Alexander Dennis Ltd Digital Retailing - Case Study Example

Digital Marketing College: Introduction Alexander Dennis Ltd is a bus and coach manufacturing company based in GlasgowScotland and has manufacturing partners in various parts across the globe, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and U.S.A. the company has employed over 2300 people in United Kingdom, America and Asia pacific, focused on the manufacture of state of the art buses. Alexander Ltd is well known for its unique design, high quality and luxurious buses. In the past years the company had a total of $ 450 million on the accounts receivable, by which this is attributed to the adverse marketing of the buses. Alexander knowledge of the cultural impacts of automobile on the society made the company to stand out from the several manufacturing automobile firms in United Kingdom. The company basically incorporated affordability rather than luxury of its products other than after entry into the manufacturing sector. (Noble 2007) The automotive sector is a highly competitive sector which experiences new incoming entrepreneurs almost every day. The operators in sector are always keeping in toes with the high raising level of production, technology and development in the markets. Due to increase in technology, automotive companies are finding it hard to penetrate in the markets and be the leading or the best manufacturer in the region. This happens because most of the automotive companies use the same components in making of their automobiles. Revenue generated from different competitor companies will depend on the marketing strategy employed. Alexander Dennis Ltd a sole owned company has tremendously shown high financial results in the few years past (Baradsger 2010). The marketing and sales promotion team of the company works together on different demanding tasks, to develop and carry out brand strategies such as aggressive advertising and sales promotional styles for the company’s output. The company’s goal is to be the leading bus automotive manufacture in the region by delivering an excellent marketing platform whereby its customers will be satisfied in using high quality, pollution free and safe automotives developed using state of the art technology. This report analyses marketing strategy employed by the Alexander Dennis manufacturing company during the past 4 years. The main intention is to analyze any find ways of increasing profits made by the company through implementing different ways in digital marketing. Assessing on current digital market strategy employed by the company, the company has utilized the most popular digital marketing tools; such as use of website, email marketing, social media. Using the three ways of mechanism the company has recorded a penetration of about 80%, 75% and 68% respectively (Noble 2007). The success of the company is attributed to the strategy employed of incorporating the manufacturing way of mass production and use of advanced technology. Today, Alexander Dennis ltd is known for building the highest quality of buses in Glasgow. Fuel efficient mechanism and safety are the basic goals that make Alexander today a success. Strategic focus plan As stated in the Alexander Dennis website, the company plan is to aggressive restructure and be the leading company in the changing model, as well as financing the plan to improve statement of financial position. The company non-financial goals are to succeed in its implementations factors and building awareness to boost sales in all output production. By end of financial year 2014, Alexander financial goals are to increase sales from 70% to 90% in automobile and spare sales. The company also focuses on sustainining 60% sales increase of new buses by the end of 2014. Situational analysis On technological trends, The Company has implemented use of digital technology, through use of wireless networking and wide use of software processing which has boosted the company’s development and growth. Use of state of the art entertainment systems and voice navigation mounted in the buses has boosted the company to be a stand-alone in the area. Comfortable seats mounted with DVDs and touch screens interfaces has also improved the entertainment of passengers. On technological trends the company has also used non-carbon emitting engines and use of airbags leading to improved comfort ability of the buses. The non-carbon emitting engines use sensors that ensure the fuel is full combusted and clean. On cultural marketing, customers are stressing use of more advanced car safety measures. In this case the company is coming up with accident mitigation systems that help the vehicle controllers from crushing or hitting objects, such as the use of the Automatic braking system. The people of Scotland have widely emphasized more on efficiency and the flexibility of the automobiles rather than luxury. Economic conditions The company wishes to expand its fleet to Russia, South Africa, France and Germany. In South Africa and Russia there is a rising demand of buses especially by the middles class entrepreneurs. The company wishes to expand its products to these areas. Emphasizing on the environment the company is planning to take care of the environment through the use of hybrid and bio fuel cars in the near future. Analyzing the market trends, if hybrid and bio fuel automotive engines are used the company will increase its sales from 60% to 70% in the next financial year. In today the company spends a total of $70 million in advertising. The money is used through advertising in social websites, the company website, printing, commercial advertisement through television, radio advertisements and outdoor campaigns. The company has a media outlet in the outskirts of Glasgow which offers a medium of communication between the customers and the manufacture. Alexander Dennis Company is a top quality that offers a variety of benefits to customers. For the company to expand to the intended markets in Africa, Russia, Germany and France, the company will have to come up with different marketing strategy. Marketing strategy and promotion are used in order to reach to the targeted audience. Steps for effective digital marketing involve media and social media advertisement, and making audience attracting commercials. New way of promotion in which the company will implement will be advertisement through the TV. According to research statistics about media, TV is the largest media mass media method of advertisement used to day. The company will partner with various Media houses such as Channel One TV Russia, independent Online TV in South Africa and in France the company will partner with AB Groupe media, as the station transmits in both English and French and has public view of 95%. The picked TV stations carry out their transmission in the urban areas where most of the targeted population lives. The message passed in the media houses will remain consistent and will be broadcasted in different markets. To create awareness in the South Africa market, the company will use a well-known icon to assist in the promotion. In this case, the company plans to use a well-known South Africa Based music artist Yvonne Chaka. Yvonne is a well-known talented musician with a strong urge and she has assisted various local organizations in promotion. Keeping in mind that most of buses are purchased by gents more than ladies, Yvonne will ultimately keep the local people glued to their TV sets. In some cases the artist will visit different towns to assist in road show promotion through use of truck mounted with screens. A cut Scene from The TV commercial will be gentleman waking up in the morning late for his normal routine and by the time he walks to the parking lot, he finds his car has a flat tyre. With no other option of transport in his reach, the gentleman will have to board a Bus to his place of work. From there the commercial will show case the features of the bus; such ‘fold to sleep’ seats, WI-FI wireless in the bus; businessmen transacting their business activities through the offered network and High music systems embedded in the bus. By the time the gentle man alights from the bus, he will not be aware that he was late for job. (End of commercial) Print. Printing being an old and less used industry, the company will also want to put its money on this promotional sector. Various magazines such as Forbes, Drive 101 and High Class Motors will be used. The advert on the magazines will be three colored page on back of the magazines as this is the widely viewed part. Some few words will also be embedded on the bottom from page showing the company summarized details in two lines at most as well as Contacts and a customer care line. Because Russia is a cold country, the magazines will portray the individual seat warming mechanism of the buses as well as warm drinks offered in the bus, depending on the customer need. In the France, the magazine will portray a double Decker bus image taken next to the Eiffel tower. This will be done In order to give out the impression of the gigantic size of the buses. Radio In the 4 targeted markets the company is planning to enter have a total of 2,563 radio frequencies that broadcast at least 20 hours a day each. We plan to have a 45 seconds recorded commercial to be run on the radio stations. In France and South Africa 5 radio stations in each country will be picked while Russia 10 radio stations will be used. The commercial will be of various guys having tea at a local restaurant while discussing the new buses in town and the services they offer at a limited price.(end of commercial) Although Radio is not widely listened as compared to other media of information like TVs, Road shows will also be carried out in different t towns. The radio hosts will advertise through a word of mouth will in a moving truck with bus toys mounted on the truck. The show will also have the public take up a charity competitions and the winner takes a vacation to a certain resort by road using the company’s Alexander Dennis buses. Events Through promotional events the company plans to display its products through sponsorship of the events. The events will portray an image of company customer care. An incoming event will add the company’s name at the bottom page of their poster advert or they indicate the promoter of the event if it’s done through the media or online. A promotion role that the company’s wishing to fund is the upcoming family motor show in France by next month. The family motor show event will run the company’s name at the end of their commercial. At the end viewers will be urged to attend the event and see the different types of automotive on display. Website Website is the most commonly used digital marketing tool for both the small scale firms and large scale firm. The company’s plan is to upgrade its existing web interface to a more stylish and customer attracting. The company will also provide a link from the website which directs user to an online sales store. Where by customers will be able to order different automotives as well as spares. Transactions will also be made online through Visa, Master card or PayPal. The purchased commodity will be delivered to individual homes as indicated in their shipping address through courier DHL. If the commodity will be bulky a customer will be shipped but they will expect it a later date depending on the distance of shipping. Prior to the new marketing strategy of offering online purchases, the traffic flow to the company website was 500 a day. If the interface is upgraded and the online store link implemented we expect a total of 1000 viewers a day. In the targeted communities, different websites will be made in accordance to countries server connection, in France, two websites will be coded offering both English and French languages. The websites will also comprise of heavy images and flash graphics on the background showing the different types of automotive manufactured. Social media Social media advertisement is a strong marketing tool for automotive companies. The platform gives the target audience and the seller a mechanism of communication. The company also benefits from low cost of marketing in order to reach to the target crowd. On such note the company will use youtube to help them achieve a wider audience. YouTube being the leading video sharing website in the globe will help the company in passing information to a wider crowd. The company plans to shoot video trailers showing the buses mechanism and efficiency then upload them to YouTube channel for customers to view. We believe if this is implemented, close to 5,000 viewers will view the trailer. Face book According to statistics, Facebook has more than 4 billion users across the world. If the company taps in this platform, a wider audience will be achieved. The company will create a like page in Facebook, showing the company details, days of operation, contacts and company’s goals and missions. The Facebook page will have a cove page image showing the interior and exterior on one of the state of the art buses. We will still contact Facebook to run a promotion on our behalf, this will happen where every Facebook user in the targeted countries will have a suggestion message in their panel showing our Facebook page for them to like. For this to work, Facebook will charge $5 a day. Other companies like KIA and MINI use social marketing as their main way of marketing. Twitter Even though the company had already started using this method, various upgrades will be done by providing a customer care service through twitter. This method will be economical, as it will reduce data courier chargers because customers from oversees will not have to contact the company management through the cell phone. The other strategy the company will employ is the use of automotive direct mail. This method is widely used by our competitor that’s the DMAX manufactures. The method involves talking to your client through direct mails, according to a research conducted by DM news, the report shows that, direct mails are most effective because high percentage of car buyers are easily reachable through mail. However this will be a hard task. Especially when trying to enter a new market like Russia. Different challenges will be met like acquiring substantial number of car dealer emails. This method will only be widely used here in Glasgow as for now because we have a wide number of car buyer’s mails. The company will also develop advertisement that sales pitches for connecting vehicle benefits unlike the normal features. The feature will involve insurance cover details. The company will be giving out one year insurance to every buyer of our automotives. The insurance policy will only cover damages through accident but not on negligence. By this way we expect the car sales to rise by 2% as car buyers will be more willing to have a one year free insurance cover. The images portrayed will try to focus on luxury, snootiness and safety. Use of mobile apps will also be used to reach a wider audience. The company will contact the IT team to develop an android and Microsoft phone applications. The application will enable users to access the company websites which will be embedded on the application interface. The method will be effective on the long run as the users will be more secure when the try to login on the company online store. The application will be accessible on the Google store and the Microsoft store. We expect by doing this a wider target audience in the new markets will be achieved. Alexander Dennis Ltd is a widely known and high valued company in Scotland. The company posses high competence in developing of the different buses. The emerging markets in Russia, France and South Africa posses high growth and development opportunities. If the above mentioned digital strategy is implemented this will boost the overall revenues of the company and increase employment from 2500 employers to 5000. That will be 50 % increase in employment. Companies should use digital online marketing strategy in order to reach a higher target audience. Bibliography Noble, E. Jr. 2007. Jefferson vs. Hamilton UK leading automotive manufactures 1st ed. New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s. Labert Hana Will Chinese Consumers Keep Buying Cars? Forbes. Available from Http//www. Forbes.com//sales-geely-Volvo–business-autos-china.html> 2nd May 2014 Baradsger Keith Amsterdam Vies To Be World’s Leader In Electric Cars New York times 2 April web. Available from < http// www.nytimes,com// electric.html >2nd May 2014 Chan Sewel “Cameron Advisers Predict Unemployment Of 8.2% By 2012. 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