Relationship Marketing of Edmunds Book Publishing Company - Essay Example

Running Head: Analysis Of Relationship Marketing. Edmunds.com Academia Academia Research Edmunds.com was a book publishing company found in 1966, today one of its investors is the Peter Steinlauf family and others include CNET Networks Inc., Cox Enterprises Inc., GE Pension Trust, Rare Medium Group Inc. and Autologic Holdings plc, the company has its headquarters in California and it maintains an office outside detroit, it is quite strange that a book publishing company started selling the information about the cars, trucks and other vehicles, it was perhaps a shift from so many other sorts of information providing to a specific information providing to the visitors, and that specific information was about the automotive industry, however the company still publishes books today but most of the information is provided through the website, the Edmunds.com, the other sources providing information to the visitors include three other books that are published and those are Edmunds.com New Cars & Trucks Buyer's Guide, Edmunds.com Used Cars & Trucks Buyer's Guide and Edmunds.com's Strategies for Smart Car Buyers, Edmunds.com after collecting all the data on vehicles launched its own website in the year 1995, and the success story began. "All too often, many of us go to the dealer with the idea that we'll get the best deal for our money, only to be tricked and manipulated into paying more or buying a model that we don't want. In tact, African Americans consistently overpay--an average of $315 more than other car purchasers--according to a study done of 750,000 actual purchases in 1999 and early 2000 by the National Bureau of Economic Research" (Jackson, Car Buying 101: Buying a New Car in a Few Simple Steps, 2004: 195). The above mentioned statement automatically shows the importance of a website that provides a service through which a customer would buy a car that he/she wants and that with the terms decided, and there when the importance of Edmunds.com is identified, Edmunds.com includes all the data on the new and used cars, from features to the prices of cars, from test drive videos to the tips to maintain such cars, almost every thing appears on the website, including the ways through which "you" can become car's owner, it includes ownership plans, the leasing and all useful material. Few good features of the company include the information through the wireless edmunds.com, the site know as Edmunds2Go!, which is accesible through the PDAs and internet enabled cell phones, another benefit the visitors get is that the company circulates free email newsletters to its voluntary subscribers, another most thrilling feature that is used by the edmunds.com in the most impressive way is its true market value pricing tools, actually launched in the year 2000, "The Edmunds.com True Market Value New Vehicle Calculator provides the estimated average price consumers are currently paying when buying new vehicles. The Edmunds.com True Market Value Used Vehicle Appraiser estimates the actual transaction prices for used vehicles bought and sold by dealers and private parties" ( from Wikipedia, free encyclopedia). So it is the best what company can provide with in its limit to the visitors, the best outcome of launching such tool is that, people from all around the world now log in to find the actual prices of cars all around the world, it is perhaps the best service an automotive website can provide, it is considered to be the most innovative idea by the web operators to bring such a change in the website, the other such online services and tools include TMV new vehicle calculator which estimates the price that the buyers are paying to the dealer for the ownership of new vehicles, TMV finance rate estimator which gives the idea of how much of loan can be obtained and what is in relation to it and the ownership of car, Edmunds.com has another feature added recently which shows how much it would cost if the buyer would buy a car in full terms ownership, it is known as True Cost to Own SM data. The company has offered services not only to people who want to buy the car but also people who are willing to sell their cars or exchange through Edmunds.com, it is one of the facilities the website is providing, which includes the thorough details about the car including its image and related information, and from there te company identifies its customers and keep in touch with them by sending newsletters etc. These are the few strategies that the website is using to get back the visitors time after time, and also these changes took place steadily, keeping the market in the mind, according to which there is no particular class or segment the company is catering, it is just anyone who is willing to get some know-how of cars and interested in buying them if not today than tomorrow. The next section would consist of strategies and ways to make better revenues, and what effective strategy should look like that the Edmunds.com is following or if not following than what should it do to ensure the maximization of profit, in relation to the new strategies, right now they are facing problems which include less effectiveness in communication such as they are not internaionally recognized and they work on it, as export markets are in full swing these days. The company is also planning effective marketing communications to reach its customers, the ways of marketing include doing advertisements on the top most search engines, also showing the company's ads on the websites of different types of cars, which include small, big, luxurious and all sort of cars, the company is also marketing through the wireless media, such as PDAs and internet enabled cellular phones, the best way to do it is to get the data of different organization's human resource department and than if suitable it should send them the marketing message so that more awareness about Edmunds.com would be the outcome, another interesting technique company can use in order to keep in touch with its customers in the long run is that it should start making the customer data base and time after time it should ask the customer to get back to them for a new car and also it should keep on sending small gifts and appreciation letters to the customers, one more strategy that should be used is the referencing system which means if a customer has bought a car from Edmunds.com than after the deal is finalized and a good relationship has been developed the company should send sales force to all of the customers firstly to show appreciation and secondly to ask for their relatives if they are willing to buy a car, and after getting the refernce data the company should start sending messages to the references in a way that they are not annoyed, this would for sure help the company in boosting more of the sales, discussing about the company's mgazines, the company should try to cater the entire world as there is not a particular class that buys the magazine for the purpose of only buying the car, but there is another segment in the world that uses the magazine without such needs, may be the top organizations provide its executives with such magazines, there are numerous advertising agencies in the world who keep on seeking for such magazines, so this is also an important step in the revenue generation, so this implies that the company shoul;d be emphasizing on both B2B and B2C relationships as other business and customers both can be their potential buyers. Work Cited and Other Sources Jackson, Anna Lee, "Car buying 101: Buying a new car in few simple steps", Black Enterprises, Oct. 2004. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, . Epstein M.J., "Implementing E-Commerce strategies", Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004. Read More