like advertising on TV, Radio, and Social Media etc. (Rossiter & Percy, 1987)

Promotional Plan Template for Menulog Group Ltd. 

• 1.Advertising: Menulog Group Ltd. use TV and Online promotion for their Advertising. In TV advertising Menulog use innovative ways of promoting their brands. 
  Some their ads line "Less Talk More Eat", became very famous and Menulog start gaining popularity. Here is the link to that ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba6XOBhcPHg 
  When we talk about online promotion, Menulog uses Social Media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many more. Also, they used to do the promotion on YouTube. (Kotler, Roberto, & Lee, 202)

• 2.Restaurant Marketing: Menulog used to do the promotions stuffs inside the restaurants also by doing window and wall advertising by using their logos and stickers. They used to supply their own bags while delivering the food. They have worked with various restaurants to add a tagline "Don't Cook". 

• 3.PR: Menulog has already gained lots of PR with their campaign Don't Cook. They used to lots of campaign to do the promotions and gain PR in the market. 
  Also, they are in touch with various PR agencies to do the promotional activities.

• 4.Stunts: Menulog's parent company Just Eat, used to spend a lot of stunts and other promotional activities. In the year 2012, they founded a political party with the name "Don't Cook Political Party".

Numbers and Figures: 
Key Target Metrics
According to Hitwise web metrics, company’s website gain 55% more visitors in comparison to Dominos which was in the second position.   
Broader Metrics
On Social Media websites like Twitter, the company gained 47% more followers in comparison to 33,686 figure of last year. On Facebook, they have gained 305% more likes and their total like are beyond 85500 marks.
According to an article in the newspaper, Just Eat the parent company of Menulog will spend around $12.30 Million (Australian) on Marketing Promotion. (Faull, 2015)

CONCLUSION 

Hence it can be concluded that the online food delivery system has turned into a help for various food chains and restaurants, who would prefer not to leave their clients because of the absence of time. The client is the ruler of each business and no one needs to leave beneficial clients. The online food delivery system gives your clients different highlights with the goal that you are on the list of your 'customary clients'. Clients can appreciate the convenience of ordering online lunch and dinners in their homes/workplaces. This offers comfort to its clients and the proprietor of the fast food chains and restaurants on the grounds that there is no pained telephone call or booklet/leaflet based food arrange.

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