Analysis of Toyota Marketing Strategies

Marketing DNA is a term used to help an organization recognize and understand some of the effective ways through which it could have a more systematic and structured approach to choose from the available marketing options. The modern marketing era is made up of four ley dimensions of customer engagement, next-generation technology, information, and connectivity. Marketing strategies adopted by companies have evolved over the last half-decade. The evolution of digitally connected customers is centred on the reflection of dramatic change within the dynamics of transactions and relationships. A new marketing approach comprising of CMOs and CIOs capitalise on technology for marketing automation, commerce initiatives, and generation of content and consumer analytics. However, companies such as Toyota, a data-rich consulting firm has been moving into the business labelling itself as strategic and tech-savvy advisor. Many agencies have viewed Toyota among other similar companies as a looming threat. However, the marketing head of Toyota does not view it as a zero-sum game. The head of marketing believes that many advertisers’ needs are not addressed through their current marketing approaches. Toyota has incorporated several marketing mix strategies to help in its productivity processes. Toyota products are of high quality and have affordable prices. The company utilizes old marketing strategies for its distribution and production purposes. However, through the implementation of new marketing strategies, the corporation stands a better chance of improving its services to its target customers. The most effective ways through which Toyota would integrate innovative technology would be by evaluating its opportunity costs. There would be a cost of taking the innovation as well as a cost of not implementing the innovation.

Toyota

Old marketing DNA involves the delivery of message through innovative channel. It was classified as an effective strategy to capture and command the attention of the audience. Advertising was the key tool involved in old marketing paradigm. The messages conveyed in the advertisements were crafted to appeal the audience. The target customers were interrupted by the message in one-way approach. A fundamental concept of the old marketing paradigm involves engaging in advertisement campaigns for a predetermined timeframe, with the creators focusing on creativity and award-winning campaigns. The Toyota production and marketing system grew out the operations and mechanisms of the company for over 50 years. However, it has never been dropped. The success is based on ideologies that show how Toyota sets up all its processes as experiments and demonstrates the scientific scheme to its workforce.

Toyota Motor Corporation is a main Japanese enterprise of the Toyota Group. In 2008, it was labeled as the leading automobile company in the world. Toyota has established more than 550 junior firms contributing to the production of automobiles, commercial and industrial vehicles. The headquarters of the company is located in Toyota City, an industrialised metropolitan situated in the East of Nagoya, Japan.

Toyota Corporation is well known for car manufacturing, assembly, and distribution across the world. The good performance recorded by the company over the years has been attributed to its effective management style. However, other salient factors have also contributed achieving a niche as market leader. The market structure under which Toyota runs cannot be categorically quantified. It may be considered a monopoly. Given that the company employs utilization strategy, it has been in a position of relishing an almost monopolistic presence, particularly in the developing nations. Conversely, it uses an oligopoly type of marketing structure, because there are other key players such as General Motors. Toyota is known for being profound towards identifying how its competitors conduct their operations and making sure that it responds to their activities in a manner that would pledge market leadership.

Purpose

The purpose of this report is to analyse Toyota from the lens of old DNA marketing strategies and new marketing strategies.

Aims and Objectives

The objective of the report is to determine the effectiveness of technology in Toyota marketing strategies. The report also aims at evaluating the segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP) strategies implemented by Toyota. Possible recommendations regarding the company’s STP strategies will be provided. The technology used by the company will also be evaluated and possible suggestion on what the company could adopt to improve its business success in the modern era proposed.

Technology in Marketing

Toyota Motor Sales United States, Inc, has widely adopted SpyderLynk’s mobile barcode technology through advertising and branding strategies designed to involve consumers. SpyderLynk is a mobile marketing technology company responsible for the creation of Snaptag, a logo-centric 2D mobile barcode.

Over the past, Toyota had been using the Quick Response (QR) Code for tracking parts for vehicle manufacturing. The technology came into use in 1994, created by Toyota Subsidiary Denso Wave. After 17 years of using the invention, the corporation pursued a technology that would help expand their marketing efforts as well as get ahead of the innovation trend. By the SnapTag labeled “ToyoTag,” the company is in a position of delivering personalized marketing operations and promotions to on-the-go mobile customers. Consumers having access to camera phones can direct ToyoTags. Consequently, those clients using iPhone and Android devices can install SnapTag Reader to access data related to advertising or content being offered by Toyota.

Toyota Corporation has over the years been recognized as a traditional manufacturing company reluctant towards being a digitally-savvy and driven brand. The company has transformed from exhibiting print commercials to showing the resourceful and innovative social media campaigns aimed at increasing brand responsiveness and customer procurement.

STP Strategy

Toyota’s segmentation, targeting and positioning strategy of its products are based on the “care” for its consumers, which is evident in the variety of offers and products’ attributes. The company incorporates a mix of demographic, geographic and psychographic segmentation strategies that help in customer profiling and understanding the various groups of consumers it serves. Demographic segmentation strategy is used by Toyota mainly where the main markets for its products are for the upper class and mid-class people in the society. The company principally targets those individuals in the society who are considered to have high earnings or average earning. For instance, Toyota manufactures Lexus vehicles targeting the upper class within the community while brands like corolla are designed for the mid0class.

Toyota also uses psychographic segmentation approach in its production system by promoting some of its brands for instance, Land Cruiser as prestige products designated for elite customers. Toyota also uses its products by considering the geographical needs of its customers, which is a geographic segmentation strategy. For instance, Malaysia is a tropical region characterized by lush rainforests calling for the need of reliable four-wheel drive vehicles. Toyota considers psychographic segmentation by designing several 4X4 vehicles for its customers located in these regions.

Toyota has adopted a differentiated targeting plan for manufacturing and selling its products based on consumer segments as well as ensuring customer satisfaction. The company utilizes value-based, and user benefits positioning techniques for purposes of highlighting the involved practical benefits of the offerings of the company.

Toyota has invested heavily in the use of Pinterest to improve brand appeal. Given that the company is a leading automobile corporation in the world there is need to portray itself as a fun and exciting brand. Therefore, the company has embarked on posting photos of its products at motor shows as well as stylish pictures of Toyota race drivers. By using this approach the company manages to humanize its products. Moreover, the company also succeeds at making its brand appear more amicable.

Branding Strategy

A brand according to Parment, refers to a name, logo, design or image used in the identification of a product or service (2016, p. 25). Through branding, customers gain an additional value based on the functionality and performance. It helps the target customers identify their wants and needs. Toyota Motor Corporation has successfully established brand strategies that have made their products and services distinguishable from their competitors (Cho, 2011, p. 45). Toyota brands are embedded deep in the minds of its customers, a trait that has helped enhance brand knowledge through motivation of staff and driving motivation founded on the customer’s beliefs, experience, image, and emotions. Lexus, a premium brand of Toyota, developed with great passion and from a customer segmentation perspective.

Branding Position

The success of a company is dependent on the similarity between its products and services, which makes brand-positioning strategy an essential factor. Toyota Corporation controls both corporate and product brands to target market segmentation. Moreover, the company has also embarked on digital branding management to increase its sales. For this reason, the firm introduced Lexus as a premium brand. Lexus brand dominated the luxury customer market for it met their requirements and wanted. The business was, therefore, able to continue maintaining its number one position in the motor industry competitive marketing environment. Toyota Corporation uses low cost and differentiation techniques as generic strategies for purposes of gaining a competitive advantage over other competing businesses in the automotive industry.

Characteristics of Toyota Consumers

The company is currently manufacturing vehicles under five major brands, Lexus, Hino, Scion, Toyota and Ranz. Toyota consumers have different characterizes depending on the nature and type of vehicle they want. For instance, consumers of Toyota Prius look for a car that is environmental and health awareness. Toyota Prius buyers are in search of a car that would provide safety and health for their families. Toyota Tendra consumers are conscious of activity and performance. Customers looking Lexus vehicles want to experience luxury driving irrespective of the cost. The majority of this type of users are middle-aged. It is for this reason that the company targets middle-aged customers who tend to be focused on their living standard, class and safety. While the majority of European and American consumers prefer all sorts of cars, teenagers in these regions prefer sports cars. Teenagers are on the look towards purchasing a vehicle having a brilliant shiny look and design features.

Recommendations

The general performance of Toyota over the past has been impressive. However, it needs to consider implementing more innovative marketing strategies in future to attract more customers as well as remain relevant in the competitive market. Moreover, the company should also take into consideration making marketing decisions that focus exclusively on the local market, as compared to implementing a global marketing strategy. Toyota should also consider implementing a marketing strategy structured to address consumer needs to ensure consumer satisfaction (Sousa, & Bradley 2008, p. 307). The competitive nature of the automotive industry in the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia calls for the implementation of an innovative marketing strategy that should offer the company a competitive advantage over its competitors.

Marketing Mix

Toyota’s marketing mix reflects the strategies used in targeting its product, place, pricing and promotional mix (Goi 2009, p. 2). The current success level of Toyota is a clear reflection of the company’s effectiveness towards realizing its marketing mix. Toyota Corporation deals with multiple sets of products. The element of the marketing mix is used for purposes of identifying organizational outputs for the target customers (Rummler & Brache 2012, p. 112).

Place Marketing Mix

Toyota utilizes some retailers and dealership outlets for purposes of distributing its products to ensure that it reaches maximum customers. Toyota makes use of showrooms, exhibition centers or special events for distribution. Selected retailers provide spare parts and accessories. The company depends on charters to sell its products to prospective consumers. There are more than 150 Toyota suppliers in different countries and regions worldwide. Toyota has ensured that it has positioned skilled staffs at each of its outlets in both sales and product information (Bridges & Wilhelm 2008, p. 33).

Promotion Marketing Mix

Toyota Corporation channels a greater portion of its resources towards marketing communication aiming at increasing sales volume. The promotion strategy used by the company in the marketing mix is quite aggressive and is associated with extensive brand reach. Toyota involves personal selling at sales outlets from where the staffs are responsible for promoting and advertising their products. Some of the common forms of advertisements used include newspapers, social media, television, and billboards. Public relation is also used in promoting the company’s products, for instance, Toyota Together Green Program for environmental initiatives. Other public relation initiatives employed by the company involved, efforts targeting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The company is known for using slogans that are catchy to consumers to promote the brand and endorses celebrities as brand ambassadors which play a significant role in generating a brand recall for customers. Toyota also provides direct selling to corporate clients.

Price

Toyota products are known to be of high quality and have affordable prices. The primary objective of the corporation is to generate profit by letting their customers have access to credit payments at low interest. Toyota’s pricing strategy in the marketing mix is founded on four elements; demand, competition, layout, and segment. Prices are flexible depending on the marketing circumstances and prices of competitors which affect the company’s selling prices. The costs of their products depend on the model of the car, add options and make. The only way the company manages to gain maximum profit is through the pricing and features offered in their products. The company has always been consistent towards observing and standing by its mission of satisfying customer’s needs and wants by way of producing and offering them quality automobiles at fair prices. The affordable and fair prices offered by Toyota facilitate in the branding aspect in their marketing.

Product Marketing Mix

Toyota deals a wide range of products ranging from cars to warranties. Up to date, the company has managed to come up with 43 car models. Toyota has also diversified its production abilities by manufacturing gears and other car parts. Moreover, Toyota also provides marine, biotechnology, warranties and financial services to its consumers. Customers are the main priority of Toyota, explaining why the corporation has invested over 20 million in facilitating research dedicated to gathering data and facts on the customer’s expectations from Toyota. Through the research centers, the company has been in a position of building customer relationships and loyalty. Toyota has also been in the setting of dealing with the rising prices of gas by manufacturing hybrid product line. Toyota Prius model was the first hybrid car produced by the company in 1997 (Mangold & Faulds 2009, p. 357).

Relevance, and Ways of Improving the Marketing Mix

The current global success of Toyota is an illustration of the effectiveness of the implementation of the marketing mix as well as its suitability in the current digital era. Given that Toyota is one of the prominent companies in the international automotive industry, the company targets towards establishing market diversity regarding consumer preferences, regional and local marketing conditions. For this reason, the marketing mix employed by Toyota are tailored and targeted towards addressing these variations. Using these marketing mix strategies, the company has been able to grow from being a local business into a top universal participant in the automotive industry. The promotion strategies employed by the company have proved to be relevant because the company has operations in all regional markets. The increasing global success of Toyota highlights the efficiency in establishing and implementing its marketing mix.

Conclusion

Old marketing strategies via the internet have various organizations gain more insights regarding their targeted demographic patterns. Companies can make use of buyer personas to develop a plan suitable for business. Before the new marketing channels, the old marketing strategies were not effective and had unaccounted results. Calling centers were established in old marketing strategies to develop similar leads to those used in the present business world. Call centers, however, were not perfect and for that reason did not receive high conversion rates.

A company that has more established customers is likely to spend less money and time on advertisements. Every new customer who gets to use the products is assigned to a number value. The numerical value assigned holds information pertaining the cost of getting them as a customer. It is a unique and effective way of business that many entrepreneurs forget.

Old marketing techniques guarantee a business the probability of attaining a high-cost average cost per person. The improved technology in the business world is resulting in increased cases of email spamming and cold calling, which was expensive for those companies willing to thrive having to spend extra dollars on their campaigns. However, the new marketing approaches have eliminated the reformation of marketing through the implementation of digital platforms. Digital platforms offer strategies that allow a company experience low-cost margins on per-customer cost. There are very many potential customers across the globe, which explains why a company needs to have access to more than one billion clients.

Despite the fact that old marketing does not have any position in new marketing strategies, they could still be applicable in some scenarios. For instance, cold calling despite its elimination from the marketing world, email marketing campaigns stills serve an original purpose in business.

Recommendations

Toyota can promote its brand and products by producing short branded videos. For instance, the Corporation could consider filming Instagram videos of about 15 seconds and later push them over paid Facebook ads. The model and effecting of the videos should be made simple, to allow the company lessen major publicity costs but still ensure maximum engagement with the target audience. Preforming social media monitoring is another marketing tools of the 21st century that the company could use. Social media monitoring refers to the process of evaluating and examining conversations on social platforms for purposes of gathering valuable consumer data. Toyota Corporation could use such marketing research approaches to analyse chats, posts and discussions on Twitter and Facebook containing keywords such as “Lexus,” “BMW,” and “buy.” By such assessments the company would find active buyers comparing Toyota and other automotive companies and effectively evaluate the opinions towards the brand.

Social media monitoring could be used to determine and observe sales, service, quality and product growth. For instance, Toyota could use this method to ascertain features that may trigger shopper’s concentration in a competitor’s product. The company could also identify customer concerns with their newly purchased products so that they can consult with the engineers and experts.

Social media marketing approach by Toyota would provide the company with insights related to various social media programs other great companies use aimed at increasing attractiveness and business performance. Smaller companies may find it challenging to imitate every tactic companies like Toyota implement, however, it would be effective to employ some of their approaches focused towards enhancing brand appeal or gathering customer data. Implementing such tactics would help in improving customer service and brand desirability to increase the chances of massive sales.

References

Bridges, M. and Wilhelm, B., 2008. Going beyond green: the “why and how” of integrating sustainability into the marketing curriculum. Journal of Marketing Education, 30(1), pp. 33-46.

Cho, E., 2011. Development of a brand image scale and the impact of lovemarks on brand equity. Iowa State University, pp. 45.

Goi, C.L., 2009. A review of marketing mix: 4Ps or more? International Journal of Marketing Studies, 1(1), p. 2.

Mangold, G. and Faulds, J., 2009. Social media: the new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, 52(4), pp. 357-365.

Parment, A., Kotler, P. and Armstrong, G., 2016. Principles of marketing Scandinavian Edition. Pearson Higher Ed, pp. 25

Sousa, C. and Bradley, F., 2008. Antecedents of international pricing adaptation and export performance. Journal of World Business, 43(3), pp. 307-320.

Rummler, G. and Brache, A., 2012. Improving performance: how to manage the white space on the organization chart. John Wiley & Sons, p. 112.