BMW Z4: A Luxury Sports Car For High-Income Customers, Essay.

Question:

Discuss about the Marketing Plan for the BMW Z4 Car.

BMW Z4 is one of the BMW products designed with a stunning hardtop and elongated hood combine. The vehicle has a powerful engine, low stance and has a seating position ahead of the rear axle to help the person driving take every corner straightaway and fast. It is of metallic paint combined with black Alcantara. The car is designed in a way someone can enjoy driving it as the hardtop can open and close in 90seconds even if it is at the speed of 25 mph. Therefore this vehicle was manufactured targeting those customers with a higher income and in love with sporty cars (BMW Concept Z4 First Look - Motor Trend, n.d.).

 A marketing plan is among the critical tools for any business to run comfortably and be able to attain what it needs. To run a successful business involves making potential customers know what you offer as a business person and coming up with a way that shows your product is the best to persuade them to buy (Wood, 2008). The marketing plan includes the advertising plan, pricing strategy, sale or distribution and a business's unique selling proposition and strategy to meet their objectives (Chase, Mackillop & Hogarth, 2013). The fooling steps are involved when coming up with a marketing plan.

As a business person, one has to identify the target audience that is interested in buying the product. When coming up with the target audience, one should also find ways in which their products are unique than those of their competitors for the customers to come for them. When identifying the target audience, an image should be created in their minds that will make them come for the product. BMW Z4 targets customers with a higher income, and the vehicle has powerful engines and a hardcover top that can close or open in 90 seconds even at a speed of 25 mph making it different from its competitors catching the customer's attention (BMW Z4 - BMW USA, n.d.).

Setting marketing goals entails drafting marketing objectives. The marketing goals help determine the success and failure of the business, and for this reason, they should be (SMART) that is specific, measurable, attainable reasonable and timely. Goals are things you want to achieve for a period of time. The main goal of BMW Z4 is to communicate luxury that is unmistakably unique that can help it get a good number of customers that love luxury in a short period.

Target Audience

It takes time to carry out a good research that can help one come up with right strategies and tactics that not only help them win customers but also be ahead of their competitors (Perreault, 2010). It involves identifying a space that is empty in the market and trying to fill it up. It also involves the different kinds of media and different advertising tools or methods one may use to attain their goal and also reach the customers.

A business person should take time to determine the best way to reach customers because customers are reached in different ways. One has to also have a marketing budget to gather costs of tactics. For example, the BMW Z4 has powerful engines that are not present in other cars and also a hard cover that opens and closes in seconds which is a good strategy to win customers. They advertise this vehicle using social media and websites and this way it is easy to reach to different customers across the world and also spend less.

These are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that are exhibited in organizations (Kim, Hayes, Avant & Reid, 2014). These factors affect businesses internally and externally, internal factors being strength and weaknesses while external factors being opportunities and threats. Internal factors can easily be controlled as they may involve employee attitude, and the resources needed in manufacturing while external factors are uncontrollable because they are beyond what the business can do for example politics and competitors (Sinapuelas, Wang & Bohlmann, 2015).

The strengths of an organization are the positive attributes that are tangible and intangible in an organization (Cameron, 2014). It is what makes the organization do well over their competitors, for example, good technology and capital, while weaknesses are the internal negative factors. These are the things that need to be improved to be able to maintain competition, for example, poor location and lack of access to the market. For example, BMW Z4 has an excellent reputation, and it is also known as one of the best cars in the world giving it an advantage over competitors. This car has been made luxuriously, yet some people do not like luxury making it a weakness as they lose some customers. Weaknesses should be covered by strengths (Mintz & Currim, 2013).

Just like strengths, opportunities are positive factors that are external. They are attractive external factors that can help the business expand and benefit, for example, if your business viewed positively and growth in the market. Threats are external negative factors that cannot be controlled and can put the business at risk (Maggon & Harish, 2015). Example of threats can be competitors and new technology in the market that the business is unaware of. BMW Z4 is the newest car in town that is luxurious, comfortable and has new technology that gives it a positive view of customers, and the car faces a threat from Mercedes Benz S Coupe that is also new and has luxurious features. Another threat is the everyday changing technology. Opportunities should be used to deal with threats.

Marketing Goals

Competitor analysis is carried out to identify competitors and their strengths and weaknesses compared to those of your business. This way one can establish a way in which their product is unique for them to be able to attract more customers and run ahead of their competitors (Kumar, Sharma  & Gupta, 2017). The objectives of competitors help one set their targets well for competition. For the BMW Z4 to get ahead of competitors, they have a website that can show a range of the product and features of the car.  The car also has classical proportions that can go through in an elongated hood that boldly defines the presence of the car. This way the car has been able to overcome competition from other vehicle brands in the market.

A mission defines the goals of a company or brand. It shows what the company does for the customers, employees and the owners. It also shows the culture and norms of the company (John, Katherine & Jocz, 2012).  Through the mission customers and competitors get what the brand or business is all about. The mission of BMW Z4 is a leading provider of premium products and premium services for individual mobility and for customers to be comfortable. 

• To increase profitand sales in six months.
• To improve communications both internally and externally.
• To get new customers in at least every two months for the six months.

• To decrease individual costs by shipping vehicles in large quantities.
• To attain more than 40% profit of the vehicles sold within four months.
• To reduce the costs of vehicles, one's the 40% is attained.

Marketing mix strategy uses 4P's of marketing to enhance components of the marketing mix. The marketing mix is the way one takes a new product to the market. The meaning of 4P’s is what it entails, price, product, promotion, and place (Blythe, 2009). The 4P’s help one to attain a specific customer’s need or demand. The brand can use various digital media platforms to pass their message to customers in the world (Adam, Wim & Micheline, 2011). For example, Facebook is a good example of advertising a product.

BMW Z4 can use websites, social media platforms and other internet sites to market itself. For example, the product can be marketed by showing different sizes, qualities, colors and the designs it has. BMW Z4 can put different pictures of the same vehicle on their website for people to see and have their choice. The vehicles price could be placed on different media platforms, for example, Facebook and WhatsApp for people in different areas to know the price and they can even make it negotiable on their pages. The place of distribution can also be communicated on the websites.

Promotion is taking messages about your product across the target market. BMW Z4 since it has a large target audience over the whole world it can use the internet to market itself. The brand can create a page where customers can be able to engage in conversations with them and ask for clarification. This way they will be creating good relations and marketing the product at the same time (Hartmann, Nair  & Narayanan, 2011). Digital communication is the key to marketing these days, and it should be used by every company (Luan & Sudhir, 2010).

Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT)

To attain marketing objectives, the program that has been designed is capitalizing on the latest digital communication tools. Employees have been informed about global marketing and digital marketing to ensure they get many customers as they can. The employees have been trained to update websites daily to ensure no information comes out that customers are not aware of. The BMW Z4 has also created social media platforms for quick access to customers and to keep daily communication.

Another program that has been designed to achieve financial objectives is that there are those employees that will have to move from the place within the first two months to talk to customers and persuade them physically to buy vehicles. This way, they will be able to attain the 40% profit. A program has also been designed to ensure vehicles are shipped in large quantities and not in order to minimize on customer expenses.

For any business or organization to achieve its objectives, and implementation of the marketing plan should be done effectively (Laudon & Laudon, 2010). To achieve objectives of a brand BMW Z4 should come up with a group of managers that overlook the work done for the brand to achieve its goals. One of the objectives of BMW Z4 is to get profit, and lower buying price of the vehicle and these can be obtained if the management put in place facilitates achieving these objectives. The correct attitude should be put in business to run well.

Marketing control comes in to ensure that all marketing activities carried out aim to attain the brand's goals and objectives. It is there to monitor and evaluate how available resources and finances are used. For BMW Z4 to attain 40% profit, there must be an evaluation that is carried out to ensure every employee adheres to what is needed to achieve this objective.

Conclusion

Therefore, it is critical for any organization to perform an analysis of the market plan so that goals can be attained. A SWOT analysis is carried out to know how to deal with competitors and also know what their strength is so that they can capitalize on it. Marketing mix analysis is also necessary because one knows the importance of carrying out promotions and designing a product differently. All these analyses are there to help an organization achieve its objectives.

References

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Blythe, J. (2009). Key Concepts in Marketing. London: Sage Publications. ISBN 978-1-84787-498-6

Cameron, B. (2014). Management. Strategic Leadership Review, pp. 22-27.

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John, A., Katherine, E. & Jocz (2012). All Business is Local: Why Place Matters More than Ever in a Global, Virtual World. Penguin.

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Maggon, M. & Harish, C. (2015). Revisiting The Relationship Marketing and the Customer Relationship Management in the Leading Tourism and the Hospitality Journals: Research Trends From 2001 to 2013, Journal of Relationship Marketing, Vol. 14(1), pp. 53-77.

Mintz, O. & Currim, I. (2013). What Drives Managerial Use of Marketing and Financial Metrics and Does Metric Use Affect Performance of Marketing-Mix Activities? Journal of Marketing, Vol. 77(2), pp. 17.

Perreault, W. (2010). Essentials of marketing: A marketing strategy planning approach

Chase, H., Mackillop, J. & Hogarth, L. (2013). Isolating behavioral economic indices of the demand in relation to the nicotine dependence, Psychopharmacology, Vol. 226(2), pp. 371-80.

Sinapuelas, I., Wang, H. & Bohlmann, J. (2015). The interplay of innovation, brand, and marketing mix variables in line extensions, Academy of Marketing Science Journal, Vol. 43(5), pp. 558-573.

Wood, M. (2008). The marketing plan handbook. Pearson Prentice Hall

BMW Concept Z4 First Look - Motor Trend. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.motortrend.com/cars/bmw/z5/2018/bmw-concept-z4-first-look/

BMW Z4 - BMW USA. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.bmwusa.com/vehicles/z4.html