Marketing Essentials: A Case Study of 'Your Destination' Transportation Company

This assignment delves into the marketing essentials of 'Your Destination,' a UK-based transportation company seeking to expand its operations and compete with market leader 'National Express.' It examines the role of marketing within the organization, analyzes the key responsibilities of marketing officers, and explores the contribution of the marketing department to wider organizational objectives. The assignment further compares different elements of the marketing mix and their application in achieving the company's overall objective. Finally, it develops and evaluates a comprehensive market plan for 'Your Destination,' incorporating SWOT and PESTEL analyses, market segmentation, targeting, and positioning strategies, and outlining tactics and actions for successful implementation.

MARKETING ESSENTIALS

Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................2
LO1 ROLE OF MARKETING AND ITS INTERRELATION WITH THE OTHER ORGANIZATIONAL
FUNCTIONAL UNITS IN ‘YOUR DESTINATION’ COMPANY...............................................................3
P1 & M1 KEY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MARKETING OFFICERS AND STRUCTURE
OF THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT.............................................................................................4
P2 CONTRIBUTION OF ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT TO
THE WIDER ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES................................................................................6
LO2 COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT WAYS IN WHICH VARIOUS ELEMENTS OF MARKETING
MIX COULD BE USED TO ACHIEVE OVERALL OBJECTIVE OF THE COMPANY...................................7
P3 & M3.......................................................................................................................................7
LO3 DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A MARKET PLAN OF ‘YOUR DESTINATION’...............10
P4 & M4.....................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................16
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INTRODUCTION
Marketing is the business management process through which goods and services are moved
from concept to the consumers. Marketing process includes the coordination and control of all
the main elements of marketing i.e. product, price, promotion and place. Therefore, effective
marketing management is needed for the growth and development of any organization.
Here, a transportation company ‘Your destination’ will be discussed, which is specialized in
providing and facilitating transportation services nationwide in the UK since past 3 years in
London and Essex. Now Your Destination is looking for the growth by branching out in
Manchester, Newcastle, Aberdeen and Glasgow etc. Further, the main objective of the
company is to compete with the market leader of UK ‘National Express’ by adopting various
marketing strategies, principals and plans to become a successful leader in the industry.
Here, in this assignment, as a marketing manager of ‘your destination’, the roles and
responsibilities of marketing manager and how could they achieve the objective of growth in
transportation business by effectively using marketing concepts and strategies will be
highlighted.
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LO1 ROLE OF MARKETING AND ITS INTERRELATION WITH THE OTHER
ORGANIZATIONAL FUNCTIONAL UNITS IN ‘YOUR DESTINATION’
COMPANY
The term marketing has been changed and evolved during a particular period of time; today
marketing is based on providing continuous benefits to the consumer. According to Philip
Kotler, “The management process of identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer
requirements profitably is known as marketing. It also includes satisfying needs and wants of
the customers through an exchange process” (Kotler and Armstrong, 2010)
Marketing is one of the main organizational functions and a collection of processes designed to
plan, create, deliver and communicate value to the customers. The key purpose of marketing is
to create awareness amongst the people about the goods and services of a company. The
ultimate aim of marketing is to empower and enable a company to gain the highest success
with viable development. (Baker and M.J., 2014)
As a marketing manager of a transportation company Your Destination, a person must have
knowledge of all the available opportunities and strengths of the company in the transportation
sector and weakness and threats as well. And to overcome such issues a manager requires
eligible officers for increasing the strengths of the company in order to achieve the goal of
expansion.
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4
YOUR DESTINATION
London, UK
Date: April 23, 2018
To: senior manager
From: marketing manager
Subject: Requirement of two marketing officers to meet the needs of the expansion plan.
The fact shall not be denied that a successful organization could only exist with the efficient managers and
workers. Similarly, the human resource of Your Destination plays a vital role in the achievement of its
objectives.
Every functional area requires trained and educated managers and employees who must know their
respective roles and responsibilities to attain a particular goal. Your destination is in need of two
marketing officers who can carry out their roles and responsibilities in order to achieve our objectives of
growth and competitiveness.
P1 & M1 KEY ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MARKETING OFFICERS AND
STRUCTURE OF THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT
An organizational structure shows the overall working of an organization and serves as a basis for all the
activities of an organization. Therefore, it is important to make an operative structure to ensure the
achievement of the goals of an organization (Kotler, 2012) The proposed organizational structure of the
marketing department of the company Your Destination consists of various posts of managers and officers
to meet the need for growth and development of the company.
FIG.1: PROPOSED ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF MARKETING DEPARTMENT.
Marketing Executive
marketing manager
(sales)
marketing officer
marketing manager
(advertising
marketing officer
marketing manager
(distribution )
marketing officer

This is an ideal organizational structure proposed for the marketing department of ‘Your
Destination' company. The structure shows the different divisions of marketing department i.e.
sales, advertising and distribution departments. These all departments are necessary to maintain
the coordination of all marketing activities effectively. In this structure, marketing officers are
subordinated to each marketing managers to get proper and timely information for making
effective decisions in favour of the company.
The main duties of marketing officers of Your Destination are to plan and supervise an
organization’s marketing campaigns and other marketing activities for its transportation services.
He is the one who ensures the successful operations of the whole marketing department of Your
Destination.
The main roles and responsibilities of marketing officers are:
 To contribute to the execution of marketing strategies and to support the marketing
manager.
 To attend and organize marketing activities to increase brand awareness.
 To help managers in and executing expenses preparing budgets.
 To conduct market research in order to identify market opportunities.
 To plan, advertise, and promote campaigns for goods and services on various media
platforms.
 To evaluate and analyze all ventures from starting to end using various marketing tools.
Besides of these roles, a marketing officer is also required to have a good understanding of market
research techniques, data analysis and statistical analysis and an excellent knowledge of modern
technologies to cope up with the changing needs of its customers (Drucker, 2012).
P2 CONTRIBUTION OF ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT TO THE
WIDER ORGANIZATIONAL OBJECTIVES
It is the overall responsibility of marketing department of Your Destination to raise revenue,
increase market share and to contribute to the development, growth and profitability of the
company
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Wider organizational objectives require large numbers of team members in one marketing
department to accomplish the objectives of the company. For such organization marketing
department usually consists of marketing executive, marketing managers and marketing officers to
make effective decisions for the achievement of organizational objectives.
To achieve wider objectives of ‘Your destination’ marketing managers are responsible to make

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LO2 COMPARISON OF THE DIFFERENT WAYS IN WHICH VARIOUS
ELEMENTS OF MARKETING MIX COULD BE USED TO ACHIEVE OVERALL
OBJECTIVE OF THE COMPANY
P3 & M3
When a company uses a particular set of actions and tactics to promote its brand or other
goods and services in the market is known as marketing mix (Hollensen and S, 2010). In other
words, marketing mix is the method of putting the right product in the right place, at the right
time and at the right price. The term marketing mix majorly consists of 7 elements and hence
commonly known as 7p's of the marketing mix. The 7p’s of the company ‘Your Destination’ are:
FIG. 2: MARKETING MIX
Source: [http://marketingmix.co.uk/]
1. Product: Product is something that can be offered to the customers, to satisfy the
needs and wants of its ultimate consumer (Fernandes, et al.2012). The product offered
by your destination is a transportation service through various means of transportation
i.e. bus, train, and cab etc. the product mix of Your Destination is consists of various
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intangible and tangible components like AC, seats, cleaners and luggage racks etc. by
offering these effective product mixes the company could compete with its competitor.
An efficient product mix helps in attracting the desired market and serve as a tool for
increasing customer satisfaction and brand value. Higher the amount of customer
satisfaction higher the sales of the company will increase and this could result in
ensuring a large amount of market share in the transportation sector and maximizing
brand loyalty by making the company market leader. Your Destination could make a
product mix by evaluating its competitor's product mix. The National Express Company
provides the management of events and catering services with transportation facility.
Therefore Your Destination should also consider these services to increase its consumer
base.
2. Price: Price is a value a company will acquire in the exchange of goods and services
provided. Pricing plays an important role in making an effective marketing mix.
Numerous pricing strategies can be formed to retain and attract the customers. Your
destination adopted a strategy of delivering its services at the lowest rate in order to
attract more and more customer base. On the other hand, The pricing strategy of
National Express is based on floating pricing strategy. It charges different price according
to the changing needs of the market.
3. Promotion: This is the most important task for marketing managers to promote its
products in the market to get higher customer attention. In order to expand its business,
your Destination must adopt proper promotion activities. For its promotion strategy,
Your Destination uses the modern technology i.e. marketing through social media and
promoting online to attract customers. While National Express follows the traditional
approach for promotion i.e. it uses newspapers, hoardings and other traditional means
of advertising. Your Destination is doing well in its promotional activities as compared to
its competitor National Express and to achieve its overall objective.
4. Place: Place is where a product is bought by the customer. The place to serves is an
important element in a marketing mix. In case of Your Destination Company, a place is
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where it delivers its transportation services to its customers i.e. Essex and London. Your
Destination decided to expand its business by expanding the place of its services to
other cities of the UK. On the other hand, National Express is already serving to all over
the UK. Therefore, it is necessary for Your Destination to expand its place of services to
compete with national Express for achieving the objectives of the company.
5. People: The term people mean all the individuals from executives, managers,
employees to customers who are involved in the overall functioning of the company. In
Your Destination, the key people are its staff and its customers as the staff serves as a
basis for communication and providing services to its customers. It is important to note
that the customers and buyers are the central part of any organization. Your Destination
Company also laid emphasis on its customers whereas the National Express Company
emphasizes on the adopting different strategies to establish a connection with its staff
and customers in order to retain their customers easily.
6. Physical evidence: In the service providing companies it is important to have physical
evidence as proof of delivering services. Physical evidence also serves as a tangible tool
for the presence of the company in the market. The website, ticket counter, offices and
drivers of Your Destination serve as a physical evidence of the company to interact with
its customers. It provides a facility to its customers to directly share their experience
through feedback on its website in order to satisfy the customer needs and desires and
to increase customer value in the market. On the other hand, National Express provides
attractive website and user-friendly panel as a physical evidence to enhance customer
satisfaction. Physical evidence of both the company leads them to achieve greater
success in the market.
7. Process: Process means a procedure or method used to obtain the desired product. In
the service industry, the process needs to be easy, fast and friendly to satisfy the needs
of their consumers. The business process of Your Destination follows a chain of activities
like ticket booking, journey (drivers and coaches etc.) and feedback with a proper
monitoring system. While the business process of National Express provides quality
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services to their consumers during a journey. Both the companies laid emphasis on the
process to achieve the goals.
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LO3 DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF A MARKET PLAN OF ‘YOUR
DESTINATION’
P4 & M4
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
A marketing plan is a reference document which a company creates and uses to plan and
execute its future marketing operations (Armstrong, et al. 2015). Similarly, the market plan for
Your Destination Company will include the objectives; strategies and plan of action of the
company for providing a base for the marketing operations of the company so as to compete
with its competitor National Express or to achieve its goals and objectives. For developing an
effective market plan for Your Destination it is important to consider the overall situation of the
market. To get the wholesome knowledge of market a marketing department analyzes all those
external and internal factors that could affect the overall working of an organization. For such
analysis, various tools and strategies are used and performed to gain competitive advantage
and success in the market.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
‘Your Destination’ is a UK based transportation company established three years ago providing
its services in London and Essex and had a headquarters in London. It provides transportation
services like bus, cars and trains etc. according to needs of its customers and successfully
running with rapid growth in the transportation sector. Now Your Destination is seeking to
expand its business and establish new branches to other main locations like Glasgow,
Newcastle, Manchester and Aberdeen and in order to compete with the most successful
company of the transportation sector ‘National Express’. Your Destination provides better
services to at reasonable rates to its customers to attract a high amount of customers to obtain
a higher market share as compared to its competitor.
SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS OF MARKET
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For the better understanding of the market, a situational analysis of the market is done. The
situational analysis involves a collection of methods used to analyze the internal and external
environment of the company to evaluate the various factors that may affect or influence the
overall working of the organization (Terpstra, et al.2012). To ensure the growth of Your
Destination both internal and external analysis should be performed.
Internal Analysis:
The internal analysis is used for the screening of all the internal resources and factors of the
company. As Your destination is a transportation service based company its internal factors
mainly consist of its staff, drivers, cleaners and attendants. The behaviour and attitude of these
employees could affect the performance of the company. Internal factors could be controlled
by the company. So, it must be timely checked and evaluated to ensure better customer
services.
External Analysis:
External analysis refers to the analysis of all those external factors which Your Destination could
not control directly and had an adverse effect on its business operations. The external analysis
is mainly performed through SWOT analysis which helps in accessing all the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the company. SWOT analysis helps in getting an
overview of such factors which could affect the operation of the business and also provide a
basis for framing various plans and Decisions of the company (Ayub, et al.2013).
SWOT ANALYSIS
It is a tool to get the information about the internal strengths and weaknesses and external
opportunities and threats of Your Destination.
Strengths: Strengths of your destination are those internal factors which have a positive impact
on the performance of the organization. The staff and drivers are the internal strength of Your
Destination. As they serve as an important link between the customers and company and
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provides quality services to their customers to maintain and gain strong customer value and
satisfaction.
Weakness: The internal weakness of Your Destination is its limited access in the country. Your
Destination delivers better services to its competitors since last 3 year but only in two cities
which limit its ventures of growth and development and hence, Your Destination decided to
expand its business top overcome from such internal threats to its growth and development.
Opportunities: Your Destination has an opportunity to grow and expand its business to by
opening various branches different cities. And the company could convert its internal weakness
of growth to its opportunity by increasing its customer base through branching out.
Threats: Threats to Your Destination are those entire external factors which adversely affect
the business operation. The main threat to Your Destination is its competitor National Express
which is serving nationwide. In order to overcome such threat, Your Destination adapted an
expansion strategy. Other external threats to your Destination are government policies,
customer preferences and technology change etc. such threat should also need to be evaluated
for the smooth running of the business operations.
PESTEL ANALYSIS
Your Destination uses PESTEL analysis to analyze and monitor all the macro environmental
factors which have an impact on and may affect its business operations. The macro
environmental factors considered in PESTEl analysis are discussed below
Political: Political factors include the various rules and policies of the government which may
have an impact on the operations of Your Destination.
Economic: Recession, inflation, exchange rate, taxes and financial issues of company etc. are
the economic factors which must be considered while making a marketing plan for effective
manoeuvre of Your Destination.
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Social: Social factors are such factors which are responsible for changing customer perception
and preferences regarding the services provided by Your destination. So, the company analyzes
such social factors in order to maintain its customer base.
Technological: Your Destination is aware of the importance technology in today’s world and
hence, it uses the modern technology for its business operations for reaching to its customers.
Environmental: Your destination is already aware of environmental issues and follows the path
of sustainable development while serving to its customers.
Legal: while determining its marketing plan for Your Destination marketing manager is required
to have knowledge of all the laws and trade policies of the country in which it serves to avoid
unnecessary threats to the company (Ho, 2014).
BUSINESS OBJECTIVE OF YOUR DESTINATION
The main objective of Your Destination is to expand its business by branching out to other cities
in order to compete with National Express and to become a top company in the transportation
service sector.
STRATEGY OF YOUR DESTINATION
The strategy of Your destination is to mix all the main elements of the marketing (7P's) i.e.
product, price, promotion, place, people, physical evidence and process to achieve and ensure
the growth of the company. With a unique blend of the marketing mix with proper marketing
tool and techniques, an effective marketing strategy is developed for the implementation in
order to achieve the desired objective of the company.
MARKET SEGMENTATION, TARGETING AND POSITIONING
The segmentation of Your Destination is mainly based on the geographical factor of the market.
It provides its services to the larger cities with the higher population to serve and attract a
higher customer base.
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Your destination targets the middle or lower class customers who seek comfortable services
and are usually dependent upon transportation services at reasonable or lower price.
The positioning means establishing the brand name in the market(Phil, and Jim, 2010) and your
Destination is become successful by positioning its name in the market through proper
advertising and by using an effective modern technology and techniques to get attention in the
market).
TACTICS AND ACTIONS
Your Destination is required to apply proper tactics and action according to the strategies and
plan formulated to accomplish its desired goal in a right period of time. All the personnel
associated with the company should carry out their respective roles and responsibilities in
order to ensure the highest place in the market.
BUDGET AND CONTROL
Budget is prepared after properly analyzing and evaluating all the internal and external
situation and available information (Foxall, 2014). After all the analyzing and evaluation Your
Destination is required to make a total budget of £150000 which includes the amount required
for training (£30000), planning(£20000), research(25000), human resource functions(£55000),
and other important functions(£20000). This budget will help the company to maintain the flow
of operation.
Regular control is very important to ensure proper usage of budget and to monitor overall
functioning of the operations of the business to achieve the desired targets and objectives.
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CONCLUSION
The marketing plan of Your Destination will enable the company to achieve its objective of
expansion to different locations to gain a competitive advantage in the transportation sector of
UK. It provides the basis for the overall functioning of the company by assisting it in its future
endeavour and Support Company to compete with National Express. The roles and
responsibilities of managers and officers discussed above will help them to make most out of
their work. If the strategies and plan discussed above are successfully implemented then Your
Destination will definitely get the desired place in the transportation service sector in the UK.
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