Promotion strategy Promotion is to attract customers to purchase, and it involves communicating information between distribution channels. Promotion Objectives There are three promotion objectives which are inform, persuade and remind (MKT303 Lecture notes, Sem. 3, 2008, P. 14-9). Since there are existing competitors to produce safety cars, Toyota should use persuade objective to show customer Prius is better than other brands cars. Factors that affecting Promotion Mix • Nature of market Toyota is an international company that their promotion will be all around the world.
In Australia Toyota should choose the capital city such as Sydney and Melbourne. Those city have more customer to purchase our product. • Nature of the product Because of Prius is a high involvement product which is more expensive and associated with high risk, consumers would desire more information to decide purchase or not (MKT201 Lecture notes, Sem. 3, 2008, P. 101). Therefore, Toyota should provide more detail for the Prius such as the safety system, styles, price, guarantee and retail stores. • Stage in the product life cycle Toyota is in the maturity stage which means there are many competitors in the market.
The promotion objective is persuading. Therefore, the company has to be aggressive to persuade customer to buy the car. They also need to use some promotion skill to increase the demand of Prius. • Stages in the consumer adoption process Due to the persuading objective of Toyota they will use evaluation and trail in the adoption process. Toyota will need to show the advantage of Prius to the competitor to win customers interest to Prius. • Combination of Push and Pull Strategy Toyota would use the combination of push and pull strategy.
Toyota is using some intermediaries to sale their cars. Push strategy is to direct to the channel member in order to encourage to stock their cars and also put their car in a better location. Toyota may offer discount to the channel member. For pull strategy, Toyota is going to provide a discount, after sales service or trail of driving to customer to let them ask the intermediaries more information about the product (MKT303 Lecture notes, Sem. 3, 2008, P. 14-20). • Setting Budgets To have a suitable budget is important for a company to develop more efficiently.
Toyota should use the task method to set budget. The budget will depend on the activities and operation performance (MKT303 Lecture notes, Sem. 3, 2008, P. 14-23). The advance for Toyota is that they can distribute their money more efficiently to ensure all resource allocated into right place. Promotion Mix Decisions • Sales Promotion Sales promotion is to stimulate customer interest trial and purchase. Sales promotion offer intermediaries for promotion allowance and discount. Toyota has a very good reputation that people would like to try their cars.
The sales promotion will do further encourage to customer to purchase their cars. It also encourage the intermediaries to promote their cars. Toyota company should show the advantages of Prius to customer that compare to other competitors. • Advertising Advertising can introduce new product to the market or remind customers the product (MKT303 Lecture notes, Sem. 3, 2008, P. 15-5). Toyota should use product advertising for Prius because of Toyota is a well known brand and has its reputation. The advertisement for Toyota can build the selective demand of customers in compare to the other cars.
They use magazine TV and internet ads to remind their target customer which is higher income level people. Those medium are more flexible that can update the car information of after sale service information. • Salespeople To let customer buy the product, Toyota should know the customer better. Toyota should use large numbers of salespeople to promote their cars because of they have enough budget. The order taker could follow the customers purchase and maintain the sales. Toyota not only provide one on one service by salespeople but also provide many technology support people to answer customers questions. Other Promotion Besides advertising and salespeople Toyota can also use external environments as opportunities to promote Prius. Since the economic recession, people give lower budget to buy cars. As a lower price level and better safety car, Prius has a opportunities to be chosen by customers. • Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) For deliver a consistent and complete message to target customers, Toyota should use IMC to communicate (MKT303 Lecture notes, Sem. 3, 2008, P. 14-24). An example of that is the design relate to the budget setting and advertising strategy.
