Introduction
The following essay is the analysis of Porsche Dubai promotion strategy. The study contains suggestions on how the company may improve its integrated marketing communication program in order to increase its sales.
The integrated marketing communication is a marketing strategy that incorporates all the aspects of marketing with an aim of increasing the brand visibility and sales. Market trend changes in different marketing strategies incorporated all together are crucial to ensure that the company promotes its products to boost its sales’ volume.
The Analysis
Porsche Dubai distributorship belongs to Al Nabooda Automobiles LLC that also owns the distributorship of other luxury cars, such as Audi and Lamborghini. The German based manufacturers of Porsche consider Dubai as one of the best markets for luxury cars due to its high population with high disposable income. The company, therefore, has its own approach to market Porsche vehicles in Dubai (Alnoor 6).
After analyzing the marketing mix of the company communication strategies in Dubai, the following are the results brought out based on the work done by the company.
It indicates that the organization’s results are achieved from the activities done in the company, which are intended to promote the brand and create a positive image (Alnoor 6). In marketing Porsche in Dubai, the product as part of the marketing mix is perfectly designed to satisfy all the members of the society. It is a luxury sports car with high speed and efficiency levels (Kerry 107).
Due to the good infrastructure-allowing racing of cars, the vehicle is particularly developed to suit Dubai with its desert terrain. Due to the high number of the millionaires in Dubai, especially the nationals, there is a high demand for the sports and luxury cars as they portray prestige.
The fact that one has to wait for a year after ordering the car indicates the scarcity of the car in the market which increases its value as the laws of demands and supply dictate. The design and luxurious image of the car are great marketing tools for the company (Strokes 65).
The other major marketing mix tool applied by the Porsche Dubai is that of place. The company distributorship is located in Sheikh Zayed road, Dubai. The attractive showroom covers an area of nine thousand square feet, and offers a real customer experience to its clients by displaying different Porsche models.
The financial section division has its own location where customers can make withdrawals and deposits in case they want to buy the automobile. There is a customer service and marketing departments where the customers may enquire and seek for clarifications (Khalifa 8).
Concerning price as a marketing mix tool used by the company, the price of the luxury cars is very high as they are designed for the high-end market. Porsche is one of the most expensive vehicles; this makes it inaccessible to many people, but it increases its demands among luxury lovers and those seeking for prestige to reflect their high status (Khalifa 8).
The promotion aspect of the marketing mix of Porsche is one of the most effective and the most used tool of marketing by the company. The company has various promotional activities intended to increase the product awareness as well as brand visibility. Some of these promotional activities include the Porsche World Road show that is intended to bring together Porsche lovers.
The road show is an event where the product’s fans and the potential buyers are given an opportunity to test the luxury cars. At the same time, they interact with the product engineers and experts who demonstrate ways of utilizing the car to the maximum.
Another promotional strategy of the company is to attract a traditional sponsor of the Dubai Tennis League, which is held every year. The championship offers the company to market its products to the young rich people who are the potential buyers. The enthusiasm and the atmosphere generated by the Porsche popularize the car among the young people. The sponsorship of the event assists in creating brand awareness and brand visibility (Khalifa 7).
As a part of the Porsche promotions, the company sponsors Porsche GTS Cup, which is a racing cup where the Porsche enthusiasts and owners compete among themselves in sporting races. The event helps gain customer loyalty and increases the positive image of the brand. The race aids to place the product as one of the best racing and sports car of choice in Dubai (Alnoor 4).
Other than this, the company engages in promoting Porsche through extended warranty offers to the owners of the vehicle. The company has one of the longest car warranty policies of three years that is renewable.
This makes the product reliable, and the customers are less worried about the car malfunctioning due to the long warranty. Unlike other dealers who offer one-year warranty, the warranty assures buyers of a better quality of service once the vehicle gets a problem. The warranty is also renewable after the three years if the customer still owns the vehicle (Khalifa 7).
The long warranty period makes the Porsche dealership in Dubai have a long-term relationship with the customers, thereby enhancing customer’s loyalty. This explains why the company’s dealership is the most successful in terms of sale compared to any other Porsche dealership across the world.
The strong connection between the customer and the manufacturer has led to the creation of PORSCHE Club where the owners of the car enjoy special treatment by the company in terms of repair and export of spare parts. The company also hosts dinners for the cars owners and provides them with an opportunity to share their experiences. This ensures promotion of the brand and customer loyalty (Khalifa 6).
As part of its sales program, the company has different designs of Porsche sports car, thereby giving the owners an opportunity to harness and enjoy various designs of the product that will meet their needs. This also serves as an up selling sales strategy of the company where the company offers new designs to the existing customers.
The company is a major sponsor of the Dubai golf championships. Golf being a luxury sport attracts the attention of the majority of people with disposable income. Sponsoring this event creates appositive brand image for the target market in the country. The event also offers an opportunity for the company to display its product to the public and position it as a high-end luxury product (Khalifa 6).
The marketing strategies of the dealership are excellent though the recent global financial crises made a large number of people adjust their budgets to cope with the recession. This affected the performance of the company in Dubai like in other parts of the world. This calls for the company to strategize its marketing mix to handle the global crises. The integrated marketing communication will certainly suit the company even after the recession (Strokes 19).
Anther reason why the company is in need of the integrated marketing communication is due to the entry of other luxury models in the Dubai market. Due to the high number of people living in Dubai with high disposable income, many companies dealing with luxury cars have entered the Dubai market of the luxury cars making it more competitive than ever.
The company has to look for a comprehensive marketing strategy to ensure that the high demand of the product experienced previously does not subside. Competing brands are the Volkswagen, Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Audi, and Mercedes s- Class and Bentley (Khalifa 9).
The changing demographics of Dubai indicate change in the market trends. In the past, only the nationals would buy the luxury vehicles. However, nowadays, due to the increased and diversified economy, even the expatriate workers have high disposable income and become some of the new buyers of the luxury vehicles.
Other than the oil industry, the positioning of Dubai as a major international market has enabled the expatriates to have high income. The company must decide how to reach out to these buyers. This spells out why integrated marketing communication is imperative for the company.
Considering the fact that the process of manufacturing the vehicles takes one year after the customer has made an order, there is need for the company to have an integrated marketing communication system to ensure that the potential buyers are not discouraged by the long waiting and do not buy cars from other dealerships. The integrated marketing will ensure that the customers are attended to it an appropriate manner.
With the increased competition, the company must look for new ways of maintaining customer loyalty as the new entrants in the market may gain the customers over the existing brands. The integrated marketing will suit the company’s need to maintain the existing customers through integrated marketing communication systems (Khalifa 6).
The following part of the essay will deal with the integrated marketing communication strategies necessary to ensure that the company succeeds and attains its objective of selling 300 vehicles every month by the year 2018. This can only be achieved when there are proper marketing mechanisms intended to reach out to the emerging market. The strategy must incorporate loyalty programs to satisfy the existing and forthcoming customers, which is very necessary (Khalifa 7).
The integrated marketing communication is a radical marketing approach which is imperative for the company involved to ensure that the senior managers participate in the plan. In case of Porsche, some of the dealerships managers need to participate in the integrated marketing as without their input, the marketing efforts may experience challenges. The support of integrated communication program by all managers is crucial as it enhances cooperation among all the departments involved in the marketing process (Khalifa 6).
Another important aspect of integrated marketing communication is that the company must have proper internal communication mechanism aimed at ensuring that the departments involved in marketing activity participate in the work.
This is important as it enables the company to move ahead in marketing campaign. The internal communication places the company in a situation where the market moves ahead and graduates to the necessary authorities. The next important aspect of the business is to ensure the relevance of the brand (Fill 23).
For the integrated marketing communication to be effective in Porsche Dubai, all the departments need to work together to ensure that there is integrated marketing. This is where the company marketing aspects come together with the aim of creating a common front. The common front implies similarity of logos, colors, and typefaces associated with the brand.
This is especially important for Porsche brand as the dealership in Dubai also owns dealership for other types of vehicles. Differentiating the vehicles through similar colors and logos, even if their design is different, is imperative (Fill 28).
The other major factor in the marketing strategy is to prepare an integrated marketing communication budget. The budget helps in determining the amount of resources needed in the integrated marketing communication. Determining the resources enables the department to focus on cost effective means of marketing, while achieving the best possible results.
The integrated budget has to take care of advertising, public relations and promotional activities intended to promote the brand. Integrated marketing requires many resources due to the complexity and integration of all marketing activities into one front (Clow 17).
For the integrated marketing communication for Porsche Dubai to be effective, the existing customers must be a part of it. Integrated marketing focuses on data and trends in the market as the satisfied customers have a lot to tell about the brand, and their feedback is very important. Including them in the marketing strategy is important as their testimonials are significant in enhancing the brand visibility and advertising the company brand all over the world (Clow 19).
Having put all the mechanisms that support the integrated marketing communication mechanism in place, it is important to formulate better strategies than those previously implemented to reach out to the consumers. Integrated marketing communication is appropriate when it is used to market Porsche in Dubai.
The first aspect, when formulating the marketing strategy, is to carry out a research on the market. The research is critical in integrated marketing communication as it provides an insight into the consumer behaviors. It also helps identify the target market of the product without which the work may not be achieved. Identifying the target market is necessary as it ensures that the strategies are formulated with a certain aim of reaching out to the right people.
The target market of Porsche is the high-end market with high levels of disposable income. Most of the potential customers earn income and are willing and able to purchase the products at the market price. As indicated earlier, the increased number of the people with disposable income in Dubai calls for the integrated marketing to reach out to all of them. The study will explore the behaviors, tastes as well as preferences of the people with high disposable income.
After conducting the market research, the company must use the information derived from it to analyze the behaviors of the target market and look for the ways of the target marketing. The target marketing is a strategy where the messages sent out are not meant for all and sundry but for the people with high disposable income.
From the research, information, such as the kind of magazines the people in the target market read, the sports they participate in and the television channels they watch, is very important. This is because in advertising, choosing the appropriate channel of communication to reach out to the target group will be of great importance.
The customers will be persuaded to purchase the products in order to meet their needs. Identifying the target group behaviors helps in formulating the events and sponsorships that will expose Porsche brand to the potential buyers (Clow 48).
As part of integrated marketing communication, strategy of the company must ensure that it is visible to the growing online community (Pickton 32). Use of websites and Facebook as part of marketing is very important as it helps reach out to the adherents and fans of the model. It also provides a good opportunity for the company to market its products as well as predict the target market (Clow 37).
Integrated marketing communication must also take into consideration the need of the company to work together with the manufacturing department. According to the Porsche selling strategy, the customers wait for a one year period for the delivery of the car model.
With the increased competition, the company manufacturers need to increase the elasticity of demand so that it may handle the increasing orders for the cars. Failure to reduce the waiting period may act as a deterrent to the marketing activities as an increase in the number of vehicles ordered may result in an increased period of waiting (Clow 76).
The sponsorships are also an important part of integrated marketing communication because other than offering brand visibility, the sponsorship activities expose the company brand to the public and target group of people.
Attracting the Porsche sponsorship of Dubai golf tournament is an important marketing strategy, considering the fact that golf is a luxurious sport, and its participants may have interest in luxurious cars. Sponsorship of any event, which attracts participation, and attention of people with high disposable income are significant for a company (Kerry 7).
Showroom marketing is another important integrated marketing communication strategy. The people who visit the showroom are considered as the potential buyers. The attractiveness of the show room is imperative as it needs to have good communication mechanisms to portray or communicate with the buyers (Pickton 29). The visitors are looking for more information, thus the availability of brochures as well as manuals to distribute among the visitors is of high importance.
The showroom also provides an opportunity for the company to promote its events, such as the annual road show where the interested buyers get an opportunity to test the cars. It is also an opportunity for the attendants to address the concerns of the potential buyers, such as the price and the warranty issues (Kerry 21).
The Porsche members club is an important aspect of integrated marketing communication as it provides an avenue for the company to maintain customer loyalty. Sponsoring dinners and events for the members as well as renewing warranty assist the company not only to have the buyers but also sell the new models to the existing ones (Kerry 26).
Conclusion
Using the integrated marketing is important for any company as it ensures an appropriate time for the brand to address its marketing strategies as well as increase its sales. The integrated marketing communication enables the company to reach out to its potential customers through cost effective methods. It also brings together all the departments as all the aspects of the company play their role in marketing and communicating with the buyers.
Works Cited
Alnoor, Said. “Porsche Dubai Road Show A Success.” Dubai Luxury. 7(2008): 6-7. Print
Clow, Kenneth. Integrated Advertising For Luxury Items. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 2003. Print
Clow, Kenneth. Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications 3rd edition. Pearson Education. 2007. Print
Fill, Chris. Marketing Communications: Contexts, Strategies and Applications. New York: Prentice Hall. 2001. Print
Kerry, Donald. Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications , pp. 107. New York: Prentice Hall, 2007. Print
Khalifa, Husein. “Porsche Sponsors Dinner for the Car Owners.” Dubai Luxury. 6(2011): 8-9. Print.
Khalifa, Husein. “Threats of Luxury Car Market in Dubai.” Dubai Luxury. 3(2011): 8-9. Print.
Broderick, Amada & Pickton, David. Integrated Marketing Communications. New York: Prentice Hall, 2000. Print
Strokes, Rob. EMarketing: The Essential Guide To Online Marketing. New Jersey: McGraw Hill, 2008. Print