The Best Internet Marketing Strategies of the Toyota Company - Example

Name Course Institution of affiliation Date Introduction Websites are among the best internet marketing strategies that many companies and entrepreneurs apply. Most of these are for commercial purposes while others are just for mere entertainment. This research will study six websites about the Toyota Company and make findings regarding the various ways in which the information in the sites are correlated. Also, the research will aim at finding the ease of accessing information and the degree towards user friendly. Toyota is one of the biggest motor vehicle companies in the world. It has branches all over the globe through which it supplies its fleet of vehicles. Toyota deals with vehicles of different types, like the Prius, Prado, Hilux, Premio and Camry among others. Each country is served with the fleet that their citizens demand most. In this report, six Toyota companies were selected. Three of which were from the UAE and the others from the remaining countries around the globe. The websites selected were the following. http://www.alfuttaimmotors.ae/ (Al-futtaim motors), www.toyota.ae Toyota UAE, http://www.toyotaoman.com/ Toyota oman, www.toyota.com.my/ Toyota Malaysia, http://www.megaweb.gr.jp/About/en.html Toyota mega web and http://www.toyota.eu/Pages/default.aspx Toyota Europe. During this experiment, a group of 24 respondents were selected randomly and given links to the websites of these companies. Each of the respondents was made to pick paper leaflets that had instructions on what information to search for in a given site. The paper leaflets were 24 in number; the leaflets were designed in a way that every 6 leaflet had the same information. The respondents were divided into 4 groups and the cards that each group picked had similar information regarding the website to accessed.. The information contained on the leaflet included the instructions, name of website to be accessed and the information to be searched. In this case, the information under search was the Cost of Toyota Prius. The research was performed inside a cyber café under normal business hours. Each of the leaflets had a search item which the respondents were supposed to search in the internet. The respondents, were each assigned an internet enabled computer, and then the leaflets containing instructions was made to pass round as each picked one. Their sitting position was also random. They also filled questionnaires after the study. Sample leaflet Sample questionnaire Results The research was conducted for 30 minutes, and then outcome collected. The outcomes were as follows. Table showing time taken by respondents to access the websites No of people who accessed the site within (time in minutes) Website 10 20 30 http://www.alfuttaimmotors.ae/ 1 2 1 www.toyota.ae 1 1 2 http://www.toyotaoman.com/ 0 3 1 www.toyota.com.my/ 0 4 0 http://www.megaweb.gr.jp/About/en.html 3 1 0 http://www.toyota.eu/Pages/default.aspx 2 2 0 Graph showing the time taken by the correspondents to access the sites From the research, 29% of these persons were able to get information from the websites within 10 minutes after opening. 54% managed to open the site within 20 minutes and access the required information while 17% took over 20 minutes to find the designated information. From the above report, there is clear evidence that people still have problem accessing web contents in various websites. It was observed that the users who accessed the information through Toyota Al-futtain and Toyota UAE got the information fast, followed by those who used the Al- Futtain motors and then the Toyota Malaysia among others. A questionnaire which was given to these respondents after the exercise revealed that most of them complained about difficulty in navigation around the web pages. 45% cited unfamiliarity with the site interface hence very unfriendly. 50% agreed that the websites they used were very easy to navigate around and provided them with information they required fast. The major problem encountered by these persons was difficulty in accessing the sites. Certain websites are normally designed with a complex interface that people find very difficult to use. Such websites appear dull and lack pictures of the products they intend to sell. Other websites included the use of very difficult terms that really troubled the correspondents. This hardness in language makes it hard for the customers to efficiently communicate and find what they look for. Other websites lacked current information and thus leaving the user unsatisfied with the information they are looking for. The designs of certain websites make them very difficult to access and thus users fail to get satisfactory information. Such sites need to improve on their designs e.g. by making their interface user friendly. Also, they need to place easy keys or buttons for items that customers search for regularly. Recommendations From the above analysis, it is evident that the websites do not accurately meet the set threshold of perfection; however the following recommendations can help in the formation of a new website that will be easy to access and user friendly. A website that shares all the information about a product vividly and openly is a good one. This implies that they need to display all the services they offer in such a manner that the user will find them easily (Toyota World Hosts Economy, 2011). For instance, a person looking for Toyota Prado on a website can easily find the same or something closely related to that. In many cases, websites provide their customers with search options where they type whatever they want and it is searched throughout the site. The website should also provide timely and valuable information. It is unwise to advertise irrelevant materials on the web page at the expense of hiding the materials needed by your customer. The website can be designed in such a way that there is a constant slideshow, which explains the various services offered. The website owner should invest on advertising their services throughout the page. This will provide customers with a variety of options to reach their target product. Consequently, the messages relayed on the website needs to be customized to the user convenience. It is noteworthy that the major online search engines such as Google normally provide statistics of products that highly searched for. You can rely on this information to know the materials to stock your website with (Chaudhri & Wang, 2007). During this process, one must ensure that only the most competitive products are advertised. The magnitude of the web content used also needs to be great. For instance, a website of a Toyota company may choose to deal with selling of motor vehicles; the company owner may choose to think wide and introduce services like repair, and spare parts. This will help increase the website traffic significantly.  Also, when designing the website, it is important to use graphics in a good manner. Many companies use graphics that are complex hence takes a lot of time for users to access. Users who have slow internet normally find it very difficult to access and view such websites (Hynes & Janson, 2007). It is therefore prudent to integrate the site with graphics that even the slowest internet can open efficiently. Finally the web contents need to be easily readable. Many people don’t like long narrations. The content needs to be precise and straight to the point. For instance, when describing the qualities of a Prado car, all which is needed are the pictures or the vehicle image in many colors and its details indicated in very brief forms. Pictures should also be used more since many online users are driven most by what they see rather than read. The application of these recommendations can lead to a very successful website that people will find it easy to interact with. At the same time, they will find the contents to be meaningful and relevant to their searches. References Chaudhri, V., & Wang, J. (2007). A Case Study of the Top 100 Information Technology Companies Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility on the Internet: in India. Management Communication Quartely, 5(1), 232. Hynes,, G. E., & Janson, M. (2007). Using Semiotic Analysis to Determine Effectiveness of Internet Marketing. Article, 1(1), 3. Toyota World Hosts Economy Contest; ADVERTISING FEATURE. (2011, May 13). Western Mail (Cardiff, Wales) , p. 6. Read More