SIVA Car Rental
SIVA car rental is a medium sized company which has spread in the United Kingdom with 70 outlets. This company was established in the year 1965 with the aim to provide the customers with better services which they deserve. The company has always faced exponential growth and won the annual award for Best Customer Service. According to their size they are no match with AVIS or Hertz but always working hard to take themselves in a better position. The company believes that if they become stagnant then their competitors will take their position and steal their market share. The senior management of the company always pays attention to the ways in which the business could be improved by providing the customers with new and additional services to retain the existing customers (Armstrong et al. 2015).
A recent survey on the customers of SIVA rentals proposed that a major portion of their existing and probable customers find difficulty in collecting the rental vehicle from the outlet and then getting back home after taking it. As a result of that the company has lost their potential customers who have chosen to go to other nearby car rental companies instead of coming to SIVA. For this reason, a senior management of the company has found out a new way to attract the new customers with a free service named as ‘Pick you up, Take you back’. With this new system, the car of SIVA will pick the customers from their location, take them to the local outlet of the company and then return them back to their location (Beck 2014).
The marketing communication mix is the combination of advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing and public relations which are used by the company to achieve their objectives. SIVA car rental has brought in a new service in the market for the convenience of the customers. This new service is named as ‘Pick you up, Take you back’ where the customers do not have to face the trouble of going to the outlet in order to collect the rental vehicle. The customers often do not come to SIVA rental company and rent a vehicle from the local business in which they can simply walk to and come back from. This resulted in SIVA losing some potential customers. To communicate this new service among the customers the company has made use of the Marketing communication mix which is also known as promotional mix (Belch et al. 2014).
SIVA car rentals will use the paid form of advertising to promote their idea of this new service. They will get in touch of a sponsor who will help them to advertise for their ‘Pick you up, Take you back’ service and reach out to maximum customers. The company will also make use of broadcast media such as television and radio, print media such as newspapers, internet and outdoor banner. The advertisement in all the media will be repeated to gain attraction of the customers (Blakeman 2014).
Customers and the new service
Personal selling of the services will be in the form of personal presentation by the company’s sales team to build strong customer relationships. The company will reach for their existing and potential customers by their customized personal service that they have recently introduced. With the form of personal selling they will be able to gauge the reaction of the customers whether they are being able to accept the new service or not (Camillerri 2018).
Sales promotion is short term incentives that can encourage the purchase or sale of a service such as the new and additional services that will be provided by the SIVA car rental for retaining their customers. The customers who were brand switching to avoid the difficulty in going to SIVA outlets for getting their car will find it easy when the car will pick them up from their location.
Public relations will help the company to build good relationship with a large number of people including the customers by modifying their services for the convenience of the customers.
SIVA rentals will also follow direct marketing by handing out leaflets to the customers making them aware of the introduction of new services.
Innovations
SIVA car rentals has innovated their service quality by providing pick up and drop down to the customers from their location. This is in line with the demand of the customer for a better service. The relationship with the customers should be strengthened by working on the arena of modification.. The additional service of ‘pick you up, drop you down’ will be the first step in attracting the customers that will help in shifting the focus from the competitors (Kitchen and Burgmann 2015: 35).
The company will make use of the simple concept of integrated marketing communications which will ensure that different forms of messages and communications are connected together. SIVA car rental will combine all the promotional tools of marketing for increasing effectiveness of their business so that it caters to the demand of the business.
Integrated Marketing Communication
Marketing mix contains the 4P’s out of which promotion will be effectively used. The business it has its own set of communication tools that will help in popularizing their service. These communication tools will be used together rather than in isolation that will help in making their service noteworthy. The various forms of promotional tools that will be used by SIVA car rentals is that of advertising, direct marketing, personal selling, public relations and sales promotion. Even though integrated marketing communications need a lot of effort but it has the ability to provide a number of advantages. The benefits include competitive advantage and increase in sales and profit and at the same time save time and stress. By using the approach of integrated marketing communication SIVA car rental will be able to increase their sale of service which will be appealing to the senior management (Luxton, Reid and Mavondo 2015: 40).
Integrated marketing communication approach will help in wrapping up communication around the existing and potential customers so that it can help them in moving through the various stages of purchasing process. SIVA car rental will combine its image building with that of strengthening the relationship with the customers. The use of this approach will be attractive for the customers as the internal publics of the organization will also accept this gladly. This will help in building customer relationships and increase the sales of the company. (Naeem, Bilal and Naz 2013: 130). The car rental company can profit in the long run by making use of integrated marketing communication approach.
Advantages of using IMC
Integrating Marketing Communication can help in ensuring that all kinds of forms of communication along with messages are carefully linked so that they can work effectively in harmony. Integrated marketing campaign makes use of brand messaging across traditional along with that of the non-traditional marketing channel. Direct mail will be used in traditional marketing channel whereas social media will be made use of in the non-traditional channel.
The concept of relationship marketing can help in creating a bond of loyalty and faith with the customers which can defend them from the predictable assault of competition. The SIVA car rental succeeding in retaining their customers for a lifetime will act as a strong competitive advantage that will help the company to make profit in the long run. The company will also be able to increase their profit margin by increasing their effectiveness within the market.. The company will be able to penetrate the market in between thousands of other commercial advertisements with their clear, constant and combined message that can help in capturing the attention of the customers (Schultz, Patti and Kitchen 2013).
The integrated marketing communication will enhance the sales by spreading messages with the help of various tools of communication that will provide opportunity to the customers to become aware before making purchasing decision. Clear messages will be conveyed by the company SIVA car rental that will keep the customers updated with relevant information regarding special offers and new services to guide them through the buying process. The messages that will be conveyed by taking recourse to various promotional tools will help in making the service more reliable and convincing. This will lead the customers to stop searching for other options in the same sector thus reducing the risk for the company to lose their customers and order the result of brand comparisons (Vernuccio and Ceccotti 2015: 440).
References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education.
Beck, A., 2014. Integrated marketing communication and the developing marketing technologies for small business.
Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G.F. and Powell, I., 2014. Advertising: An integrated marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.
Blakeman, R., 2014. Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Integrated Marketing Communications. In Travel Marketing, Tourism Economics and the Airline Product (pp. 85-103). Springer, Cham.
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.
Luxton, S., Reid, M. and Mavondo, F., 2015. Integrated marketing communication capability and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), pp.37-46.
Naeem, B., Bilal, M. and Naz, U., 2013. Integrated marketing communication: a review paper. Interdisciplinary journal of contemporary research in business, 5(5), pp.124-133.
Schultz, D., Patti, C.H. and Kitchen, P.J., 2013. The evolution of integrated marketing communications: The customer-driven marketplace. Routledge.
Vernuccio, M. and Ceccotti, F., 2015. Strategic and organisational challenges in the integrated marketing communication paradigm shift: A holistic vision. European Management Journal, 33(6), pp.438-449.