The Travelers’ Application is a New-York based online platform designed to give guidance to people who are planning to holiday internationally. This application provides information like weather, potential tourist sites, accommodation information, and directions to and from places of interest. The application is designed to give the traveler insight into what conditions are like in an international location. This application will be extremely useful for people traveling alone and with family. The purpose of this discussion, then, will be to outline a marketing plan for the application, including positioning statement, marketing framework, branding strategy, and marketing strategy.
Positioning Statement
The Travelers’ Application is the foremost database of information for the international traveler; with this application, the traveler can find any information that is needed for international travel without relying on multiple sources.
Marketing Framework
For this application, a STP analysis was first utilized. The primary segmentation that was done separated Americans into the initial segment of the market that would be targeted (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). This is because the basis for segmentation that was established that a geographic focus was necessary in the beginning stages of the process (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). Once the market was segmented, targeting was done; of the Americans that were segmented, those that have technological fluency and those with disposable income to go abroad were most readily targeted (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). As such, the marketing plan determines that the market that should be targeted consists of Americans with disposable income and technological ability: this puts the target market age at in the 25-50 range, with some outliers (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). The product positioning will focus heavily on technological fluency, so detailed product positioning will focus on technological marketing (Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010; Hollensen, 2015).
The Five C’s of marketing were also used to develop the marketing framework. The company’s role, the first C of the Five C’s, has been firmly established; the goal of the company is to provide excellent, accurate information readily available to the consumer. The collaborators for this particular project will be an interesting thing to consider. While there are currently no collaborators, the application might engage with other companies in other countries—hotels, tour groups, and so on—to provide better services to customers (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). The Five C’s also give the framework for understanding the competitors in the industry and the climate of the industry (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). The current climate in the industry is moving towards ease of access to information for international travelers. There are currently no real regulations that govern this industry, and it is unlikely that the travel information industry will have more restrictions established. However, the mobile phone and smartphone application market is growing very quickly, and this industry will provide potential competitors for the application (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010).
The one weak point for both STP analysis and 5 C analysis that the 4 P analysis considers is the issue of price, and the role of price in the development of promotion, product, and place (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). The price of this product will be instrumental in keeping the product from falling victim to the many different competitors that exist in the current market (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010).
Branding Strategy
Because there are many different competitors in this particular industry, branding will be fundamentally important for the success of the organization (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). Hellensen (2015) suggests that a brand has to have purpose, consistency, emotion, flexibility, loyalty and competitive awareness to be successful; it is also not enough to have each of these features, it has to have each of these features in the right amounts (Hellensen, 2015). The branding strategy for Travelers’ Application will be incredibly important in the overall success of the organization.
Branding for this application must be professional and clean, but it must also be engaging and appealing to people of all ages. The interface must focus on functionality and flexibility, especially since the target age for this particular application is so wide (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). The branding should be clean and simple, while the logo must be memorable—it should test well with audiences of all different ages, and should transfer well onto the mobile platform in case the application becomes primarily mobile at any point. All of these features are incredibly important for the branding strategy moving forward. Once the product’s branding strategy is established, the company must remain consistent and refrain from making too many changes to the brand and logo; this can detract from the purpose of the branding strategy Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010; Hellensen, 2015).
Marketing Strategy
Currently, the Travelers’ Application is a late follower or late entrant into the market (Hellensen, 2015). However, the application is offering something specialized that other members of the market are not focused on; this means that the company may be able to enter a niche market that is relatively untouched, and develop a greater control over the market and establish market dominance over time (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010). Travelers’ Application is certainly not a pioneer, but the application does have the ability to offer a number of different services that other services might not integrate, using diversification and horizontal integration (Jobber & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012; Churchill & Iacobucci, 2010).
Competition
The current competition comes from a number of mobile applications like Air B&B, SkyScanner, Lonely Planet and other travel applications; there are many different kinds of applications that support different aspects of travel, but none that fully integrate support for international travel from the beginning to the end of the trip. This kind of horizontal integration is the unique feature that will allow Travelers’ Application to obtain market share over the competition.
Positioning Map
Customer Segments
The application has established a customer segment that has a very wide age range, which means that the application has to have a number of features that are appealing to both a young and an older audience. The typical online application features have to be present for the younger portion of the customer segment, while the older customer segment needs to have access to more full-service option. There are a number of different ways that the product can try to integrate these features for the differing needs of the customer segments.
References
Churchill, G. A., & Iacobucci, D. (2010). Marketing research: methodological foundations.
Jobber, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2012). Principles and practice of marketing(No. 7th). McGraw-Hill Higher Education.
Hollensen, S. (2015). Marketing management: A relationship approach. Pearson Education.
