Marketing Plan of Burger King

Burger King is one of the largest American fast food chains. It was launched in 1953 and now owns 90 plus branches worldwide. Burger King has attained a stable name in the industry it operates in and has been among top few names in terms of excellent marketing strategies and brand awareness on global level.

Segmentation & Target Market

Segmentation

Segmentation for Burger King really means menu and its contents that differs among demographical segments. Thus Burger King has divided its customers among children, women and teenagers and therefore they have launched complete set of advertisements just for kids along with special kiddy menus as well. While for teenagers and women the focus is more on key menu i.e. Chicken Burgers, Sandwiches and Salads and variation in spices and choice of each item from a category represents each segment very well.

Target Market

For Burger King the target market initially was youth but later they realized it’s a narrow target market and thus they expanded their choice and now they are approaching each age group and gender via different branding and marketing campaigns. Target market for Burger King now includes women, children and youth majorly. Moreover, it has been focusing over worldwide expansion through opening new branches geographically as well. This has been successful in raising the overall sales of the company.

Competitors & Competitive Analysis

Competitors

Among several small and large competitors in the fast food industry, the key competitor for Burger King is McDonalds. KFC, Subway and Pizza Hut.

SWOT Analysis

Strengths

• Burger King has very strong brand awareness globally with around 90 branches worldwide and still expanding.
• It offers a diversified product line which helps attract diversified customers.
• Moreover, its increasing popularity among middle class customers is raising the number of loyal customers and repeated visitors. 

Weaknesses

• The key weakness of the company is advertising unhealthy lifestyle and menu items that create obesity or other diseases. This in general is raised as concern of many which sometimes affects the business.
• The network of Burger King is expanding at a slower pace due to lack of Franchise business preference.

Opportunities

• A very obvious opportunity for Burger King is more expansion, working on ventures or franchising business to cover major fast food markets in the world.
• The other opportunity is introducing a healthy food line like salads, more can be added like cholesterol control items that attract a lot of obese segment. This will immensely increase the sales.

Threats

• Stern competition in this industry is quite a threat for Burger King. Because one good product launch of a competitor can hit the business in one go. In order to compete this, company has to think ahead of time and introduce strategies and products accordingly.
• High food items cost is directly reflective on prices of the company especially in inflation season. Thus this can also serve as a threat for the company. 

Marketing Strategy 

Marketing strategy of Burger has been highly built on media ads and word of mouth in past. While it changed over time with addition of product launch events, and now it is focusing on social media marketing a lot like company website, food based websites, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other channels to reach out to its customers.