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Marketing Mix
Figure 3: The Concept of Marketing Mix
Product
The main product of the Global System is the Global Smart Card. Global initially offered consumers a 10 percent savings and a 100 percent satisfaction guarantee to increase adoption in the transportation sector and to remove uncertainty about the new technology. Metro and rail transportation operators provide discounts to Global cards over single ticket cards; the discounts vary according to the distance traveled. Smart card adoption for metro riders is 90 percent and for rail commuters over 80 percent These incentives, along with the simplicity, speed, and convenience of the system's technology, resulted in over three million cards being issued during the first three months and established a critical mass of smart card users who were familiar with RFID technology as metro and rail transportation operators offer multiple ride tickets on the Global card and single ride tickets on magnetic stripe cards. This is highly relevant since over 70 percent of Hong Kong residents use some form of public transportation each day and are more likely to use the multiple ride tickets offered by Global as likewise indicated by reports that constraining multiple ride tickets to Global cards elicited little consumer dissatisfaction. Global card adoption on these transportation lines is somewhat lower compared with the metro and rail lines. In this regard, merchants also enjoy a number of benefits reducing cash handling and in-store queues, thus increasing customer loyalty through the merchants who offer ad hoc discounts to customers using the card.
Pricing
One of the advantages of the Global Smart Card is when it comes to its pricing tactic. In order to be known into the market place and as a new entrant, the company will provide its target market with an affordable cost while providing them a high quality products and services. The company will be given the customer and client a price that is lesser than its competitors so that the consumer will be enhanced to buy and patronize the Global Smart Card. Each card is loaded with HK$500 and will be topped up with $350 after the balance goes below zero.
Placement/Distribution
To be known in the market place, the product will be distributed directly to its clients and consumers. And to be known internationally, one of the strategies that the product will utilize is going on a joint venture with distinguished distributor of the card, providing them with great offers, so as to market the product of the Global System. The company will also find a Smart Card Alliance in the US, Europe and Asia to be known globally.
One of the prospects of the company to merge with in order to be known in the local and international market is to have a joint venture with SAP, one of the most distinguished software industries in HK. In this way, the Global System will be able to distribute its products as a subsidiary of SCA, HK. With the trust that the client of SCA is giving, the company will be able to use this as an instrument to be also known by different distributors of SCA, in which in return will help the company to be distinguished as well.
Promotion/Communication
To promote the company and its product, the company will use video advertisements, print advertisements and the concept of e-marketing. These promotion and communication strategy will tend to meet the consumers form different places everywhere, especially those target markets or the consumers in the working place.
Moreover, since the trend in the market place today is the usage of e-marketing, the company will provide a website that any client can access. The use of the Internet is changing high-tech marketing overnight while different industries have been trying to use it as part of their marketing strategy. It does not only reconfigured the way different firms do business and the way the consumers buy goods and services but it also become instrumental in transforming the value chain from manufacturers to retailers to consumers, creating a new retail distribution channel (Donthu and Garcia, 1999). E-marketing is a powerful tool used by different business organizations around the world. It is defined as the process of achieving marketing objectives through the use of electronic communications technology. Smith and Chaffey (2001) have provided a 5Ss' mnemonic for how the internet can be applied by all business firms for different e-marketing tactics. These 5S's are selling, serve, speak, save and sizzle.
E-marketing is also known to be the online marketing strategy utilized by different company whose objective is to be the best company in their field. Thus, the Company will create its own website. The main objective of utilising e-marketing strategy is to keep in touch to different internet users to be able to attract more clients and consumers. All in all, through the website, whether the user is a customer, employee, stockholders, vendors, retailers or end customers, the true strength of e-marketing is acceleration of the business portfolio.
Figure 4: Marketing Communication Process
Market Segmentation
Here, the Company will provide its target consumers for its product. Primarily, the context of the market segmentation for this company will be the Psychographics. Psychographics includes social class, lifestyle, and personality variables (Chiagouris and Kahle, 2000). The end result of using these variables is a psychological profile of each market segment. Issues also examined the customers' loyalties, habits and self-concept. Social class describes how individuals want their office automation will meet their comfort and satisfaction, what they consider important about their immediate surroundings, their opinions on various issues, and their interests.
As an example, Michman (1991) cited that psychographics and lifestyle can be related to newspaper readership and the selling of space to potential advertisers. Since many newspapers are confronted with competition not only from television, many are concentrating on lifestyle research in order to comprehend how their readers allocate leisure time and how to gain a larger share of that time. Lifestyle research is most useful when it also measures demographics and the use of products or services. Lifestyle research by advertisers can help potential advertisers to envision their market better than when demographic variables are used alone.
As these lifestyle studies concentrates on what the consumer requires, using these study results as marketing strategies eventually became a marketing concept. Robert Keith (1960) is one of those highly credited for popularizing this specific marketing concept. The marketing concept is a basic philosophy that maintains that an organization should Endeavour to satisfy the needs and wants of customers through a coordinated set of activities that also allows the organization to achieve its goals at a profit. Some firms fail in this task since they are more concerned with making a product and selling the product than satisfying potential customer wants and needs. The company must be able to consider its consumer, especially the demands of the consumer so as to let the business have an opportunity of having an expansion of its business portfolio as required by the consumers and the clients' need.
Figure 5: Buyer Decision Process
Marketing Strategies
Marketing is the practice of preparation and implementing the pricing, advertising, and supply of goods, ideas, and services to generate trades that satisfy individual and organizational goals. Marketing has two key concepts, customer/clients acquisitions and maintenance of customers/clients. In the context of marketing, learning is a result of information received through advertising or other publicity or through some reference group or other. In order to have an effect on motives or attitudes, marketing effort should associate the product with positive drives and reinforcing messages.
A fundamental aim of marketers is to bring about satisfaction for their customers, and this is cardinal to the concept of marketing. Having looked at some of the issues that make up consumer behavior, Global Cars should look at the consumer's central goal. Because they are continually occupied in the quest for satisfaction, competitive offerings will always have potential appeal. Firms must seek continuous improvement to the products or services and the levels of support they provide. This is a matter of balancing costs and potential profit with customer demands, as 'total satisfaction', except in a minority of cases, is an unrealistically expensive goal. There are four models of consumer behaviors:
An individual needs a particular product. Information will be sought from a variety of sources including family and friends (called 'word of mouth') from advertising, from catalogues, from visits to retail establishments, and from many other sources. The more complex the product, the greater will tend to be this information search. The task of marketing is to ensure that the company's products receive high exposure during this 'information search' period and that the best points of the product are emphasized during the 'evaluation of alternatives' phase. This will put the company's product in the best light prior to the 'purchase decision', because even then the consumer is still susceptible to further influences in relating to making the correct choice. Marketers must also be aware of 'post-purchase behavior' because this can affect repeat business and forward looking companies attach as much importance to after-sales service as they do to making the initial sale. This reduces the degree of dissatisfaction (or dissonance) in the case of genuine complaints. One method that is now practiced for sales of major items like new motor cars is where companies follow up a sale by some form of communication by letter or telephone with their customers. This builds confidence in the mind of the customer in having made the 'correct' purchasing decision. The terminology that has been attached to this kind of after-sales follow-up is 'customer care'.
Global Card should have knowledge of how the buyer/decision process works is critical to the success of marketing strategy. For simple products, the task of marketing is to direct the purchasing routine in favor of the company's products, perhaps through an effective mass advertising campaign. The buyer/decision model was not specifically designed for new products and its substance was concerned with search and problem solving. It begins with awareness. Marketers must first create awareness and then assist customers through subsequent stages of the process. Consumers cannot begin to consider a new product or service as a solution to need-related problems without this awareness. Successful innovative products should attempt to be problem-solving as successful innovative products should attempt to be problem-solving as far as the customer is concerned. Awareness, Interest/Information, Evaluation, Trial, Adoption.
Awareness can come about as a result of the marketing effort of the company or simply by 'word of mouth' communication. If the product has potential interest and appeal, then potential purchasers will seek further information. Consumers then evaluate the new product against existing products, and then make an initial adoption by obtaining a trial sample, which might be a free sample or a 'trial' purchase. The adoption stage is when a decision is made whether to Use the product (in the case of a fast moving consumer good on a repeat purchase basis). Post adoption confirmation is when the product has been adopted and the consumer is seeking reassurance about the wisdom of the purchase. After a major purchase, dissonance (termed cognitive dissonance) is present in the sign of unease that what was thought to be value for money at the time of purchase may not, after all, turn out to be true value. Such dissonance should be countered by the provision of some kind of follow-up - either...
The consumption of goods purchases fall quite readily into three classes when considered on the basis of his buying habits. These are so called, convenience goods, shopping goods and specialty goods. Convenience goods are those which the consumer purchases in the most convenient manner possible. Convenience may be synonymous to one's home or one's place of work or, indeed, within the proximity, accessibility by motorcar. The category generally comprises things of low unit value purchased at frequent intervals. Such items as bread and other staple groceries and tooth paste also fall into convenience-good class. Shopping goods include those which the typical consumer desires to compare in price and quality in a number of establishments before purchasing. They usually are relatively expensive items, purchased infrequently. Style goods, such as women's clothes and furniture, are examples of such merchandise. Specialty goods, finally, are those which are sufficiently different from other goods in the same class to possess reputation enough to cause the consumer to go to a considerable inconvenience--Usually to a particular firm--to purchase them. Specialty institutions are not, as is sometimes thought, necessarily the higher priced establishments. For example, Penney's is a specialty institution for some consumers who, when needing shoes or sheets or some item of children's clothing, perhaps, go directly to this store to make the purchase, although they possibly become specialty buyers through experience gathered as a result of the shopping process.
Shopping has to do with a comparison not only of prices among various institutions, but of merchandise qualities also. Indeed, at times price does not even enter into the calculation, although this may be rare. The point is, however, that one is typically attempting to compare values (prices and quality) in order to obtain the best item for the money. He is, in short, attempting to make the most advantage purchase. Consumer buying habits have a very important bearing on the lines of merchandise handled by various types of retail institutions. Among the several factors influencing the merchant's selection of lines to carry (including the availability of adequate space for display and storage, financial requirements involved, servicing required of merchandise after sale, the markup one may expect in relation to costs of doing business, the suitability of the store's location for the sale of such merchandise, etc.) the first probably is that of consumer expectations. The question is: "Do, or will, consumers expect to buy the merchandise in question at, for instance, a department store, a variety chain store, or some type of neighborhood store? The strategic marketing plan however, does not indicate how performance will be achieved. Thus, there is also a need to develop a marketing mix strategy composed of the 4Ps and resource allocation or marketing budget which will complete the details of the strategic marketing plan.
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