An Analysis of Bendigo Bank's Integrated Marketing Approach (Report)

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Bendigo Bank's integrated marketing strategies. It begins with an overview of the bank's background and objectives, emphasizing its focus on the 18-30 age group within the Australian retail banking sector. The report then delves into Bendigo Bank's target market segmentation, examining demographic, psychographic, and behavioral attributes to understand the needs and preferences of its customer base. It also analyzes Bendigo Bank's brand value proposition, comparing its approach to competitors and highlighting the importance of aligning marketing goals with brand identity. The report further explores the traditional marketing communication mix elements used by Bendigo Bank, such as corporate image, branding, market segmentation, customer relationship management, advertising, direct marketing, and sponsorship. It assesses the effectiveness of these elements in reaching the target audience and building brand awareness. The report underscores the importance of integrated marketing communication in creating a consistent brand image and delivering value to customers. Overall, the report provides a detailed examination of Bendigo Bank's marketing efforts, offering insights into its strategies and their impact on its brand image and customer engagement.

Integrated Marketing

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:..........................................................................................................................1
Background-...........................................................................................................................1
Target market and segmentation-...........................................................................................2
Brand value and proposition-.................................................................................................3
Traditional marketing communication mix-...........................................................................4
Digital communication-..........................................................................................................6
Integrated marketing communication strategy-......................................................................7
REFERENCES: ..............................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION:
Marketing is a basic requirement tool for every organisation. It is useful in determining
organisation brand value in the market. This helps in identifying needs and wants of customers
so that it can be fulfilled. Integrated marketing is an approach followed by organisation to give
different experience to their employees to interact with the brand. It includes different types of
advertising activities such as promotion, direct sales, offers, etc. with marketing mix. It is done to
ensure that all strategies are properly consistent across every channel. This report will highlight
some basic strategies followed by an organisation to re-build its brand image in the market. Also,
it will show how different strategies are developed to identify customer’s needs.
For this assignment, organisation selected is Bendigo bank. It belongs to retail banking
sector and operates in Australia. The existence of the company on national level requires
effective marketing strategies (Percy 2014). Thus, this assignment will show that how firm
integrated its marketing activities to increase its brand image to targeted customers.
Background-
The main objective of Bendigo bank is to provide all finance related facilities and
services to people generally belonging to 18-30 years of age. It is because these young people
require more finance in order to fulfil their needs. They are at a stage where they usually require
more money to build their career. It is an age where most graduates want to start their own
business. So, for this, they require loan. Thus, bendigo focuses on this age group. Banking
industry is growing very fast. It is because of increasing small businesses and economic
condition. Its growth is not limited to geographical but also demographical aspects. There are
various other banks in this industry providing different services to people. But they focus on all
age groups. Therefore, there is stiff competition in the market. These banks develop several
strategies according to competitors and promote them using different media. The major market
share is shared by government bank so it becomes quite difficult for retail private banks to
compete with them (Belch and et..al 2014). As bendigo is a public sector enterprise, it enjoys a
larger market share. Moreover, the growth in this industry depends upon economic and market
condition of nation. Also, it depends how customer is retained by industry as many other
institutions exist that provides similar financial services. Due to stiff competition no firm is able
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to gain large amount of market share. This enables bendigo to develop strategies to survive in the
market. For continuous growth it is important that people needs and wants are fulfilled.
Target market and segmentation-
Bendigo target market ranges between people of age group 18-30. It is because these
people demands are very similar to each other and increases with time. They want to have more
income in order to fulfil their needs (Camilleri 2018). The behaviour of all people in this age
group is similar to each other. Also, it changes with a little change in the society. These people
are more focused towards their goals to be achieved. All 18-30 people almost have same kinds of
needs and wants. It is a stage where most people build their career. Generally, it includes
youngsters who are willing to continue their studies or to start business. Moreover, life style and
values of these people differs from age. Their needs and wants is to have a better future of their
family. Moreover, by living a quality life in the society by fulfilling their needs. There are
various segments in demographic, psycho graphic and behavioural attributes.
Demographic- It includes age, gender, occupation and income level of 18-30 people. It
describes that people life style changes according to change in their demographic attributes.
Also, their needs and wants increases with increase in income.
Psycho graphic- It is based upon peoples interests, values and life style. It determines people
living standards and the way in which they represent themselves (Armstrong and et..al 2015).
Behavioural- It divides population based on their behaviour. It shows that how people respond,
use or know about a product or service. It must be analysed before introducing a product to
people. It shows that how a customer is loyal to brand or what factors influence his decision
making.
Bendigo can focus on psycho graphic segment of people as it is based upon life style ,
values of people. By identifying needs of these people it can provide services that can help in
improving their living standards. Also, 18-30 age group people have similar interest. They want
more simple financial services to fulfil their needs. Furthermore, these people are very much
focused towards their goals. So in order to achieve that they need sources of finance. Bendigo
can be market themselves as a useful source of finance. It will help entity to focus on them and
creating brand awareness (Luxton, Reid and Mavondo 2015).
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For implementing this idea data can be collected from both primary and secondary
sources. Primary sources includes doing research in the market with various methods. These
methods include questionnaire, survey, etc. It will provide data regarding needs and demands of
people (Sheth and Sisodia 2015). Also, how these services will influence their standard of living.
It requires time and resources to conduct primary research but data available will be very useful
for bendigo. Whereas secondary data can be gathered from newspaper, articles,m research books,
etc. it will provide information on how people life is changed through various financial services.
Moreover, how people needs have changed over the past years.
Brand value and proposition-
Bendigo is seen as a bank that provides financial services at low cost and is available to
every individual. It provides educational loan to people who want to continue their studies or
want to go abroad. Its brand position is like a youngster’s institute which fulfil all their needs and
desires. The cited bank has targeted this age group because they are the future of nation and a
little change in taste and preference of them will lead to improve living standard of society.
These are people who are responsible for creating healthy environment in society. It can only be
done by fulfilling demands. Other banks only focus on how to improve entire economic
condition of nation so they provide services accordingly. They do not promote as people known
very much known about them. These banks brand position is different due to their mix strategies.
They focus not on particular group but on everyone to increase profits. Also, services are not
properly communicated to people so effectively (Kitchen,. and Burgmann 2015). People
belonging to age group 18-30 want effective and quick services. Apart from this, these services
should be available at low cost and nearest location. Services offered by other banks involve a lot
of documentation and also time consuming. Other banks goals are to do banking to increase
business with customers but bendigo focus on developing relationships with customers. That's
why it is able to retain their customers. Their marketing strategies focus on delivering brand
value to its customers. But in recent times their reputation is decreased due to lack of services
provided by them. This gave an opportunity for competitors to grab this and offer them better
services. Competitors have created an image of their brand in the minds of people. They have
positioned their products in such a way that it has attracted a lot of consumers of age group 18-
30. They have clearly differentiated their products features and services from competitors.
Hence, it is the main reason that bendigo is not able to gain enough market share (IKhizar and
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et..al 2016). Marketing goals of bendigo should be improved with change in customers needs. It
should develop strategies on how to differentiate products form other to attracts consumers.
Company goals must be related with it brand value and mission. Effective marketing goals must
be developed that will give a direction to advertise their product. These goals will decide what
measure can be taken to improve communication between people and bank. If market
segmentation is done it is easy to identify target customer. Then strategies can be based on this.
It helps in providing clear focus on achieving marketing goals. Therefore, bendigo must focus on
creating goals so that it becomes easy to identify services features (Fain and Long 2015).
Traditional marketing communication mix-
Marketing helps in promoting and creating awareness about product or services of a
company. It is a useful tool which helps in increasing sales and profits of company. There are
various elements that are used in marketing. These elements help in communicating features or
characteristics of products to audience. Marketing elements plays a crucial role as it shows how
effective their strategies are. The effectiveness of elements depends upon time and cost involved
in it. More effective an element will be more sales will be there. It is called marketing
communication elements mix.
In this case Bendigo can used several elements in marketing their services. This will help them to
increasing awareness and attracting customer. Moreover, it will be useful to determine
effectiveness of marketing goals by measuring each element outcomes. Bendigo uses different
available elements that are described below:-
Corporate image- It refers to characteristics of business. It shows that what is company policy,
value and why is it set up. It defines companies culture which helps in giving effective message.
Branding- It indicates name associated with company or product. It provides customers a feeling
of being associated with company. Integrated marketing helps in creating brand image of
company (Schultz, Kim and Kang 2014).
Market segmentation- This describes the target market of company. It shows which type of
customers are been targeted. It varies according to product features or needs of customers. It is
important to segment the market because it provides a clear focus in developing business
strategies.
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Customer relationship management (CRM)- It is an important marketing element as it helps
in retaining customers. It is program designed to give customers services to make them loyal
towards the brand.
Advertising- It is most common element used by Bendigo to promote their services. It uses local
forms of media such as newspaper, TV, etc. to advertise services. It is very costly but message is
reached to a large amount of people. Bendigo can use this through social media as their targeted
customers mostly prefers to spend time on it (Holland, 2016).
Direct marketing- It refers to promoting services from door to door. It is usually used by newly
established companies to promote their products. It is very time consuming and costly process s
it requires a lot of human resource. This type of marketing can be used for a particular small
area.
Sponsorship- It refers to promoting through any specific event or organising a campaign. It is
done to make people aware about product. It can include celebrity endorsement. This help in
gaining market share in financial terms.
Each element is having its own strengths and weakness. It is because it differs from each
other and is used in different situations. Although all of them is useful in creating awareness and
increasing sales. Advertising helps in reaching out a large number of audience at same time.
Moreover, it is useful in identifying potential customer behaviour to buy product. But it is very
costly process. This age group people usually avoid watching ads and skip it when it appears. On
the other hand direct marketing helps in knowing whether a customer is interested in buying
product or not. It helps in giving detailed information about product or service. While this
method can only be followed in specific area. Some people avoid this type of marketing because
they consider it as a waste. Sponsorship helps in building positive image and goodwill of
company product. It also does publicity along with this (Spiller and Tuten 2015). It is a time
consuming process as it requires a lot a proper plan between both parties.
Therefore, it is recommended that Bendigo must identify correct source of marketing element. It
must ensue that marketing goal is related to business strategy. For this age group advertising can
be done through social media. It is because most people are attracted towards social media.
Moreover, it is a low budget element and very effective. Goal should be to attract youngsters
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towards Bendigo by differentiating services in better way. Furthermore, it is a public sector
enterprise so people will be attracted more quickly. By calculating return on investment it
provides outcomes of effectiveness of marketing element. Bendigo will get an insight on which
type of marketing tool to be used.
Digital communication-
In present era it is very important for company to engage with customer in a digital way.
For this several digital tools are used to solve customers problems in quick time. It is useful both
for company as well as customers (Lusch and Vargo 2014). It is a process in which all product
information is provided to people through internet. This type of marketing is known as digital
marketing. Bendigo can create a banking application for customers to provide them all services
information. This will create awareness among consumers and becoming easy to use those. Their
digital marketing strength will as targeted audience are youngsters and educated, they prefer
using internet. So it will be a great advantage for Bendigo. Moreover, people will trust easily as
it is operating since many years. Apart from this its weakness is its competitors are already using
digital marketing so it will be very difficult for Bendigo to have success in this campaign. Digital
campaign will help in retrieving customers data and information about their interest in banking
services. It will reflect people activities with banking services. The data and information
gathered from digital market will be useful in making changes in advertising strategies.
Moreover, by providing effective services through digital marketing they will be able to create
brand awareness. Digital marketing will have a global reach which helps in marketing of
products more easily and at lower cost. It is also beneficial in converting customers to use
company product or service.
Bendigo can engaged with customers on their website. They can provide services
information on website or by mailing them. It can be done by having basic information of
customer who visit their website. There is a huge difference between digital and print marketing.
Bin digital marketing people are sent mails or contacted through website. While in print there is
no contact between people and company (Khizar and et..al 2016). Moreover, in digital marketing
feedback taken is instant and in print there is no feedback taken. Bendigo can directly engage
with consumers in digital marketing and making them aware about services. It will help in
building brand image and giving detailed information about services. Also, queries of customers
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can be solved at same time. But if bendigo uses print media it will be difficult for them to get in
direct contact with customers. Customers queries can not solve and non feedback is given.
Bendigo goals is to create its brand value in the market focusing on people between age
group 18-30. So for this digital marketing is the best way to attract these people due to use of
advanced technology. Most companies are marketing their products digitally. So it will be easy
for bank to use this technique (Holland 2016). Also, cost incurred in this is very low and there
are high chances of getting response from large number of customers. So it is recommended that
bendigo must use digital marketing as it is an effective way of marketing product or service.
Also, it will help in transforming entire business operations. The data gathered can be uploaded
to website and used by customers to make decision. A digital campaign must be used by cited
firm to position itself to its targeted customers. This campaign will enable people to join and
associate with firm. They will also get to know about difference between bendigo and its
competitors services. Moreover, firm can take decision to develop strategy on promoting its
services through other ways. This increases market share of firm thus leading to stronger brand
position.
Integrated marketing communication strategy-
Bendigo must improve its marketing strategy for targeting customers. They should
develop different strategies for marketing their product. For this it can use advertising element
which will be very beneficial for them. As it is a public enterprise it do not have to worry about
finance. Moreover, direct marketing and other element is not useful due to its large business
operations. They must provide offers on different services such as taking no charge on credit
cards, removing debit card charges, reducing interest rate on loans, etc. This will create a high
impact on young generation. Integrating all marketing elements will help in providing a direction
to develop strategies and goals for young generation. A proper flow of business activities will be
developed increasing customer satisfaction. If targeted group is aware about services offered by
bendigo then there will be increase in more demand of services. Furthermore, digital marketing
will help in attracting customers and identifying potential ones. By gathering and analysing data
of social media, websites, etc. Promotional strategies can be developed. These strategies have a
huge impact on bendigo services. A proper plan can be made to analyse each element return on
investment (ROI). Enterprise can show its customer about profits made during past years. It can
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gain peoples trust by showing its shares price (Spiller and Tuten 2015). Also, it is a public
enterprise s it can invest in advertising its services without any barrier. Therefore, it will help in
making an integrated marketing communication strategy. This will help cited firm to increase its
brand image to its targeted market. Moreover, it will enable enterprise to compete with other in
the market. Communication will be increased within various departments of advertising. So a
combined marketing strategy can be developed to integrated all marketing activities.
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REFERENCES:
Books and Journals:
Armstrong and et..al 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.
Belch and et..al 2014. Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective.
McGraw-Hill Education.
Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Integrated Marketing Communications. In Travel Marketing, Tourism
Economics and the Airline Product (pp. 85-103). Springer. Cham.
Fain, D. and Long, M., 2015. Updating a Research Tradition by Examining the Effect of New
High Tech Channels on Consumer Search and Integrated Marketing: A Framework for
Teaching.
Holland, J., 2016. Social impact “buycotts”: a tool for innovation, impact, and engagement to
teach integrated marketing communications. Marketing Education Review.26(1).pp.33-38.
Khizar and et..al 2016. Effect of Integrated Marketing Communication Components on Brand
Awareness and Customer Loyalty in Beverage Sector.
Kitchen, P.J. and Burgmann, I., 2015. Integrated marketing communication: Making it work at a
strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy.36(4). pp.34-39.
Lusch, R.F. and Vargo, S.L., 2014. The service-dominant logic of marketing: Dialog, debate,
and directions. Routledge.
Luxton, S., Reid, M. and Mavondo, F., 2015. Integrated marketing communication capability
and brand performance. Journal of Advertising.44(1). pp.37-46.
Percy, L., 2014. Strategic integrated marketing communications. Routledge.
Schultz, D.E., Kim, I. and Kang, K., 2014. Integrated marketing communication research. The
handbook of international advertising research.pp.455-483.
Sheth, J.N. and Sisodia, R.S., 2015. Does marketing need reform?: Fresh perspectives on the
future. Routledge.
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Spiller, L. and Tuten, T., 2015. Integrating metrics across the marketing curriculum: The digital
and social media opportunity. Journal of Marketing Education.37(2). pp.114-126.
Online:
Bendigo Bank, 2018. [Online] Available through: <https://www.bendigobank.com.au/public/>
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