Here’s the sample of BM2294 Marketing Communications Assignment, written by the expert.
Introduction
A marketing communication plan is an important part of any organisation’s marketing functions that allow it to achieve growth by reaching out to customers. It is essential to form an effective market communication plan that can help your organisation to communicate its products and services both new and existing to attract potential customers. The following studies based on the enterprise car club, the organisation operates a wide range of vehicles that are offered for rent to customers for hours, days, weeks and even months. The organisation owns a mixed fleet of 90,000 vehicles, which includes cars, LCVs and HGVs. Hence, the following report is a marketing communication plan to help Enterprise CarClub focus upon their current project that is a virtual membership, marketing and usage at Aston University. The company is willing to expand its membership in the student demographic in Birmingham, which is still untapped.
Review Segmentation, Target Market, Differentiation and Positioning
Segmentation
Segmentation of the target market is based upon psychographic and demographic segmentation. Birmingham in the UK is one of the cities that has the highest number of students, the city has eight Universities and the combined number of students is approximately 80,000 (visitbirmingham.com, 2021). Most of these students avail public or private transport and therefore these students are the target customers of the company for its current project. The target segment of the company is the B2C segment, which includes only students of Aston University therefore the market communication plan of the organisation means to be quite specific.
Target market
Among these 80,000 students, the company is willing to focus upon the students in Aston University that has an approximate number of 11,000 students of which 9,000 are undergraduate while 2,000 in postgraduate courses (timeshighereducation.com, 2021). Hence, the target market of the company comprises 11,000 students and a successful marketing campaign can help the organisation to reach out to most of these students at Aston University (Refer to appendix 1). As a result, the company needs to develop a student-centric marketing communication plan that aims at providing students with the best form of travelling and rental experience.
Positioning and differentiation
The company needs to position itself as a reliable trustworthy car rental brand that has rental schemes open for students above the age of 19. Moreover, the car also has services available where students can rent for a few hours, which makes this company quite convenient for the usage of students in Birmingham. The company also has a huge fleet of vehicles, which would allow them to rent a car to almost every student of Aston University. Additionally, the company also offers an attractive hourly rate of £6.10 and a daily rate of £49.15 (enterprisecarclub.co.uk, 2021). Most car rental companies do not rent their vehicles to individuals below the age of 20 and in this regard, Enterprise CarClub can attract an untapped market where students are only reliant on public transport services. Apart from that, the average cost of renting a car in Birmingham is £126.31 while the lowest is £27.43 for a day (tripadvisor.com, 2021). Thus, the company offers a highly affordable and cheap option especially for students aged 19+ (Refer to appendix 2).
The company’s objective stands clear in terms of positioning itself as widely available and quick to respond to customer needs. Moreover, the focus has been upon students, which the competitors of the company have not done yet. This would allow the company to tap into an unsaturated market that has the potential to drive massive sales.
Campaign objectives
In order to develop an appropriate market communication campaign, it is essential for the organisation to focus upon specific objectives, which can help them to reach out to the target customers in the market sale Birmingham
SMART objectives
Objective 1: To create specific rental plans for Aston University
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-based
This particular objective is specific as it focuses upon creating specific rental plans that ask only for students.
This objective is measurable, as it would allow the company to identify the number of memberships registered under this new rental plan made for Aston University students.
With effective marketing strategies, this particular objective is achievable and it would help the company to increase its presence in Birmingham among Aston university students.
This objective is relevant, as it would allow the organisation to establish its market operations in an untapped market where other competitors have not yet started their operations.
This objective is time-based and needs to be done before the plan is implemented so that the services are readily available for students.
Objective 2: To achieve a growth of 30% in car rentals in the next 12 months
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-based
This is a specific objective as it aims to achieve 30% growth in car rentals in the next 12 months
This objective is measurable as it would allow the organisation to identify the growth percentage of car rentals
This objective is achievable due to the fact the number of students in Birmingham is quite high and the company is aiming to target Aston University that comprises 11,000 students approximately
This objective is relevant due to the fact that it would help the company to establish a better grip over the untapped markets in Birmingham
This is a time based objective and needs to be achieved in the next 12 months
Objective 3: To increase the number of affordable cars that can be rented out to the students
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-based
This is a specific objective that aims to increase the number of affordable cars present in the existing fleet of the company
This objective is measurable as it would allow the company to identify and increase the required number of vehicles
Some financial investment and procurement offer refurbished vehicles this objective is achievable
This is a relevant objective as students would only like to prefer affordable and cheap cars due to their low budget
This is a time base objective and needs to be achieved in the next 12 months
Objective 4: To achieve at least 5,000 memberships in the next 12 months
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-based
This specific objective aims to increase the number of members the company would receive from Aston University
The objective is measurable as it would allow your organisation to identify the number of students who have registered for the company’s car rental service
With the right marketing strategies and tools, the company would be able to achieve this particular objective
This objective is relevant in terms of increasing the company’s brand awareness, market activity and membership usage
This objective is time-based and needs to be achieved in the next 12 months
The above smart objectives that have been developed and discussed above are crucial for increasing the market activity of the company in Birmingham especially for the students of Aston University. The objectives aimed to not only increase the company’s sales but also regular membership usage, which is essential for long-term growth and sustainability in the markets of Birmingham (Dixit et al. 2019). Moreover, the achievement of these objectives would also allow the company to avoid their competitors in the market who have not yet reached out to University students under the age of 20 in the City. The increase in the number of memberships is the most important objective as it
Outline strategy and general rationale for specific tools selected
The strategic approach of the company needs to be based upon the 3P theory, which is based upon the people profit planet (Refer to appendix 3). Based on this theory is essential for the organisation to achieve better economic performance while also focusing their environmental performance switch can be done by reducing emissions of their vehicles. The organisation already has a fleet of electric cars, which is essential for the company to take a sustainable mode of operation for this particular project. This effectively increased organisations sustainable efforts aimed towards conserving the environment. Moreover, if the company focuses on increasing the rental of electric cars then the number of vehicles running on fossil fuels would decrease in Birmingham.
Additionally, by increasing the number of existing customers the company would be able to develop its brand image among the students of Birmingham. This is a very important aspect in terms of achieving a higher social performance, which would allow the company to increase its competitiveness among the other competitors in the car rental industry of Birmingham. This can be effectively done by achieving the above-mentioned objectives and increasing the number of members who avail of the rental service of the company.
Marketing Tool Plans
In order to, appropriately achieve the desired marketing communication plan; the organisation needs to choose to market tools that would be effective in terms of communicating with the target customers. In this respect, public relations and sponsorships have been chosen as the desired form of marketing tool plans for strengthening the company’s market communication strategy.
PR
Public relation is one of the most important marketing tools the company can utilise to connect with its prime customers. Public relations deal with communicating organisational information to the target customers, which can create awareness among the students of Aston University. Moreover, it has also been seen that a higher amount of consumer awareness helps in achieving better sales growth, which is essential for the company now. Moreover, PR can be done effectively with the help of digital integration, which utilizes social media and online ad campaigns. It has been seen that 64% of the UK population utilises social media platforms, which are approximately 42 million citizens (greaterbirminghamchambers.com, 2021). Therefore, with the right form of a social media campaign, the company can effectively target students of Aston University. Additionally, the age group of 18 to 24 is among the third-highest age group in terms of democratic distribution indicating individuals active and social media platforms like Facebook (statista.com, 2021).
More about public relation strategies would also love the organisation to engage social media influencers who can greatly influence students of Aston University. The popularity and the relevance of social media influencers have proven to be very worthy for companies willing to achieve a higher organic response rate in terms of their social media campaigns. Moreover, promotion with the help of social media influencers is quite successful due to the impact that they have on their followers. Additionally, the company can also appoint individuals from within the university to promote the services of the company, which would allow a more interpersonal engagement with customers at the ground level. Engaging influencers would also help the organisation to improve the value of content present on the company’s social media platforms (Refer to appendix 5). Another advantage of utilising PR as a tool of marketing communication is that it helps in the frequent distribution of information to consumers regarding any changes in products or services, which can highly affect consumer behaviour towards company’s services (sproutsocial.com, 2021).
Sponsorships
Sponsorships are another effective way with which the company can target its potential customers directly. Even though sponsorships require a considerable amount of financial resources for investing events that are sponsored by the company, however this can greatly increase the company’s visibility to its target customers. There are several events, that are held by Aston University throughout the year and sponsoring these events or a particular part of the event can greatly help the organisation to boost its visibility and awareness among consumers. For instance, Aston fresher week 2021 is going to be held on 18 September 2021 (fatsoma.com, 2021). Thus sponsoring this event for a particular category within the event can greatly help the organisation to engage with new as well as seasoned students of the University. In addition, other events that are going to be held at Aston University throughout 2021 can be a great opportunity for the organisation to sponsor them.
Sponsorships can also be done with the help of merchandise that can be given to students upon their registration with the company’s rental service. Merchandise can include t-shirts, bags, stationeries and many more items that are widely used by students.
Integration of marcoms
The integration of the marketing communication needs to be done by a specific group of individuals who are avid with the company’s marketing objectives for Aston University. Moreover, the application of the company needs to be modified to some extent in order to offer new services for students registering from Aston University. Additionally, it is also necessary for the organisation to make sure that the social media campaigns strictly focus upon the objectives defined by the company for this particular project. All the social media posts need to be targeted towards the students of Aston University in order to attract them in terms of using the dental service of the company. Furthermore, the advantages and usability of electric vehicles are also needed to be communicated in order to increase the awareness of sustainable business practices, and how utilising the company’s services can help the students to reduce their carbon footprint.
Implementation plan demonstrating the relative scheduling of Marcom tool activity
The timeline for the company’s project has been fixed for the next 12 months and the registration of services and the management of customers would continue for the entire year (Refer to appendix 6). The project initiation and planning would require 2 weeks of time during which the company would modify the existing services to suit the needs of students in Aston University. The development of specific plans are necessary to attract customers from the university therefore a risk mitigation plan and stakeholder meeting is also carried out during the project planning phase. Once the project execution starts, the company would be able to carry out the PR events and sponsoring the different events of Aston University. In this regard, the stakeholder meeting would prove to be very beneficial, as this would allow the company to engage administrators of Aston University so that sponsorships can be achieved at different University events throughout the year.
The project closure would allow the company to monitor the performance of the company’s services for the entire year based on which a report would be prepared. This report based on the company’s performance would help in identifying how successfully the company has able to achieve the objectives defined in the marketing communication plan.
References
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Appendices
Appendix 1: Target market
Appendix 2: Car rental cost Birmingham
Appendix 3: 3P theory (Triple bottom line theory)
Appendix 4: Social media demographics of UK
Appendix 5: Value of content on social media and why consumers follow companies on social media platforms
