Marketing Strategies in the Automobile Sector

Introduction to
Marketing
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1. Consumer decision making process applicable to automobile sector.....................................3
2. Porter five force.......................................................................................................................4
3 Two brand.................................................................................................................................5
4. Range of different segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies that are used by firm
in automobile sector.....................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing department of organisation is responsible for promotion of products and
services, brand image of enterprise in order to attract new and new customers within firm.
Marketing manager conduct market research, survey in order to identify existing needs and
preferences of people or current and future trends so that better strategies can be formulate for
growth and expansion of enterprise. This report is about Volkswagen is largest automobile
company in terms of sales volume in 2016 and 2017 and it have started its operation in 1937,
Germany. So, it contain information related to consumer decision making process, porter five
forces and range of different segmentation, targeting and positioning strategies are used by firm
to enhance its sales volume.
1. Consumer decision making process applicable to automobile sector
Customers are more crucial for each and every organisation as they helps in increasing
sales volume and profitability of firm by making purchase of products or services as per their
requirements. With increase in competition level or availability of alternative options or number
of competitors in automobile sectors, customers have get more choice to select best brand cars
for fulfilment of their needs (Houdek and et.al., 2018). Recently, consumer decision process
have become too long so marketer needs to spend lot of time, money and efforts to connect with
them. Five stages of consumer decision making process are discussed below:
Need recognition: It is first stage at which consumer finds something missing in its life or they
feel that some wants are unsatisfied thus it drive them to search several products or services that
could be used to meet their expectancy. People by finding problem related to transportation or
travelling from one place to another are influence to search alternative method that could use to
satisfy their needs.
Information search: So, in this stage customers due to unsatisfied wants are motivated to
search information through several medium either offline or online. Advertisement in newspaper,
social media are some sources of information from which customers are able to get information
about different cars.
Evaluation of alternative: At this stage customers find alternative method that they can use to
satisfy their needs like they company cars of different companies like Volkswagen, Ford, Nissan,
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Toyota and BMW group. They evaluate and compare cars of different brand and company in
terms of facilities, prices offered by each firms (Guliyev, 2017).
Purchase decision: After evaluation of numerous alternative options customers are motivated to
make purchase from specific firm like Volkswagen to satisfy their respective requirements. Thus,
at this stage customers make final decision to make purchase of particular brand car in order to
fulfil their transportation wants.
Post purchase behaviour: It is last stage or post purchase evaluation in which customers after
buying products that is cars evaluate and analyse that whether it have gained benefits as per
value or not. Cars of Volkswagen matches with customer’s expectation thus they serve as brand
ambassador of company as they promote or influence other people to make purchase it for
satisfaction of their requirements. So, all this are stages related to consumer decision making
process in context of automobile industry (Antunes, 2019).
2. Porter five force
Porter five forces is a model that is used to identify competitive level within automobile
industry and helps in understanding five forces that shape it. Marketing manager of Volkswagen
uses porter five forces in order to formulate effective strategies that could be used in gaining
competitive advantages in automobile sectors. Five forces like competition level, power of
suppliers, power of consumers, threat of substitute and threat of new entrances shape particular
industry that can be explained as:
Existing competition: It can be stated that there is high competition level in automobile sectors
due to large number of company operating with numerous products and services to meet
expectancy of customers. Volkswagen have to find difficulty in its operation due to increasing
competitors in automobile sectors so company by adding new and new features has planned to
gain competitive advantages (Five Forces Analysis of Volkswagen, 2018).
Power of consumers: Globalisation and number of large organisation in automobile sectors have
cause low switching cost thus customers have varieties of options to select particular brand car
that can fulfil their needs. In 21st century, people have become more educate and informed thus
they want to prefer organisation that provide maximum value at minimum prices. They consider
each aspects of products before making decision to purchase like fuel efficiency, environment
friendliness and safety. Thus, power of consumers is high in automobile industry (Kotabe and
Helsen, 2020).
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