Complete Marketing Strategy of Mercadona – Detailed Study

Updated on: Aug 15, 2022
Marketing Strategy Of Mercadona - Featured Image

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My name is Aditya Shastri and I have written this case study with the help of my students from IIDE's online digital marketing courses in India.

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In the previous blog, we saw the SWOT analysis of Mercadona. Now, in this blog let us find out about the marketing strategy of Mercadona – a Spanish supermarket chain influencing Spain and Portugal.

The main objective of this blog is to get acquainted with the extensive marketing plans taken up by Mercadona which helped the company to transform from a family-run butcher shop to a national supermarket chain.

Marketing is one of the key factors that made Mercadona successful and as the world goes online, digital marketing is the future of marketing. If you want to be future leaders – Check out Free Masterclass on Digital Marketing 101 by the CEO and Founder of IIDE, Karan Shah.

Now without further ado, let’s jump into what we are looking for! Before we dig deeper into the topic, let’s check out the company’s overview, target audience and digital presence.

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC
 

About Mercadona – Company Overview

Marketing Strategy of Mercadona - Mercadona Store

Mercadona started as a butcher store in 1977 by Francisco Roig Ballester and his wife, later on, the CEO – Juan Roig 1981 started expanding the business nationwide, by 1981 he opened 8 shops and today the number has reached 1,636 stores holding 13.5% of Spain’s total food retail space. Mercadona has taken in extra than €508 million in income for the 2012 financial year.

The company operates a version of urban proximity with over 1,636 shops designed to make purchasing quick and simple. With its 22.1% marketplace share, Mercadona is the biggest supermarket chain by income withinside the country and the 3rd biggest through ground space. 

To offer excellent quality at a very reasonably priced cost, Mercadona evolved a line of own-brand products including Hacendado, Bosque Verde, Deliplus, and Compy, which might be continually ranked #1 in terms of cost-effectiveness for customers and are as much as 40% less expensive than its competitors. The purpose is to deliver an entire shopping model which meets all the food, cleaning, hygiene, and pet care needs of the customer. This focus on the customer’s needs is the source of the maximum competitive benefits of Mercadona’s model.

Quick Stats on Mercadona
CEO Juan Roig Alfonso
CMO Pilar Sanz
Area Served Spain, Portugal
Industry Retail
Market Share/ Revenue US$ 28 Billion
Vision “Achieving a sustainable agri-food chain, which people want to exist and feel proud of, led by Mercadona and ‘the boss’ as its lighthouse.”
Tagline Your Trusted Supermarket

 


Marketing Strategy of Mercadona

Now let’s take a more detailed approach to the marketing strategy of Mercadona i.e how Mercadona organises its marketing plans, influencer marketing, social media marketing etc

Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning

Since it is a supermarket chain, the main focus of this company is on food, drinks, personal care, house care and animal care. It provides a variety of these services according to its customer’s preferences which have not only made the mothers of every household happy but have also improved the quality of people’s daily requirements. 

It is very clear from this that the main targeting audience for this company is middle-aged men and women in every possible household. Grocery shopping is an important daily task taken up by everyone. So it is bound to have a wide range of audiences. Considering the other services provided by the Mercadona, it has other main targets like exhausted office workers, those who are passionate about house decor or simply pet owners. 

Now coming to positioning, the main constant from the above observation shows that this company mainly focuses on freshness and quality. The important thing that keeps it ahead of other companies is that it has very well-organised customer care systems and maintains hygiene and cleanliness in its work.


Marketing Campaigns

As of now, Mercadona has not organised any official marketing campaigns which could have included fun games or activities. One main reason why it didn’t do so is that this company did not need the campaign to gain popularity. Yes! That’s right. 

Let’s think of this situation in a different way. Suppose you are baking at home and you are out of milk. What do you do? Go grab a packet or carton of milk or if you are out of onions for the week, then you would run to the grocery store. This pretty much explains that Mercadona is responsible for providing people with their daily needs. So even if it is not marketed through campaigns, it will always have customers. 

Marketing Strategy of Mercadona - store

Another factor that backs up this point is the location. The shop must be situated in a place that can be easily accessed by people or in a congested area where it is a sure shot to get customers. Now you wouldn’t want to take a bus or a train just to get some milk right? 

Mercadona stores are located in areas where household individuals can easily reach the store without using any public transport. Moreover, after the company started expanding it also opened an online platform to extend its services. Due to Covid in 2020, this section of the company blew up. Its sales had increased by almost 60% over a year!

Another reason why Mercadona does not invest in marketing and advertising is that it focuses on using up that money in its packaging thus maintaining the high quality of its products and cutting off unnecessary costs.


Social Media Marketing

Mercadona is active on various social media platforms which include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Linkedin. It has the highest audience on Instagram with a follower count of 585k+, followed by Twitter having 231.1K followers, Linkedin having 834,759 followers and Facebook with an average of 5k likes in each of its posts. 

Mercadona mainly focuses on promoting its various products by showcasing their freshness and uses. The posts on Instagram are of food products and items available at Mercadona stores. Mercadona tries to post videos that show food recipes prepared using food ingredients available at stores. Posts on Instagram and Facebook are similar.

On other hand, posts on LinkedIn are much towards the corporate side talking about announcements of upcoming podcasts and events, works and senior executives’ discussions and achievements etc. and many more.


SEO Strategies

Marketing Strategy of Mercadona - SEO

According to SEO rankings, having several organic keywords below 500 is bad, above 1000 is good and 10,000+ is amazing. So from the above chart, we can see that Mercadona has 29,516 keywords showing that the company is doing a great job in SEO.

Generally, if a website has organic traffic above 20,000, it is considered good, but Mercadona exceeds the limit and has 1,368,203 organic traffic on its website. Thus Mercadona is already perfect in SEO and has its page on the top of any SERPs.


Influencer Marketing

Now coming to influencer marketing, Mercadona does not have any known influencers promoting its products on social media platforms. However, in its vast influence on social media, it does have small-time actors advertising its products. The number of these actors is pretty less from inspecting its social media pages, we see that most of the content mainly focuses on showing the product and related video editing to make it look tempting.

E-Commerce Strategies

Marketing Strategy of Mercadona - e-com

Mercadona has its very own website on the web. Its online app is available to deliver in Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid. The website first asks for your location whether it can deliver in your area or not and then takes you to its online shopping website. There is also an option under “supermarkets” on the website where you can simply enter your location and get access to the nearest Mercadona shop.


Mobile App

Marketing Strategy of Mercadona - mobile app

Mercadona also has a mobile app which can be downloaded on any ios or android device. 

To use the app simply: 

  • Go to the play store and search “Mercadona”
  • Install the app
  • Open and sign in 

Now you are ready to go all the way for your shopping. There are many categories to choose from like food and drinks, frozen section, dairy, meat etc. This makes it easier for the customer to get what they need but the app is only available in Spain and places where Mercadona extends its services.


Content Marketing Strategies

Mercadona is extremely active in social media. It posts at least 3-4 times a week on all of its social media platforms which include Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. It also looks after the environment by taking up sustainable methods like reducing energy consumption and minimising the use of plastic in its packaging. Also, Mercadona donated 1.5 Billion euros to help refugees from the war in Ukraine. These deeds may make it to local newspapers thus helping in its promotion.

This ends the elaborative marketing strategy of Mercadona. Let us conclude our learning below from the marketing strategy of Mercadona

Digital Marketing Academic Challenge 2024 - DMAC

What’s Unique with Mercadona Marketing Strategy?

Mercadona is a leading supermarket chain in Spain and thus it is totally about Customer care. What makes it unique is the fact that it provides additional services like health care and pet care along with normal grocery items. 

Moreover, Mercadona is excellent in SEO and stands at the top of any SERPs but Mercadona could try improving its content Marketing. Even though their content is tempting to watch, even having local celebrities advertising their products would open up more domains.

Digital marketing is extremely important for anyone owning a business today. Promotion is the backbone of a business. With the globe going online, it is obvious that more views can be gained if the products are advertised on the internet. This is why social media is a crucial component of any Business. Not only that but there are many other means by which digital marketing can be done to improve the overall result.

As we all know, digital marketing has taken a drastic change because of pandemics that affected every business. Digital marketing is crucial since it links a company with its clients when they are online and is effective across all sectors. It links businesses with ideal consumers through SEO and PPC on Google, social media marketing, and email marketing. If you would like to learn more and develop skills, check out IIDE’s 4-Month Digital Marketing Course to learn more.

Alternatively, you can enrol in one of our free online masterclasses led by IIDE’s CEO, Karan Shah, to gain insight into the field of digital marketing. 

We hope this blog on the marketing strategy of Mercadona has given you a good insight into the company’s marketing strategies.

If you like such in-depth analysis of companies just like the marketing strategy of Mercadona check out our IIDE Knowledge portal for more fascinating case studies.

Thank you for taking the time to read the marketing strategy of Mercadona, and do share your thoughts on this case study marketing strategy of Mercadona in the comments section below.

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Aditya Shastri

Lead Trainer & Head of Learning & Development at IIDE

Leads the Learning & Development segment at IIDE. He is a Content Marketing Expert and has trained 6000+ students and working professionals on various topics of Digital Marketing. He has been a guest speaker at prominent colleges in India including IIMs......[Read full bio]

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