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Marketing Communications - PDF

   

Added on  2021-04-21

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Running head: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS Marketing CommunicationsName of the studentUniversity nameAuthor’s note

1MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS Introduction:Overview of Metro bank The current report focuses upon the UK based Metro bank which was founded in theyear 2010 by Vernon Hill. It is retail bank listed on the London stock exchange as providingbanking services to business and personal customers. It is the first high street bank to begranted licence in over 150 years. It had its first store located in Holborn and plans to open200-250 stores in greater London. As reported by Forbes magazine, METRO garnered $200million in deposits, which was four times the total at an average American branch. By 2013,the bank had a total 200,000 customer accounts, including 15,000 customer accounts(metrobankonline.co.uk 2018). By 2020, the bank plans to open 200 stores across UK whichwould in turn require huge amount of revenue. Purpose of the report The report has been drafted with a purpose of understanding the marketing andcommunication aspects of the UK based METRO bank. The bank is the first high street bankand has a number of USPs which makes it a marker puller. Some of the unique marketinggimmicks used by the bank are the implementation of a ‘pet friendly policy’, which statesthat if the bank can take care of the customer’s pets, the bank will also take care of thecustomers (metrobankonline.co.uk 2018). The report here also focuses upon thecommunication objectives of the bank which it could use for marketing and promotions.Task 1:Importance of understanding customer demands, needs and wants in marketing The concepts of wants, needs and demands are important in marketing. Though,sounds similar the points have substantial differences among them. ‘Need could be said as thestate of felt deprivation of some basic satisfaction. ‘Wants’ are desires for a specific satisfier,‘demands’ are wants for specific products which are arising out of willingness to buy them.In terms of marketing the demands could be further divided into primary and secondarydemands. The primary demand places more importance on the particular products andservices. For example, during economical strike the demand for credit and debit cardsincreases as people need more convenient means for drawing out money as well as paying

2MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS them. However, secondary demand is when the name of particular brand is associated with aproduct. The customers use brand differentiation features such as brand name, packaging,price, promotion to fetch better reviews from the customers (Coombes and Nicholson 2013).Needs, wants and demands of metro bank customers The metro bank views all its customers are priority client and develop effectivemarketing strategies for gaining competitive advantage over other similar market players.Metro believes in being more customers centric by focussing upon some of the basicrequirements of the target customer groups. As supported by Love and Roper (2015), thebank believes in developing an effective bond with the customers. For instance, banks in UKhave their cash bending machines outside the branches, whereas in METRO bank the cashvending machines are inside the branch premises. This is done keeping in mind it rainsfrequently in London. As per Hill, he does not want his customers to get wet in the rainstanding outside. Metro bank had built a big data infrastructure to maintain a single view ofthe customer. The data infrastructure will help the bank understand the manner in which thecustomer interact with the bank through phone, mobile, online and stores. METRO hadrecently built and app to let its customer pre-book appointments (metrobankonline.co.uk2018). This helps in providing the customers priority based features where the customer donot have to wait long in the queue.Task 2:Situation analysis of metro bank Systematic analysis refers to the analysis of the various assets of an organizationwhich could provide it with a competitive advantage over similar market players. BothSWOT and PESTLE could be used to conduct a situation analysis over here. As commentedby Tran and Corner (2016), an organization is hugely affected by the several surroundingenvironmental factors such as economic, political and technological factors. Therefore, conducting a situational analysis would help in understand the suitableposition of the organization within the current market. It helps in focussing upon the marketdemands alongside the internal strengths and weaknesses of the organization. The strengthsand weaknesses could be used for designing of an effective marketing plan. Additionally, an

3MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS evaluation of the threats and the opportunities can help the business organization do anadvanced risk planning which helps in market survival.Discussion of macro environment of metro bank The macro environment of the METRO bank has been discussed with reference to theeconomic and technological factors. The economic flow of a country can hugely impact thebusiness of a bank or any monetary institution (Ahuja 2016). Some of the factors such asglobal inflation can lead to consequent increase in the money lending rates of the bank. As aresult the customers lend the money at a higher rate and hence there is a gradual decrease inthe rolling of the money, which makes recovery difficult for the bank. The slow economicgrowth at current GDP rate of 0.7% demands for high industry based investments (bbc.com2018). Therefore, for the investments rates to be high for the industries, the METRO bankshave lowered its rate of interest for lending money. This in turn creates more businessopportunity for the bank as lower interest rates could invite higher number of customers.Technological dependence is a necessity for banking and financial sectors. In thisrespect, METRO uses latest hardware which gives them a competitive advantage over someof the similar market players. As reported by Ocloo and Dzisah (2013), METRO banks hasmade online banking accessible to most of their customers. Therefore, the bank holds a betterposition than most of its competitors.Importance of Competitor analysis in marketing Competitor analysis refers to the analysis of the sister firms of a current organizationbased upon their market positioning, profitability ratios, annual revenue etc. It also takes intoconsideration the various micro and macro environmental factors such as power of buyers,suppliers, products, services etc. Therefore, conducting a competitor’s analysis helps inunderstanding the competitive advantage of disadvantage a firm has over its rival firm.Additionally, understanding the marketing strategies of the rival firm will help in designingan effective marketing plan. The understanding of competitor objectives and thrusts helps inown strategic decision making. As commented by Jackson and Ahuja (2016), conducting acompetitor analysis helps in understanding the marketing instruments and tools better. Forexample, understanding the power of the buyers will help the METRO bank in redesigning itsmoney lending policies. As argued by Watsonet al. (2013), an understanding of thecompetitors strategic thrusts and objectives can help in effective contingency planning.

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