Constructing A Strategic Marketing Plan For Ingogo

Overview of Ingogo, market and competitors

Discuss About The Exploration Exploitation Oriented Marketing.

Ingogo is an Australian based company which provides opportunities for booking the cab services to customers. It was founded in Sydney in the year 2011 by Hamish Petrie, the founder & CEO of the company. It now operates in many major cities in Australia that include Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney (Ingogo, 2018). The company is not the one service operating in the country. There are rather many other services as well like Premier Cabs, Yellow Cabs and Uber (Verikios & Zhang, 2015). Hence, this is of prime importance that Ingogo continually deploys innovative ideas to present a much better experience to both customers & drivers and also that it is able to promote it as a leading service provider. Such actions make the difference. The main purpose for this study is to construct a strategic marketing plan for Ingogo helping it to promote its brand image as the best options for customers and also for the drivers. This is necessary to help it emerge as the leading online booking service providers in Australia and maintain a progressive trend for profits.      

Overview of the company, the market and competitors: Ingogo is an Australian based company that operates in the country as an online cab service provider. The market of operation is the cab service industry where Ingogo is known for online booking solution for types of taxi services. Its competitors are mainly Yellow Cabs, Premier Cabs and Uber. The competitors do also own their own cabs where Ingogo does not. It only provides solution for booking the cabs online from different service providers. The service is available to customers and also to drivers through the mobile application compatible with both Android and iOS. The vision of this company is to offer the customers the cost-effective services. The services offered through the platforms are both timely and quick. It spends $70 million on marketing activities. It is the third largest player in the taxi mobile payment market. The market shares for this company have gone up by 11% (Nswtaxi.org.au, 2018).   

Comprehensive overview of the customer base and opportunities: The current market o operation is limited to mainly the major cities in Australia that include Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. The company has gradually picked up from its inception till the date. However, it needs to work harder to make it more popularize in the country. This is due to a fact that customers have the number of cab service providers to select from. Additionally, Ingogo does not own its own cabs; it is rather a platform providing supports to both drivers and customers (Ingogo, 2018). Hence, it is important that customers can feel the difference in what is observable to them. Opportunities are ample there for Ingogo because customers are always in hunt to hire a hassle free ride which is only possible if one has option to book it easily through online platform and also that the available services are of top quality from every perspective (Kumar & Kumar, 2016).   

Customer base and opportunities

The proposed marketing plan is based on the possibility of a problem that Ingogo can face. The industry where Ingogo operates already has the numerous other options like Premier Cabs and Uber to customers. These services are not just confined to providing customers the online booking opportunity but, also that they own the cabs (Leighton, 2016). On the other hand, Ingogo is just an online solution to book the services of any service providers.

Problem statement: Based on “assignment 1” that was being done on Ingogo, it can be stated that there is stiff competition in the Australian taxi industry. Ingogo faces a direct competition from other key players such as Premier Cabs, Yellow Cabs, Uber and the other traditional taxi service providers. The company is in existence for its stakeholders who are the taxi drivers, Ingogo and the customers. Hence, there is a need for a continuous improvement in the level of experience for its drivers and also the customers. Ingogo does not go for surge pricing and offer a fixed pricing system. This is a real opportunity for Ingogo as other key players are a strong reliant of surge pricing especially the Uber (Moon, 2015).

The ‘assignment 1’ has also highlighted that the fares are significantly lower to Uber. A cheaper fare is another opportunity which is of high regards for customers (Weng et al., 2017). The ‘assignment 1’ has also indicated that political circumstances in Australian taxi industry are very stable. There are few environmental constraints such as the greenhouse gas emission which are the areas of concern for Ingogo (Kumar & Kumar, 2016). Ingogo must communicate its thought process and activities related to environmental sustainability (Keong, 2016). It is easily available through mobile application that also makes this a user friendly option for customers (Kumar & Kumar, 2016).

Opportunity statement: Uber is pretty old to Ingogo in the Australian online taxi industry; however, the company struggles to retain its drivers due to a fact they are charged a higher percentage of commission. Uber charges its drivers a commission that ranges from 22.5% to 30% whereas Ingogo only charges a 15% (Matherne & O’Toole, 2017). Additionally, the transaction through Ingogo is fast and automated which also means that it is more centric to customer’s demands (Ingogo, 2018).

Based on the SWOT analysis of Ingogo conducted in the ‘assignment 1’ of the same topic, few things can be summed up that requires an increased attention from Ingogo. The spoken attention would be to enter the areas which are not yet being touched and to also provide customers some more way to avail the services of Ingogo. Notably, the business is limited only to a few major cities in Australia. On the other hand, possibility for other employers to enter the market is high. In addition to all these, Ingogo does not provide an easier way to avail its services as customers need to have the Smartphone to get its services through mobile application.

Problem and opportunity statements

Addressing to all such concerns, few things can be raised as the points to consider for a steady progression of business. Hence, Ingogo must have an alternative way possibly providing customer a unique number to make calls on and avail its services. This is very mush feasible also as services can also be availed through the landline phones. Hence, there won’t be any such restrictions like availing the service only when one has a Smartphone dedicated for either Android or iOS (Jordan, 2017).   

It is of utter importance now that Ingogo enters the various other cities in Australia as well, so that, the market of operation is enhanced and the sales are increased. It is also noteworthy that Ingogo uses and maintains the effective marketing operation, so that, the market that is quite favourable to a new entry, remains less threatened to Ingogo because of its competency to perform (Stone, 2017).   

The target markets identified for Ingogo are as follows:

• Expanded number of cities in Australia
• Customers who do not have the Smartphone or are reliant over the fixed line services only

Market positioning for more new cities: “Come to a service that serves the transportation needs and gives a feel-good experience with its fast and automated services”

Market positioning for untouched customers: “Doors to an excellent transport service provider are now open to every age group and for every society, it is not restricted only to the Smartphone users”

Marketing objectives:

• To reach to the target customers
• To be able to communicate and convince customers on the added services
• To communicate the desired elements through effective selection of marketing communication channels

Goals: The goal is to appropriately reach to the target customers, so that, the purpose of marketing plans are served.

Financial objectives:

• To attain the desired sales increment and also the profit growth
• To effectively promote the services to the target customers
• To offer the committed quality in service
• To improve the customer loyalty by increasing the customer retention rates by 1.3%

Goals: The goal is to increase the sales by 0.1% and profit growth by 1% in the first quarter of operation in the target new markets. Customer loyalty needs to be increased by 1.1% in the same period of time.

Marketing strategy: An effective communication in the new markets will be attained through the effective promotion of services on the different promotional channels. The sales will improve through effective promotional strategies and successful offering of committed services. Customer loyalty will increase through an effective maintenance of mission statement of Ingogo (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). This will be done with fixed and no surge pricing strategies.  

Product ·         Cab services to customers ·         Business to drivers ·         Online cab booking app compatible with Android and iOS	Price ·         Fixed price ·         Cheaper prices than any other service providers ·         No surge pricing
Place ·         Covering the most cities in Australia that also includes Tasmania and Queensland	Promotion ·         Online promotion and advertising strategies (Vila, Bharadwaj & Bahadir, 2015)

Table 1: Marketing Mix for Ingogo

Organisational structure must be considered in order to facilitate an effective communication and coordination between personnel at different parts of Australia. This is necessary also to avoid any sort of communication gap which can certainly spoil the market expansion and can cause a huge loss of costs incurred in the marketing activities. Incentives are essential to motivate the sales personnel for an extensive input of theirs in the market promotion. Communication is another key factor to effectively control the implementation process of marketing plans (Lukito, Lukito & Arifin, 2015).

Target markets

The implementation process can be controlled against the set targets. The method of measurement for a successful implementation of plans will be the performance appraisal system. There should be a good control on working capital, investments and cash. The number of quality and skilled professional will also be needed. The operation capacity of Ingogo and the existing tools of operation must be checked for analysing its level of competency. The sales figures, revenues and the other financial key words must be closely observed in order to understand the behaviours and thereby, facilitating the needful actions to effectively manage the entire implementation process (Pappas, 2016).    

There are five elements of a promotional mix that include advertising, sales promotion, public relations (PR), personal selling, corporate image, sponsorship, product placement and direct marketing. For the proposed marketing plans for Ingogo, online marketing and advertising strategies will be used. For the purpose, the various social media channels will be used. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is also very useful as it maximises the chances of being searched on the various search engines (Krush, Sohi & Saini, 2015).  

Promotional Channels	Expected Expenses
Online marketing & activities	$100 millions
Search engine optimisation (SEO)	$100 per month

Table 2: Promotional Budget Plan

Conclusion:

Therefore, the proposed strategic market plans will assist Ingogo in entering the different other cities in Australia. The assistance will come in the form of an appropriate understanding of the target market. The assistance will also happen through a measured approach in the guidance of the market plans. The implementation of such plans will help Ingogo entering the cities that are yet to be touched by the company. Moreover, this will help the company to grow in terms of total number of customers. This will also help to boost the company’s sales and the profitability as well that are calculated at the end of every quarter in a fiscal year. Finally, the customer loyalty level will increase with more satisfied customers in divers regions. This is necessary also for a sustainable business practice

References

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