Marketing Analysis and Planning for Your Destination's Growth

This report examines the marketing strategies of Your Destination, a transportation company. It begins by outlining the roles and responsibilities of marketing functions, including market research, promotion, pricing, and customer service, and how these functions relate to other departments such as sales, finance, and logistics. The report then delves into how Your Destination applies the 7Ps of the marketing mix (product, promotion, price, place, people, process, and physical evidence) to its marketing planning to achieve its objectives. The report also includes a comparison of traditional and online marketing approaches, and highlights the importance of direct marketing. Finally, it produces and evaluates a basic marketing plan, emphasizing the significance of market research, product development, communication, and sales support in achieving overall company goals. The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the marketing strategies essential for the company's growth and market competitiveness.

Marketing Essential

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1...........................................................................................................................................1
P1 Explaining the roles and responsibility of marketing functions............................................1
P2 Explaining how these roles relate to other department of Your Destination.........................2
TASK 2...........................................................................................................................................4
P3 Comparing how Your Destination apply marketing mix to marketing planning to achieve
marketing objective.....................................................................................................................4
TASK 3...........................................................................................................................................7
P4 Producing and evaluating a basic marketing plan for an organisation..................................7
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
In today's world where the competition is increasing day by day doing the
promotion and market research of a business is of utmost important for any
organisation. Marketing is that part or department of any organisation which enable
the organisation and its other department to promote their products and services.
Marketing activities include promotion, advertising, distribution and market research
of its products and services. In the present report on the newly emerging transportation
company Your Destination in London which is likely to expand and built up its
business in other parts of UK. Your Destination need a strong and innovative
marketing plan which would include the 7P's of marketing mix, marketing objective,
SWOT and PESTLE analysis in achieving the marketing goal of the organisation as a
whole. All the other departments of Your Destination like selling & customer service
department, production & operating department, finance and accounting department,
marketing department, technology & data department and transportation & logistic
department all coordinate and work together for achieving organisations objective.
TASK 1
P1 Explaining the roles and responsibility of marketing functions.
Marketing functions are the activities which a marketing department and
marketing manager perform in the organisation like that of marketing researches,
producing marketing plan and product development. These all include online and
offline marketing and advertising of the products and services to promote them in
marketplace to increase the profits of organisation. All these marketing functions play
important roles and have the responsibilities in Your Destination to help it to grow and
develop in market. Your Destination is a newly setup bus transportation company
which specialised in private and industrial level transportation facilities (Zhao, Liu
and Pei, 2017.). This company is growing faster after 3 years of successful operations
within London and Essex and has decided to become nationwide company with
transportation in Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Aberdeen etc. One of its main
objective is also to compete with National Express who is the market leader. The roles
and responsibilities which the marketing function of Your Destination is performing
are very essentials which are the online and offline advertising, customer service,
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market research, distribution, setting the price, product & service management and all
promotional activities.
 Market Research- what is the demand of customers, what are the chances
which are to be made and what is the requirements in the field of innovation
are all part of market research. It is the function of marketing of Your
Destination to do marketing research so that it can grow the market area of till
Manchester and Newcastle as well.
 Promotion- as Your Destination is a new transportation company which is
operating since last 3 years so is not too much popular among the large masses
of UK so the promotion of the bus service very important (Verma, 2017).
Promotion can be done online and offline so that it can easily reach to a wide
area of UK.
 Pricing- setting the price of any product and service of Your Destination is
also the role of marketing department only. As it is the department which
interact with the customer on a regular bases so know what actually the
customer want and then can set the price according to customer.
 Product And Service Management- the service which a transportation
company is providing includes timely delivery of passengers, transport of
goods, maintaining the quality of service and providing the latest technology in
buses.
 Customer Service- as the marketing department is that department which is
closest to the customers so they know better what are the need and demand of
customers.
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Illustration 1: Marketing structure
[Source: Marketing structure, 2017]
Marketing structure divided in to two segments traditional and online marketing:
Traditional this is an old form of marketing which include public relationship or PR
and offline advertising in which the management is said to do the marketing through
newspapers or pamphlets etc. to attract the customer.
Online this is the modern form which includes the social media and SEO whose work
is to get more links from the market by social media platforms
Marketing responsibilities- marketing department at Yours Destination are having
many responsibilities which they need to carry on and to make the company more
profitable and to make it expand in near future as well.
Strategy- the manager at the marketing department will need to form the strategies of
marketing department that they need to achieve and keeping in mind the overall
company's objective.
Market research- this is also the responsibilities of the marketing department at Yours
Destination as they do the research of the market and that of the customer to make out
what are the demand of the customer regarding the transportation company\.
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Product development- after they have done the market research the marketing
department need to do all necessary changes and development in the product by
coordinating with the R&D department. And thereafter they do the marketing of the
new or changed product in the market.
Communications- this is the main and the most important work of the marketing
department and is the biggest responsibilities to communicate to the audience what is
bad and what is good in the product of Yours Destination. They all create the
promotional tools and strategies to communicate with the customers so that the sales
are increased.
Sales support- they coordinate with the sales department and know their sales target
and thereafter help them to increase their sales. As per their advertising in the market
sales are supported by the marketing department.
P2 Explaining how these roles relate to other department of Your Destination.
All the said roles and responsibilities of the marketing functions like online and
offline advertising, customer service, market research, distribution, setting the price,
product & service management and all promotional activities are related to the other
departments of Your Destination. As without doing the customer or market research
production or the operating department that how many more buses are required on the
set route (Udachyna, Bandorina and Savchuk, 2017). Without doing the offline and
online promotion of the buses Your Destination will not be able to increase its
customer or will not be able to compete with National Express. So all the departments
like selling & customer service department, production & operating department,
finance & accounting department, marketing department, technology & data
department and transportation & logistic department work together. If they all are not
working or coordinating together then Your Destination will not be able to perform in
a way it actually wants to perform in the market.
 Selling & Customer Service- if the marketing department is not able to
promote the company and its products then certainly customer will not come to
know about Your Destination (Rudden, 2016). And if customer do not know
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about Your Destination then there will be no sales of the products and services
of company.
 Finance & Accounting- by marketing Your Destination will naturalize how
many funds are required in achieving the set goal. After it know the
requirement of the fund the finance and accounting department will allocate the
funds to the other department as well.
 Transportation & Logistic- the work of logistic department is to plan,
implement and control procedures for the efficient and effective transportation
and storage of goods including the services. This also help the marketing
department to know how and where to route the buses every morning according
to the need.
TASK 2
P3 Comparing how Your Destination apply marketing mix to marketing planning to
achieve marketing objective.
Illustration 2: Marketing mix
[Source: Marketing mix. 2017]
Your Destination being the service providing company uses the modern form
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of marketing mix i.e. 7P's which includes product, promotion, price, place, people,
process and physical evidence (Rezaei, Wee and Valaei, 2017). Marketing mix are the
essential part of marketing that is control by a company to influence the customer to
purchase its product and avail the services. Your Destination is also applying
marketing mix and the 7P's of it to marketing planning and to achieve the business
objective.
Product- the product of Your Destination include the quality of service which it is
providing to its customers. The brand image of Your Destination is also included
in it and features of services like providing the air conditioned buses which are at
the same time very neat and tidy. And the availability of buses at the right place
that too on right time is also necessary. The features of buses provided by Yours
Destination like air conditions, seats, sleeper couch, lights and music system, free
Wi-Fi and automatic doors are very important to attract the customers (Pappas,
2017). Your Destination should also ensure that it has taken all the health and
safety measures of the passengers travelling like establishing fire extinguishers,
emergency exit, fire alarm and toilets in the buses at all routes.
Promotion- the marketing communication of Your Destination about the buses
which are running on the set routes are of utmost important so that the customers
will come to know about the buses of Your Destination. The public representative
of Your Destination will also play important role to set a healthy relationship with
the public. Your Destination can also do the direct marketing of the services and
products provided by the transportation company which would include doing
marketing by mail orders or by telephonic communication rather than through
retailers. Direct marketing will surely affect a large mass of customers as
compared to any other promotional activities as in this Your Destination will be
communicating with customers directly.
Price- this includes the value of the product or service which a customer is ready to
pay and the company has set. Setting the price of the products is the one of the
main aim and function of marketing department by looking at the demand and
supply of the products and services. If there is an increase in price of Yours
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Destination buses then the demand will automatically fall down. All the other
tools of price such as the discounts, payments methods and free or value added
items are also a part of pricing of Yours Destination (Heroux, 2017). Like at
initial stages of growth the company should surely provide the discount to the
customer so that more and more customers are attracted towards Yours
Destination.
Place- this will be included the channels and routes at which the buses of Your
Destination are running on. Availability of the buses at right place and on right
time is also a part of place mix of the 7P's. The trade channels through which the
company is operating and trading in the market like the marketing company who
are doing the marketing for Yours Destination. The number of channel or number
of routes on which the buses of Your Destination are running and all new routes
are also a part of place.
People- all the individuals of the company starting from the owners to the mangers
and from marketing agents to bus conductors or drivers are the people or the
human resource of Yours Destination. The people are the main essence of any
company as they are the one who actually running and growing the business
without them the company can not function as it need to (Domegan and et.nl
2017). Your Destination must train and develop the skill of the persons working in
company and the culture must always be very familiar and harmonised.
Process- the process mainly comprise customer focus as only the customer of Your
Destination can help the company to grow in the market. The process followed by
Yours Destination from booking the tickets to delivery of the passengers to their
destination all should be customer friendly. All the research and development in
the field of transportation will be included in the process of the marketing mix. IT
department will help Your Destination to bring innovation in buses so that they
can suit the customer and meet up their demand.
Physical Evidence- as Yours Destination is a transportation company so the
physical evidence of the buses, bus stops and online website or app to book the
tickets must be there. The experience of customer with that of staff must be also
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good which matters a lot in the service industry. The online experience of
customer is also important as mostly customers prefer online tickets booking
rather than going to the counters.
TASK 3
P4 Producing and evaluating a basic marketing plan for an organisation.
Illustration 3: Marketing Plan
[Source: Marketing Plan. 2017]
Marketing plan is the blueprint that outlines a business advertising and marketing
efforts for the company in a certain year (Chandiok and Sharma, 2017). Marketing
plan regard creation of the mission or objective, segmentation positioning and
targeting the customers, SWOT and PESTLE analysis, promotional strategies and then
monitoring the results.
 Business objective- as Your Destination is a newly formed transportation in
only to a specified area of London and Essex now after 3 years want to expand
its business to Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow and Aberdeen etc. as well.
And the second objective is to compete with National Express who is the
market leader as of now. If Your Destination know what it wants to achieve
then the company can put its efforts in achieving it and communicate the target
to all the departments is also important.
 Segmentation Positioning And Targeting- after setting the target Your
Destination should list out their targeted customers. As for a transportation
company all the segments are the customer of the company and there is no set
or particular section that like or need to travel in the buses. Every one who are
in need or willing to travel by bus will do the travelling (Burgess and Munn,
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2017). Your Destination will be positioning its company in the market as want
to compete with National Express.
 SWOT analysis- by this analysis Your Destination will come to know the
strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats that it has to remain in market.
Strengths- Your Destination as being new in the market has the strengths of
innovation and development. It would be a more dynamic company to adopt changes
in terms of innovation and development in the industry as compared to others who are
old enough to adopt the changes. It need to develop the strength of company so that it
would help it grows in market.
Weakness- as it is new so there are very few numbers of people or customer who
know about the company. Your Destination is not very popular amongst the market
which can be included in the weakness of the company. As also there are many well
established companies in the country like National Express who are giving Your
Destination a tough competition (Badrinath, 2016). It should try to overcome its
weakness so that cop up in the market and bet up the competitors.
Opportunity- it is also having many opportunities in the market Your Destination can
grow the market areas in the other countries of UK as well as that of Manchester,
Newcastle, Glasgow and Aberdeen etc. After setting the market objective it need to
look for the opportunities in the current and new market. It also has the opportunity to
the more qualified and skilled professionals as will be more innovative than others. Its
should always grab the opportunities prevailing in the marketplace.
Threats- its biggest threat is National Express being the market leader Yours
Destination will be competing with it. National Express is having a very good
customer base in the market and Yours Destination is not having such a good base.
Your Destination need to identify the threats to be able to cop up with it and
maintaining the position in the market.
 PESTLE analysis- all the macro environmental factors which affect company
as a whole including the external factors affecting the growth of business are
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known as PESTLE analysis (Akbar, Omar and Wadood, 2017). This involves
political, economical, social, technological, legal and environmental factors
affecting the company. PESTLE also help to understand market growth or
decline, business position, potential and directions for operations.
Political- how will the government policy and laws will be affecting Your Destination
business and the transportation industry. The tax policy, labour laws, environmental
laws, trade restrictions, tariffs and transportation laws will be affecting Yours
Destination ans its profits.
Economical- the economic growth of country, interest rates, exchange rates and
inflation rate how will these all factors affect Yours Destination and decision made by
it. There are different economical factors which are effecting one country and that will
inturn affect the company as whole.
Social- the factors such as culture and health awareness, population growth, safety of
people and their lifestyles will also be affected. If people are very health and
environment conscious then they will be using the public transportation more than
compared to private vehicles (Abedi and Abedini, 2017). Thus, this increasing the sale
of Your Destination and this will also be included in the opportunities of the company.
Technological- innovation and technological changes also affect the growth of
company the rate of technology and R&D bring down cost and increase the quality of
product and services. Without technology the company will not be able to cope up
with the increasing competition in the market and if there are technological
advancements then the company will be able to expand its operations in more parts.
Legal- all the legal factors like the consumer law, employment law, discrimination
law etc. affect the level of employment, operations, cost and demand service of Your
Destination.
Environment- the factors like weather, climate and changes in the climate all form a
part of Your Destination. These all affect the marketing plan of Your Destination as it
will be expanding the business further.
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