IMC PLAN for Transportation Service - Essay Example

? IMC PLAN for Door to Door Transportation Service Contents Pricing Strategy 3 IMC Strategy 5 Relationship Management 6 Reference 8 Pricing Strategy Double M is a door to door transportation service delivery and aims to address transport concerns for its three segment of target market. The target market includes the working class who needs to commute everyday for work; families who requires transport service; companies who requires transport for the employees. The main objective of Double M is to provide value against the service and a comfortable living and transportation facility to its target market. The target customers are concerned with “get” component and monetary price are not mainly of monetary concern. Thus Double M will adopt the pricing strategy based on the perspective of customer “Value is everything I want in a service” and adopts the prestige pricing strategy (Zeithaml, 550). Prestige pricing is a form of demand based pricing strategy which offers high quality services; Double M also aims to provide its target customers with high quality service along with a sign of status. The demand increases as price increases because it is believed that the costlier the service is the more value it has. Analyzing the customer base, it can be assumed that they are willing to spend in order to travel comfortably for daily activities, for their families and the senior members along with the institutional. Therefore the price charged will be high by Double M and will aim to provide value for its service to the target customers. If a normal rate of bus service is $10 assuming it to be the minimum fare, Double M would charge $20-$25 as its minimum fare for its door to door service and maximum would amount to $45 to $50 depending upon the distance and service. The primary pricing objective of Double M is to build demand and achieve minimum level of revenue and build a user base which is extremely important for service such as door to door transportation service as its new and it needs to generate revenue so to maintain itself in the industry. Pricing objective are important as pricing strategy depend on pricing objectives of the company. The pricing objective should be in line with the goals and objectives of the organizations (Petzer, 221). 25 cost items which tends to make up the price of the product includes, price of raw materials such as automobile parts, tiers, set covers, paint, design, lights, electricity, labor, fuel, terminals, maintenance, administrative, roadways, construction charges, salaries of lower level which varies, fuel taxes, weight mile taxes, trolls and marketing cost such as advertisements, promotional cost, printing cost for hoardings and pamphlets. Since the company has an option of online business other cost would include, website cost, design, up gradation and maintenance cost of the website. The target customers of Double M are not price sensitive because they want a service that will provide them with comfort and with an accurate satisfaction level. Since the target customers are mainly the daily commuters and their families, the need of safety and comfort will be valued highly by the customers. Similar is with the organizations, who would value the service rather than the price of the service charged. Hence it can be said that the target customers are not price sensitive and demand is inelastic. Irrespective of the prices charged or any changes taken place the customers would prefer to travel through door to door transportation service. Pricing strategy tends to include various promotional techniques in order to attract the target customers and create a place in the market and in the minds of the customers. Double M would also adopt the promotional techniques as part of its marketing plan. During the launch of the service, Double M would go for promotional pricing and would offer certain percentage of discount for its travelers during the first month of its service along with added facility such as dropping the family members at 20% discount rate. This way the company will be able to create an awareness and market value among the target customer. It will enhance the marketing strategy and induce more number of people to take the door to door service and emerge as a strong player in the transportation service industry. IMC Strategy Double M would promote its service through various means such as providing discounts, generating awareness through advertisements in prints, hoardings and newspapers. The objective of advertising program would be to generate awareness about its door to door transportation service and attract the target customers. The print media would be used for promotions of the service mainly through advertisements. Hoarding will be placed on highways and in area which generates the highest traffic so that the customers get an idea of such service and avail to it. The message that Double M would provide, ‘ride safe and comfort with Double M’ indicating that it would provide the customers with comfort ride and safe ride and seeks to provide value with every ride. Double M would allocate 10% of its marketing budget on advertising and promotional activities. Assuming the marketing budget to be $100, 0000, 20% of it will amount to $200,000 Table 1: Budget 20% of 1000000 Amt ($) Advertising (25%) 50,000 Website (15%) 30000 Promotions (10%) 20,000 Service (15%) 30000 PR (15%) 30,000 Others 40,000 Advertisements are allocated 25% of the total marketing budgets, followed by websites, service and PR each at 15%. The budget forecasted is for the initial period and with existence there will be necessary alternations in the budget. Customer Relationship Management Double M will not be using direct sales force because it has allocated a huge percentage for advertisements. The promotional activities will be done through advertisements and direct sales will not be used. However direct sales force benefit the firm as it reduces the advertisement cost and brings closely the customer and the seller. But in case of Double M, it plans to generate awareness through its advertising techniques and not to go for direct sales force. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) aims to formalize the best practice enabling a firm to identify its target customer. The following is the framework showing the CRM of Double M The figure shows that the framework starts with the CRM strategy followed by data analysis of the market, where the product or services introduced will be needed by the target customers, the marketing and communication strategy are implemented to generate awareness about its service and to create a market value. Next is customer experience which will be implemented after a customer’s gets to travel with Double M and finally with its valued services, customer satisfaction will be achieved by Double M. The service of Double M and its CRM framework can be measured by way of surveying the customers and the most effective way to get customers feedback and surveys can be done through mail, email and also over the phone. By launching customer survey as an attempt to find out how to serve the customer better, the customer will feel highly important. Few dimensions where customer satisfaction can be measured are such as quality of service, speed of providing service, the pricing, any issues and positioning in the mind of the customers. Another effective way to measure customer satisfaction is through focus group and helps o get informal input from a certain group of customers. Thus based on the above techniques it would be advisable to Double M to implement the survey form of technique and measure customer satisfaction and if any changes o be made should be implemented accordingly. Reference Petzer, D, et al. Fresh Perspectives: Marketing. Pearson South Africa, 2006. Print. Zeithaml, Valarie. Services Marketing. New York: Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2008. Print. Read More