Adverting and sales promotions are integral parts in a product cycle; they are tools of an effective marketing strategy.
How well a company markets its products has an effect on the success of the product, the car rental business in the United Kingdom is on the rise, there is high competition in the industry thus to remain competitive, a country need to develop effective adverting and sales promotions approaches (Barney, 2007).
When developing an international marketing strategy for car rentals, the company needs to consider some crucial factors that are likely to affect the campaigns. Enterprise car renter has opened a new branch at Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire UK; this paper discusses adverting and sales promotions that can be effective for a rent-a-car company.
Advertising
Advertising is a continuous process where a company creates awareness and sells special attributes that its company has; it is a tool of marketing, which aims at creating a close linkage between customers and a company’s products.
As much as people may have the idea that there are rental companies, the specific company need not to assume that people will flow in its premises, it needs to develop strategies that define its packages and how its services are. Advertising creates awareness of a company existence and offers the company a chance to sell its strong holds to the people.
To create an effective adverting system between Enterprise car renter in the United Kingdom and the target market, the company should undertake different options depending with the specific target market it will be targeting. An effective marketing campaign covers all the likely buyers of the product.
To market the car rental services, takes two folds, guaranteeing the target market that the vehicles operated by the company are quality and the drivers and the rental contract are good. Communication is an integral part of advertising, advertising is all about how effectively one is able to communicate on the existence of a certain product.
The company needs to adopt an integrated Communication marketing strategy (MARCOM), to support the system and tools of advertisement that the company aims at suing; MARCOM is a marketing strategy that incorporates different marketing strategies to have one strategy that can effectively fight their competitors.
The areas that the approach looks into/ the approach that the communication strategy looks into are developing effective advertising strategy, adopt a personal selling strategy when appropriates, create good Public relations and the use direct marketing. Marketing strategies that incorporate the four dimensions of communication will be effective.
To venture the market, the company should use a penetration pricing approach; the model advocates for a low pricing method where an organization sets its prices at a low rate than that offered by the competitor; the aim of the approach is attack a large mass of people to the products.
When the company comes with low offers, then it is likely to attack a large population of customers and build its brand name through the large customer base.
In most cases, the penetration-pricing model is the price that a company has to break even. Initial adverts should assist the company to penetrate the market with its services and the focus should be shifted from making a financial gain.
The tools of communication that the company should use are electronic media communication, print media, internet and word of mouth (Kerin & Peterson, 2009).
Electronic media adverts
There are a number of electronic media that the company can use, they include televisions, radios, the internet, billboards and mobile phones, when using this approach, the most important aspect to consider is to structure catching adverts and play them when the target market is expected to be using, listening, or watching the media.
Print media
They include periodicals and dailies, brochures and magazines, when advertising using the print media, a selection of the media that will reach the target customer is crucial, brochures should be placed in areas that the target customers are likely to pass by.
Sales promotions
Selling is an activity in the entire marketing where a company embarks on measure that will persuade a customer to part with resources for value offered by the company. However, all marketing efforts aim at supporting selling activities. Marketing is the simulating force for sales; it creates a path and foundation that sales people can build on.
Marketing improves the environment of sales where they may call sales people to assist them in expanding and creating more market for goods and services like sales promotions, advertising, and creating new sales channels.
There is much interaction between selling activities and marketing activities. They have a similar goal of creating awareness and more business for a company but they do it at different levels
In a successful sales promotion strategy, the company should consider 4Ps of marketing, however, the most important elements to consider are:
Target market
The sales and promotion strategy should be responsive and catching to the target market; different markets require different approaches to marketing so the company should consider the best approach for a particular market; sales approaches include discounting and special arrangements with the customers.
The kind of cars available for hire are likely to be used by different classes of people, the sales men should be aware of the category of vehicles to sell to which class of people.
Use of personal selling
The company should use a personal selling approach to target the potential customers. When using personal selling, the company should take advantage of technological developments like social networks and mobile phones. The marketing departments should develop close relationship with customers a move that will facilitated the development of customer loyalty.
Direct selling is also crucial in the development of strong brand name and collection of customer information necessary for product improvement and differentiation (Barney, 2007). A strong element of direct selling is the use of sales people who are well versed with the target market, they should be sent to companies, individuals and government institutes.
The company should use pull and push strategies of sales promotion:
Under the push approach, a company uses the available resources to create awareness and make product affordable to the target customer. It is an approach, which uses discounts, and low pricing that are irresistible to customers.
Under the pull approach, massive advertisements and persuasion mechanisms are adopted to ensure that an organization’s products knowledge of existence has been created. The end user and the promoters are at close links and interact in the course of advertising.
Conclusion
When Enterprise car renter opens a new branch in the United Kingdom, it needs an aggressive advertising and sales promotion exercises, the main concern is creating awareness and increasing the market base.
Depending with the target market, the advertising and sales promotion to adopt varies, it is important for a company to understand the target market and develop effective sales and advertising strategies.
References
Barney, J. (2007).Gaining and sustaining competitive advantage (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall,
Kerin, R. & Peterson, R (2009). Strategic Marketing Problems: Cases and Comments (10th ed.). Pearson Education.