Marketing Consumer Behavior Relationship Marketing

Question: Describe about the Marketing Consumer Behavior for Relationship Marketing. Answer: Introduction The purpose of the following assignment, which is divided into three distinct segments, is to make a fruitful analysis of numerous aspects like marketing, consumer behavior, and customer retention plan and market segmentation. Most significantly, the report intends to review a particular organizations approach for marketing communication through evaluating the highlighted facets. For succeeding upon this individual goal, the assignment has chosen one of the most reputed car manufacturing companies General Motors. Moreover to note, that the entire discourse is going to be presented through the point of view of the marketing executive of the organization. For any international manufacturing organization, brand loyalty is one essential aspect that is required to establish the feet in a globalized market. In this context, it is important to keep in mind that the brand loyalty is dependent upon market segmentation, marketing mix and communication channels for promotion. The concerned report is going to consider these aspects in respect to General Motors with highest priority. The initial segment is going to depict a picture of the background of General Motors, customer segmentation, buyers behavior and a recommendation for using customer relationship management for customer retention. The next part however, proceeds with identifying the features and benefits of General Motors marketing communication. Alongside, this part will examine the role of communication channel in marketing mix and the advantage and disadvantage of marketing tools of two kinds above the line and below the line. The third and ultimate section of the assignment is going to be a recommendation for future success regarding marketing for the selected organization. 1. Organization background Name: General Motors Organization type: General Motors (GM) is an international enterprise that manufactures designs and distributes vehicle and its parts. Fundamentally, GM is a profit-based organization operates in almost 37 countries with twelve individual brands. Organizational size: The amount of the net revenue of GM in the year 2015 has been $152.35 billion and the total number of employees working for the company is around 216,000 according to GMs annual report of 2015. The companys reputation is strongly dependent upon the product quality and the huge range of products sold by the enterprise. Some of the most popular brands of products sold by GM are Jie Fang, Ravon, HSV, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Wuling, Vauxhall and Buick. For obtaining a huge amount, the company operates the business of exporting vehicle organs across the countries (Kurt and Hulland 2013). Customer base General Motors potentially holds both kinds of customer base relationship business-to-business and business to customers. The enterprises business-to-business relationship runs with those companies to whom GM exports vehicle parts and business to customer with the internal and domestic customers (Flores et al. 2013). Main competitors General Motors main competitors include Ford Motors, Toyota Motors Corporations, Honda Motor Company and Ferrari N.V. Customer segmentation of General Motors The aim of the company in terms of market segmentation is to target different groups for their customized customer specific products to maximize the revenue scale. According to the perception of the company the entire market is a single piece of market to be targeted. Hence, GM believes to impress customers from middle class financial background to high class. However, for the upcoming new models, which are planned to be sold under the brand of Chevrolet, the company could segment their market firstly by geographically. GM has already decided to make customer segmentation in places like Australia, Russia, Indonesia and Thailand. Therefore, the enterprise could select the customers of the south East Asia, United States of America and the countries of South America and Europe instead of Mexio, India, Brazil and China (Helper and Henderson 2014). GMs appropriate customers for the new Chevrolet model could be the entry-level purchasers of car. In specific, for the upcoming series of Chev rolet, the young section of the countries that belong to a relatively wealthy background. Buying behavior of segmented customer The essential need to stay potential in a competitive global world for automobile companies is necessarily related with customer satisfaction. Following that order, an organization requires to have coherent knowledge about the buying behaviors of their segmented market section for target (Armstrong et al. 2012). For General Motors, one of the key target markets is the entry-level buyers of car. Therefore, their buying behaviors for car are hugely dependent upon socio-cultural and economical factors. Financial factor According to the current market scenario, consumers or first time car buyers stay always price conscious. Hence, it can be perceived that their buying nature could be attracted by competitive prices. For the entry-level buyers of the upcoming models of Chevrolet, it would a concern to investigate how much cheap these new models are than the new models launched by other companies. If they will find that they are having the car in moderately and comparatively low price, they will invigorate the selling for General Motors (Kotler et al. 2015). According to this scenario, General Motors may starting campaigning through their most applicable communication channel to broadcast that they are going to bring new models in best market price. Promotions would be the most relevant way to influence the mind of the entry-level buyers. Rampant promotions through online social media and posters could work in favor to lure the eyes of the segmented market. However, prior to move with this step, GM re quires to undergone a thorough market research to have a clear idea about the current trend of market price (Batra and Keller 2016). On the other side, it is a concerning fact that the main the buying behaviors of the target segment is influenced by the socio-cultural aspect in respect to brand loyalty. If GMs brand loyalty has already made a strong place in the minds of the family of the target market, then it will become easy for the company to have a huge spike on the revenue scale. Recommendation for improving customer retention by CRM (Customer relationship management) In the current scenario, customer relationship begins even after the purchase. The whole concept of customer retention has now turned to depend on the strategies taken in terms of customer relationship management. CRM is fundamentally perceived as the strategic practice taken by an organization for vitalizing the growth of sale, to make strong business relationship and thereby retaining the customers (Christopher et al. 2013). For a leading automobile company like General Motors, a strong CRM strategy could work for collecting relevant customer related data using various communication channels. It should be kept in mind before making fruitful recommendations that CRM helps in adopting apt procedures for customer retention. For GMs upcoming launch of new models under the Chevrolet brand, it can be recommended that CRM software The company needs to consider one major fact, which is the entire practice of CRM is should be started with the sales stuff. Considering this fact, GM could use the specific software of CRM that helps in collecting valuable data about the target market and the existing customers. GM already has the lifecycle strategy that helps them to retain an impressive number of populations. Relationship between sales stuff and consumers through the GRM software has the potentiality to prove fruitful as per the certain facts. First, it will make the customers feel special and they will understand how much priority the company is putting on them (Kotler et al. 2015). Second, as the sales stuffs are responsible for staying on the front zone to make interaction with the customers, it would help them make loyal customers if they have a handful of information regarding them. Consideration on ladder of loyalty In the context of retaining customers and making a loyal relationship with them, GM requires to give focus on the model of ladder of loyalty, which is considered as one of the most useful concepts of relationship marketing. In order to make long-term relationship with the existing and new customer, GM needs to attract new customers and retain their old one through abiding the five steps of ladder of loyalty model, which are suspect, prospects, customers, clients and advocates. Varied types of loyalties such as transactional, long term and collaborative could be built by following this model. For instance, for achieving the transactional relationship, GM should consider attracting the suspects and prospects by promotion. On the other hand, for long-term relationship with the customers and the clients, GM should provide discounts and membership offers. According to the loyalty model, if GM could successfully transform the audience from being suspects to clients, they would acquire advo cates who will responsibly inform other to buy their product instead of buying their products repeatedly (Harridge and Quinton 2012). For example, the long running success of Tesco PLC is the result of their culture to follow the ladder of loyalty model. Figure 1: Ladder of Loyalty (Source: Harridge and Quinton 2012) Moreover, along with this strategy, for the new target market, the company should include one-year worth of discount for oil changes as a strategic policy in terms of CRM (Percy 2014). 2. Facility of external marketing communication of GM Rudimentarily, external marketing communication of any business organization plays the role to achieve marketing objectives such as customer retention, sales growth and availing more alternatives for investment. General Motors likes to organize public events, direct marketing, advertising through online, and offline ground. As part of the advertising in terms of the external marketing communication, the enterprise uses online social media like Face book, YouTube, LinkeDin and Google (Balmer 2013). As part of the offline channels for external marketing communication, the company hugely depends on the newspapers and posters. Most importantly, advertisements help the organization to lure the customers by showing product features, price and any additional benefits that the company is providing along with the product. Therefore, it works as one of the potential tools for customer retention also. The key benefit of advertising for General Motors is related with the companys amount of inve stment upon it. GM prefers invest a good amount of their revenue for advertisement marketing (Aaker 2012). For example, in the last year, the company has successfully tracked the ROI (Rate of Increase Internet) of social media by integrating Facebook with the tool of vehicle configuration. GMs corporate and executive communication helps in directing news for media relations and philanthropic relations. Furthermore, it helps to make product publicity in the global context. Instead of them, GM prefers to make public events in terms of product communication, which provides the opportunity to interact with the distributors, target market, and obtain their opinions and reactions regarding the upcoming launch of product (Armstrong et al. 2014). The company believes that direct marketing is the best option for gaining feedback. According to Chuck Kirk, direct marketing has been employed for each of the companys brand as standard process. Mr. Kirk believes that in the last year near about 40% of the target market including the existing customers have chosen emails in form of direct marketing for making queries about the upcoming products and has side by side provided some relevant feedbacks (Lee and Messerschmitt 2012). Moreover, Kirks thinks their communication with the custo mers and the dealers have enhanced through their GM BOOKLET that is established under the title of direct marketing. According to the annual report of GM, GM BOOKKLET has successfully supported to increase the number of clients by near about 25% who has shown their interest over calls and emails. It should be mentioned that GMs external marketing tools are working efficiently as per the AIDA model that stands for awareness, interest, desire and actions. Their online marketing is potential enough to raise brand awareness and increase the desire among the target market. The promotional advertisements are mainly responsible for making a clear differentiation between the model of GM and its competitors (Rawal 2013). In this way, the advertising activity is fulfilling the very first aspect of the DRIP model that is differentiation of a service. According to the DRIP model, an advertisement needs to reinforce a new brand message, increase awareness and persuading the audiences in the right way (Niu and Ho 2014). Considering the external marketing communication of GM, it is however not clear whether the marketing options are fulfilling last ground of DRIP model or not. Use of marketing communication for marketing mix The support of marketing communication for marketing mix mainly indicates the influence of communication channel s upon one of the main components of marketing mix, which is promotion (Akaiwa 2015). It is interesting to note that marketing communication is fundamentally made up by the four elements of marketing mix price, promotion, place and product. However, there is probably a misconception that marketing communications are used for supporting only product and promotion. Price, place and even modification on the quality could also be afforded through communication channels. General Motorss main channels of marketing communications such as online social media, direct marketing help the enterprise to gain feedback. With the help of the feedbacks, the company makes successful customization upon their products (Lee and Hoffman 2015). For example, GM provides free test-driving as part of their external marketing communication and has recently introduced Facebook integration through ve hicle configuration device. Both of them help in making convenient customization upon the product based on feedbacks. Nevertheless, instead of making active contribution upon building awareness, corporate communication in terms of external marketing communication influence another significant component that is place (Wells 2014). For instance, General Motors online promotions for their new cars under the Chevrolet brand are for main four territories, which are Mexico, India, Brazil and China. Their new promotional advertisements are clearly indicative of the place of the target market that is the urban area. On the other hand, GMs blog post and YouTube videos are supporting to display the customized range of price of the new models of Chevrolet. Advantages and disadvantages of marketing tools of above the line and below the line General Motors above the line marketing tools, such as mass media proved to be comparatively efficient than the below the line marketing tools. It is because, the companys above the line tools, which are used for targeting a large number of customer are relevant as per the fact that most of the company customers are frequent with online social media. However, it could not be neglected that GMs test driving event in terms of below the line promotional tool also works in favor for the company (Heerde et al. 2013). Modification or any further customizations are done based on the feedbacks gained from this particular below the line marketing option. General Motors above the line tools mainly include newspaper, radio channels and online social media. According the company, most of its targeted segment caught impressed with their models through YouTube ads, promotional stunts through television channels and LinkeDin profile (Leroi-Werelds et al. 2015). However, the main disadvantage of the companys above the line marketing tools is they are not helping to acquire the proper number of audience who are watching their advertisements. On the other side, most of the options selected by the company have less difference with the above the line promotional tools of GMs rival organizations Ford and Toyota. It has been identified that number of audiences for visiting online promotional contents of Ford are more than GM. Therefore, it can be said that the company requires involving in earned social channels like whitepapers and Pinterest. Therefore, it is understandable that GMs ATL tools are possessing the advantage of having a wide market share as well as having more exposure. However, it is unfortunate that in form of disadvantages GMs ATL tools are proving too much expensive and sometimes the company is being unable to attract their target audience with their ATL tools as most of the devices and techniques used by GM are found similar with their main competitors Ford. However, the main advantage of GMs BTL is they are being able to make one to one contact with the target market and the promotions most of the time seems less expensive. That is how GM is able to invest huge amount on their ATL tools. However, GM is failing to compete with its opponent company Ford in terms of below the line (BTL) marketing aspects. Seemingly, GMs publicity through public events and banners are working less potentially. Hence, the main disadvantage of the companys below the line promotional tools is the company failure to make the promotional events in the proper places. Most of the time, they are likely to make events on the same places due to the availability of required resources like media and most of the target audience. On the other side, rival organizations are attempting to attract the rural areas along with the urban ones by making innovative public programs in terms of below the line marketing facets (Liu and Shankar 2015). Moreover, the main disadvantage o f the BTL channel is that the company stays reluctant about fulfilling the requirement to use the localized contents. It has found that GMs public events most of the fail to relate with different culture and society and as a result the marketing team receive less success in targeting the target market. Another disadvantage of GMs BTL is their marketing team needs to have extensive training for targeting customers from diverse culture. 3. A new marketing communication campaign Instead of having several fruitful options for digital marketing, General Motors should consider implementing a personalized mobile friendly application for both their existing and new target market. In the world where technical advancement is increasing on a fast pace, most of the business organization belonging to profit or non-profit field are implanting the mobile application for customer retention and brand loyalties (Ansari and Riasi 2016). For the new target audience a customized application would work as the easiest portal to share personal views or resolve any query and even placing order for any new model. The campaign for this new marketing communication tool will seem befitted as through this application, the audience can get latest information about the superior features of the model and can even be acquainted with the new offers and discounts (Tellis 2014). Two SMART objectives The first objective regarding the mentioned communication campaign would be to enhance the brand awareness. The objective is specific as through the new strategy, GM can make an intimate connection with their target market. At the same time, it is attainable as the company has already been very successful in making brand awareness through their online social media (Bendixen 2016). Therefore, it can be predicted that a new communication option like personalized mobile application would prove relevant in the eyes of all the individuals included in the ladder of loyalty. On the other hand, the objective can be measurable through GMs online searching tools heat maps and site speed. The entire campaign may take one and a half month and it is relevant as per the fact that most of the audience of GM is frequent user of online media (Peck et al. 2013). The second objective regarding the new campaign would be to reduce communication gap with the customers. It is a relevant objective according to the fact that GM is still considered running slow for making a warm approach to the audience of the developed countries (Hirst et al. 2014). Therefore, the objective would be measurable through feedbacks in about four to six months of time span. An applicable marketing communication mix A convenient marketing communication mix for GM should be incorporated with discount, public relation through online promotion and event sponsorship. Promoting offers regarding discount through personal relationship tools like emails and other mediums like newspaper, television and YouTube is justifiable considering one of the main buyers behavior, which is to buy products in minimum price (Shani and Chalasani 2013). On the other hand, GMs event sponsorship programs will be helpful in terms of promotion as well as to acquire feedbacks through test drives. The most important element in the mix for GM will be making brand awareness and comfortable public relation through mobile application. It will work as promotional tool for broadcasting both the product and its price. A mobile application available in every smart phone will play an essential role in increasing brand awareness, as the application will be designed to be user friendly in terms of providing answers for any query and new data about model features and discounts (Hansson et al. 2013). On the other hand, considering one of the most important parts of marketing mix place, the company could utilize their BTL technique. It has been found that the BTL technique are giving disadvantages as GMs event sponsorships are identified to be less relevant to suit different cultures and places. That is why if GM will consider utilizing localized contents to customize their public events like free test drives and trade fairs more suitable for different cultures, they can utilize the role of place fruitfully in terms of marketing communication mix. Methods to measure success The following methods could be applied to make a fruitful measure for the ultimate result regarding the new marketing communication plan The result could be measured through the revenue scale after six month of the new launch of products (Boone and Kurtz 2013). The outcome could be identified through the feedbacks gained from GMs website and Face Book page Through a thorough market research after the launch of the new range of cars, the company could get a clear idea about whether their new marketing campaign is catching more eyes than their rival or not (Mallen 2013). Conclusion The entire report has brought out some significant aspects about the existing external marketing strategy of General Motors. It says that the company is successful with both of their below the line and above the line marketing tools. 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