Principles of Marketing Report

Marketing Environment and Planning Process

The Components of the Marketing Planning Process In Terms Of EV Marketing

Marketing orientation is critical for the EV business as this orientation largely focuses on decision making based on the needs and wants of the target customers (Becherer et al., 2001). A marketing oriented business often make extensive use of the marketing research, focuses on development of new products and uses product innovation method to deliver greater value to the customers. In addition, businesses may seek marketing dissertation help to enhance their strategies and understand market dynamics. The following sections discusses the components of the marketing planning process in terms of EV marketing, which with particular reference to the role/importance of adopting a marketing orientation and its application to the EV business.

Market research: Determining the needs and wants of the target customers is an important element of the market oriented organisation (Becherer et al., 2001). Accordingly, the EV business needs to engage in detail market research not only to determine the needs and wants of the target customers but also to acquire knowledge about market size, market growth or decline as well as the prevailing trends (Westwood, 2013).

Target market: Another important component of marketing plan is identifying the target market. When a business follows marketing orientation it is essential to clearly define the target market in order to develop suitable marketing strategies (Westwood, 2013). Hence, the EV business needs to identify the target market for its electric and hybrid cars in order to develop suitable marketing strategies to create and sustain demand for its products.

Product: The EV business should clearly describe the product as well as examine this product meet the needs and wants of the target customers (Westwood, 2002). Besides, the business needs to evaluate the issue with the current products being used by the customers and how the new product would help the customers to overcome the issue faced by them.

Competition Analysis: Marketing orientation not only deals with the products and the needs of the customers but it also stress on attaining competitive edge over the rivals to succeed in the given market (Westwood, 2002). Correspondingly, The EV business should describe its key competitors as well as identify unique selling proposition.

Market Strategies: Marketing strategies is an important component of the marketing plan for the EV marketing. Accordingly, the EV business needs to decide how it is going to attract potential buyers and what tool they will use to attract the buyers (Westwood, 2013).

Pricing, Positioning and Branding: Based on the information collected from the market, it is essential for the EV business to establish the price for its electric and hybrid cars. Additionally, it needs to determine how it wants to position its product in the market (Westwood, 2013). Moreover, the EV business should develop compelling branding as well as marketing messages and communicate it target market to develop desired positioning in the minds of its target customers.

Budget: The EV business should develop schedule for the implementation of the action plan as well as determine the estimated amounts that it would cost for the business to implement the action plan (Westwood, 2002).

Monitor and Follow Up: Formulating and implementing marketing strategies and action plan are not sufficient, it is equally important for the EV business to identify metrics and KPIs to measure and monitor the effectiveness of the marketing strategy (Westwood, 2002).

PESTEL Analysis

Political: The UK government has demonstrated strong commitment to towards achieving zero emissions across different cities in the UK and the government is progressing steadily in this direction (Deloitte, 2019). The government has launched £1.3bn effort to promote the use of electric cars in the UK under which the buyers of electric cars are offered with subsidies (Campbell, 2020). Such initiative by the government is anticipated to increase the demand for electric and hybrid cars significantly in the country

Economic: The delay in the Brexit as well as outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic in the UK and the world has severe impact on the economic activities of the country (Williams, 2020). Almost all sectors including automobile sectors dealing with the production and marketing of the electric and hybrid cars are hit hard due to these challenges, which have the potential to negatively influence the demand for the electric and hybrid cars in the UK.

Social: There has been a growing environmental awareness among the people in the UK. As a result of which the people in the UK are ascertained to prefer eco-friendly solutions such as electric and hybrid cars over fossil fuel vehicles which has adverse environmental impact (Harrabin, 2018). These changes in the customer’s opinions and increased sense of environmental responsibility can be argued to offer huge opportunity for the EV business to grow and expand its business profitably.

Technological: With respect of the technology in terms of electric and hybrid vehicles, it can be argued that the technology in this field is still evolving and is still not well developed (Debye, 2014). However, tremendous success has been achieved by some companies like Tesla which has paved the way for other EV business to invest more on electric vehicle R&D and take advantage of rapidly increasing market size for electric and hybrid cars in the UK.

Environmental: Environmental issues are the key factor driving the growth and expansion of the electric and hybrid cars market in the UK and around the world. The growth of environmental awareness and the government call for the environmental protection have offered a suitable platform for the automobile business to invest on electric cars and have also led to positive effective on the willingness of the customers to purchase electric and hybrid cars.

Legal: Rules and regulations have significant impact on the managerial decision making. Accordingly, the strict emission and environmental laws and regulations in the country has forced the existing automobile manufactures in the country to shift their focus from conventional vehicles to electric and hybrid cars. In addition, the introduction of laws in the UK which requires establishing charging station compatible for al electric cars has further increase the growth prospect for the EV business in the country (The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2018).

The Extended Marketing Mix 7Ps

Marketing Mix initially involves 4P’s that include product, price, place and promotion. However, many scholars and marketing experts demonstrated their dissatisfaction towards the 4P’s of marketing mix and they criticised that the 4 P’s of marketing mix are static, too simple and ignores numbers of critical factors such as service, process, physical evidence and participants. It order to eliminate the weaknesses of the 4 P’s marketing mix framework, the framework was extended to include three more elements including people, process and physical evidence (Rafiq & Ahmed, 1995).

Accordingly, the development of the extended marketing mix can be argued to contribute to effective marketing planning. In this regard, the extended marketing mix requires the marketers lay considerable attention on the people or the employees in the organisation. Correspondingly, this element can help the marketers to identify strategy regarding how to formalise as well as manage the people in the organisation as the employees in the individuals that represent the organisation before the target customers. Hence, the focus on the element of people can help marketers to draw effective plan for the people and how their skills and competencies can be nourished and used for achieving the marketing objectives. The second extended marketing mix element relates with the physical evidence. Accordingly customers purchase decision for a products is not only influenced functional or utility aspect of the product but to a great extent the physical evidence that include design, colour as well as logo also have the impact on the customer’s impression. Correspondingly, the use of physical evidence as the sixth element of marketing mix can help the EV business to determine ways to enhance its physical evidences such as showrooms, logo, and physical attributes of the electric vehicles for promoting its brand image and driving sales of the cars (Rathod, 2016).

Process as the part of extended marketing mix element stress on the methods and procedures followed by the business to ensure ease and convenience to target customer. Focus on the process while developing a marketing plan thus helps the EV business to identify the most suitable sequence of methods and processes that it can follow to create the value proposition that it has promised to its target customers (Rathod, 2016).

Distinctions between Segmentation Of The B2B And B2C

As per Dibb and Simkin (1991) segmentation is an art and a process of dividing heterogeneous markets into homogeneous subgroups which display similarities in needs, preferences, and/or behaviours. However, it is argued that segmentation of the B2B is different from the segmentation of B2C for electric vehicles. In this regard, B2B segmentation for electric vehicles is usually focussed on organisation and individual buyers. At the same time, B2B segmentation for the electric vehicles is generally based on distinct characteristics of the organisation as well as broader purchasing context in which the organisation operates. Accordingly, the B2B segmentation assumes that the different organisations will demonstrate similar patterns and needs for the electric vehicles, which is reflected in their behaviours. The organisational characteristics that often serve as the bases for B2B segmentation include size of the organisation, location and the application of the products. Accordingly, the size of the organisation can make significant differences in terms of the purchase of the electric vehicles. On the other hand, the B2B market for the electric vehicles can also be segmented based on the geographic concentration and locations of the industries. At the same time, the B2B market for the electric vehicles can also be segmented based on the quantity of product purchased as there may have significant differences in the quantity of product purchased by the organisations (Brassington and Pettitt, 2006).

On the contrary, it can be argued the B2C segmentation is different from B2B segmentation. The differences in B2B segmentation and B2C segmentation for the electric vehicles are largely identified to be grounded on the bases of market segmentation. In this regard, B2C segmentation for the electric vehicles are usually categorised into four bases including geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioural. Accordingly, geographic segmentation for electric vehicles can be done based on regions of country or world, market density, market size as well as climate (Lamb, 2009). Considering the demographic segmentation, the market for the electric vehicles can be segmented based on gender, family size, ethnicity, income, age, race, religion, and education. Likewise, psychographic segmentation for the electric vehicles can be performed based on the criteria such as consumer attitudes, interests, personality traits, values, and lifestyles. In addition, the market for the electric vehicles can be segmented based on behavioural bases including purchasing behaviour, product benefits, usage of the product and other behavioural pattern (Lamb, 2009).

Targeting For B2C Market

The EV business will target the B2C market. The B2C market has been preferred over the B2B market because the B2C market for electric vehicles in the UK is growing rapidly. Accordingly, it has been noted that the demand for the vehicles in the B2C market in UK has dropped significantly in the recent time, but the three has been surge in the demand for the electric vehicles in the B2C market in the country. Thus, B2C market presents a he opportunity for the EV business to grow and expand its market in the UK (Frangoul, 2020).

Considering the geographic segmentation bases, the EV business will target customers living in urban areas in the UK. It is because the urban areas are the most affected by the vehicular air pollution. With respect to demographic segmentation, the EV business will target both middle and upper income men and women aged between 25-50 years old. Likewise, Considering the psychographic segmentation, the electric vehicle will be targeted middle class & upper class people that are reformer and aspire to bring positive changes in the society and the world. In the similar context, the based on the behavioural segmentation, the electric vehicle will target people in the UK that are determined and ambitious, and seek long term cost effectiveness and perceive being environmental friendly.

Explanation of positioning’ and suggest how an electric vehicle would be positioned in the consumer market

Positioning is an important marketing strategy which refers to perception about the products that a company intends to build in the minds of its by target customers in the market place relative to similar products offered by the competitors (Hassan and Craft, 2012). In the current fiercely competitive marketplace, it is essential for the EV business to create a unique yet easily identifiable positioning in the market place so as to compete effectively with the similar products offered by the marketers. However, it can be argued that in order build strong positioning in the minds of the target customers, the EV business needs to identify unique selling proposition (USP), which implies identifying a uniquely positive and extremely useful trait that is difficult for the competitors to imitate or offer to the customers. With respect to the electric vehicles offered in the market, its USP is closely related with eco-friendly, affordable and luxury. Correspondingly, the electric vehicle position itself in the marketplace not only as eco-friendly products but also as a symbol of luxury that almost every one can purchase at affordable price. At the same time, it can be argued that building positioning is easy but sustaining the strong positioning is highly challenging.

Marketing Mix Analysis

References

Becherer, R. C., Halstead, D. and Haynes, P., 2001. Marketing Orientation in SMEs: Effects of the internal environment. Journal of Research in Marketing & Entrepreneurship, 3(1), 1-17.

Brassington, F. and Pettitt, S., 2006. Principles of Marketing. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Financial Times Prentice Hall.

Campbell, P., 2020. Electric car subsidies extended in £1.3bn green vehicles drive. Financial Times [online] 11 March 2020. Available from: https://www.ft.com/content/1d2c1450-63ad-11ea-b3f3-fe4680ea68b5 [Accessed 4 July 2020].

Debye, Y., 2014. E-car industry analysis from the perspective of business model dynamics [online]. Netherlands: University of Twente.

Deloitte, 2019. New Market. New Entrants. New Challenges [online] London: Deloitte. Available from: https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/manufacturing/deloitte-uk-battery-electric-vehicles.pdf [Accessed 4 July 2020].

Dibb, S. & Simkin, L., 1991. Targeting, Segments and Positioning. International Journal Of Retail & Distribution Management, 19(3), 4-10.

Frangoul, A., 2020. UK car sales hit 6-year low but electric vehicles see surge in demand. CNBC [online] 06 January 2020. Available from: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/06/uk-car-sales-hit-6-year-low-but-electric-vehicles-see-surge-in-demand.html [Accessed 4 July 2020].

Harrabin, R., 2018. Survey: Half of young people want electric cars. BBC [online] 12 July 2018. Available from: https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-44798135 [Accessed 4 July 2020].

Hassan, S. S. and Craft, S., 2012. Examining world market segmentation and brand positioning strategies. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(5), 344-356.

Lamb, C. W. 2009. Marketing (MKTG). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.

Rafiq, M. and Ahmed, P. K., 1995. Using the 7Ps as a generic marketing mix: an exploratory survey of UK and European marketing academics. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 13(9), 4-15.

Rathod, M. K., 2016. A Study on Extended Marketing Mix. Advances in Economics and Business Management, 3(2), 205-212.

The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2018. Electric vehicle legislation enables rollout of UK charging network. The Institution of Engineering and Technology [online] 20 July 2018. Available from: https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2018/07/electric-vehicle-legislation-enables-rollout-of-uk-charging-point-network/ [Accessed 4 July 2020].

Westwood, J., 2002. The Marketing Plan: A Step-by-step Guide. London: Kogan Page Publishers.

Westwood, J., 2013. How to Write a Marketing Plan. London: Kogan Page Publishers.

Williams, M., 2020. Covid-19 and Brexit – a double whammy for UK automotive. Automotive Logistics [online] 08 April 2020. Available from: https://www.automotivelogistics.media/coronavirus/covid-19-and-brexit-a-double-whammy-for-uk-automotive/40456.article [Accessed 4 July 2020].

Looking for further insights on Principles of marketing? Click here.