This essay evaluates the service marketing techniques of Toyota, including niche marketing, social media marketing, SEO, referrals marketing, and customer relationship management.
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SERVICE MARKETING TOYOTA 4/22/2019 TOYOTA XXXXXXX
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Contents Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2 Niche Marketing Strategy........................................................................................................................2 Social Media Marketing...........................................................................................................................2 Search Engine Optimization (SEO)...........................................................................................................3 Referrals Marketing.................................................................................................................................3 Customer Relationship Management System..............................................................................................4 References...................................................................................................................................................6
Introduction TheAmerican Marketing Associationdefines service marketing as “the activities, the benefits or the services which are provided for sale by a service provider and generally in connection with the sale of goods” (Chetty, 2010). There are various techniques that are used by service providing firms for the marketing of their respective services such as word-of-mouth, referrals, social media, demonstrations among others (Ashe-Edmunds, n.d.). The purpose of this essay is to explain and evaluate the service marketing techniques of Toyota – a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer. Toyota provides various services to its customers includes Rent a Toyota, Toyota Repair Services, Toyota Tire Replacement Services, etc. The techniques which the company follows for providing these services are discussed and evaluated below: Niche Marketing Strategy It is a targetable focused portion of the market. A company usually decides to launch a new product or service by targeting only one segment of the market. This leads to specialization of the company in that particular segment for that particular product or service. Toyota follows the practice of niche marketing. It was one of the first automotive companiestounderstandthattherewasasegmentofconsumersinterestedin environment friendly cars. To meet these needs, Toyota launched Prius, an environment friendly car aimed at the sustainable user segment (Angelo, 2012). For marketing this car, Toyota used environment friendly focus groups. The impact of this was that Toyota not only created the niche, but was considered the niche itself. Prius is still regarded as the top choice for environment friendly cars. Social Media Marketing Social media marketing for both products and services is leading the way for marketing strategiesforalltypesofcompanies.Facebook,Instagram,Twitter,Pinterestand YouTube provide for a global audience reach that traditional marketing techniques could never provide. Toyota successfully made the leap from being a traditionally marketed firm to being known for using social media to market its products. In 2014, to launch Tundra, Toyota filmed Instagram, videos of the car and pushed them through ads on Facebook. The effect of this was that Toyota saved on a major part of its advertising budgetandatthesametimesuccessfullyengagingtheirtargetaudience.Toyota
generated thousands of ‘likes’ across social media platforms for its car videos for a few seconds’ videos – showing a high return on investment for its marketing strategy (Roy, 2017). Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Social media marketing has been discussed above, but for it to be successful the target audience has to be able to find the name of the brand in the searched results. This is possible with the help of Search Engine Optimization. It is a tool that uses targeted keywords that the consumers search for and either found those words on the company’s social media channels directly or lead to a link which would direct the customers to those channels (Frederiksen, 2015). Toyota has used this tool for the launch of its cars. The Toyota Hybrid Prius was launched through SEO on its social media channels. One search on Google for ‘environment – friendly cars’ will show either Toyota Hybrid Prius or the Toyota Yaris Hybrid. Instead of using the mass advertisement approach, the company focused on using this innovative channel for marketing of its products which helped it to bring in the dollars (Cameron, 2016). Toyota undertook a customer research to identify and evaluate the impact of their use of SEO which showed that there was an increase by 44% in the number of customers who were interested in buying an environment friendly car in the coming time. Referrals Marketing It is the way of marketing new products and services through referral programs, usually word of mouth. In this form of marketing of products or services, the existing customers of a business are used to market a new product to potential customers through referral links, etc. for which they get added benefits. Toyota is one of the companies which has proved that this form of marketing is one of the most successful tool for selling vehicles. Toyota dealers have turned to online programs that reward customers for referring their family and friends to that particular dealership for buying a Toyota car. The surveys conducted by the company at its Colorado (USA) dealership has revealed success especially in case of customers who are well versed in digital spaces (Charniga, 2017). There are various ways in which a referral marketing program can be implemented - the
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most common being online referrals and word – to – word referrals. Care has to be taken while implementing this program; a referral should seem genuine and not look like its coming because of a marketing strategy. Customer Relationship Management System It is the system of developing and managing long term relationships between the company and its customers. The purpose of developing this system is to develop a system of marketing of products and services to the customers of the company such that it leads to easy identification, tracking and management of information of the customers which willfurtherleadtoeasymarketing.ToyotahasimplementedaLeanCustomer Relationship Marketing program (Hill, 2006). Everything that the company does – it does with their customers in mind. This strategy was developed in response to the growing customer base of Toyota. It allows the company to sense and identify change in the customers’ behavior and subsequently, respond in such a manner that leads to satisfaction of the needs of the customer. The company guides the customer in the entire process of selling a car – right from giving and discussing different options to actually making the sale to providing after – sale services. . This Lean strategy of Toyota has significantly increased its market share in the past few years and higher sales of its vehicles. In conclusion, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate various marketing strategies of company. The service marketing strategies of the company help to provide and increase the quality of serviceswhichareprovidedbythecompanyathand.Toyota–aJapaneseautomotive manufacturer - provides various services along with its manufacturing operations. This company has been used as an example and its marketing strategies have been mentioned here. Toyota provides various kinds of services but the primary ones provided are for the purpose of renting, repairing and replacement of various auto motives and parts. The various strategies have also beendiscussedhereincludingitsnichemarketing,itsreferralsmarketing,itscustomer relationship management, its social media marketing and its marketing through search engine optimization of results. Appropriate examples including those of Toyota Prius, Toyota Hybrid
Prius, and Toyota Yaris among others have been explained in detail. The paper highlights the strategies which make it a distinguishing force and differentiates it from the rest of the automotive companies providing services.
References Angelo.(2012,May7).SuccessfulNicheMarketing.Retrievedfrom https://www.smartmarketingllc.com/successful-niche-marketing/. Ashe-Edmunds,S.(n.d.).TypesofServiceMarketingStrategies.Retrievedfrom https://smallbusiness.chron.com/types-service-marketing-strategies-47295.html. Cameron, N. (2016, June 6).Why Toyota launched the new Prius hybrid car on Facebook and Instagram.Retrieved from https://www.cmo.com.au/article/601102/why-toyota-launched-new- prius-hybrid-car-facebook-instagram/. Charniga,J.(2017,October23).Tellafriend,butdoitonline.Retrievedfrom https://www.autonews.com/article/20171023/RETAIL07/171029947/tell-a-friend-but-do-it- online. Chetty,P.(2010,October30).Conceptofservicemarketing.Retrievedfrom https://www.projectguru.in/publications/service-marketing/. Frederiksen, L. (2015, March 24).10 Essential B2B Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Professional Services Firm.Retrieved from https://www.socialmediatoday.com/marketing/2015- 03-24/10-essential-b2b-marketing-strategies-grow-your-professional-services-firm. Hill, J. (2006, April 9).The Lean CRM-Toyota Story: You Can Have a Strategy That Works in Manufacturing and Marketing Environments.Retrieved from http://customerthink.com/193/. Roy, H. (2017, December 17).Case Study: Social Media Marketing Strategies for Toyota Cars. Retrievedfromhttps://www.digitalmarketingknowledge.com/social-media-marketing-case- study-toyota/.