Marketing Plan And Estimated Budget To Make Tesla Cars Affordable And Improve Their Sales Essay.

Write a report to Marketing plan and estimated budget (with numbers) on how to make Tesla Cars affordable, and how to improve their sales.

Before explaining the goals of the marketing strategy developed for Tesla, it is necessary to understand what are IMC objectives. According to Levinson (2018), IMC is a theory that  “corporates all of a brand’s messaging into one unified tone. IMC takes a company’s various promotions and ensures that they follow a distinct, unified style, which results in marketing efforts that are consistently recognizable to customers. IMC has four primary objectives: creating brand awareness, generating product interest, increasing the desire for products and prompting action in the form of a sale” (p.2). Thus, companies can focus on different aspects of marketing to venture in a new segment.  As we mentioned before Tesla does not invest in the advertisement because Musk believes there is not enough product to even fill the current demands. Nonetheless, we think there are a few things that Tesla can implement to improve its presence in the market.

Thus, in this strategic campaign, we have decided to address one of the most significant issues faced by the company in the last years by using one of the IMC tools of integrated marketing: Interactive/ Internet Marketing. The question that we are going to address is whether Tesla should be considered as a Luxurious brand or an affordable electric car. Since Tesla is a company that develops electric vehicles and it’s a pioneer in the field we believe it should be considered and advertised as a luxury brand, but that is still more accessible than high-end brands such as Lamborghini, Rolls Royce, or Bentley.

Secondly, we found that Tesla’s demographic oscillates between people from thirty-five years old to fifty-four years old; likewise, the demographics of the brand tend to be used or picked by a masculine audience, especially for the model S. Our goal is to involve a different audience with the brand and expand its visibility on Social Media. The project is focused on creating a culture around the product that brings younger people and more significant female audience.  Why? Because multiple studies showed that millennials are more likely to base their decisions and loyalties to a brand when they sympathize with its values or culture; therefore, we want to create a culture of not only promoting fast cars but that is also amicable to the environment, and that can perform as good as Mercedes and BMW.

In this vein our first objective is:

• To partner with Social Media stars who review automobiles and who have explained the deficiencies of the old models. The influencers can evaluate the changes performed to the vehicles and tell why the cars are worthy of investment. In exchange, the influencers can create content for the channels with the vehicles and the CEO

Thirdly, the research suggested that many young celebrities who have purchased a Tesla justify their decision based on the security component offered by the cars.  Nevertheless, the automobiles are not always the safest with the autopilot. Therefore, we found that another important element while investing in a Tesla is the status of owning something that cannot be accessed easily, and that looks very stylish. Three influencers who hold these cars and communicate the perks of Tesla are Jeffree Star, James Charles, and Jake Paul. Partnering with these celebrities will growth Tesla’s young and female audience. Therefore our second objective is:

• Increase Tesla presence in a younger audience while attracting more female buyers through partnering with relevant makeup artists who own or have had contact with the brand.
• Create content that combines the products created by the influencers while showing the characteristics of the vehicles.
• Include testimonies of customers who have to avoid significant injuries as a result of the mechanism created for Tesla and upload them to Musk’s social media as well as the official Tesla accounts.

Finally, but equally important, Tesla will need to make some improvement to its models to make them more desirable to the public. One of the biggest complains of the X, and an S model is the lack of exhaust, which makes the experience of the driver least interesting. Additionally, the cars do not have gears, and the driving is plain in general. For cars lovers, one of the most rewarding experiences is to listen to the change in the gears, the exhaust representing the speed.  To improve this situation we proposed the following actions:

• Tesla can consider developing sound chips, which is getting more and more popular with cars as the Camaro. This option can be chosen before purchasing the car for those who consider this feature highly important.

Marketing Analysis

Before making recommendations, it is essential to explain what are the significant difficulties faced by Elon Musk’s company. Firstly, being a new company that is venturing in the productions of vehicles that use electric energy, Tesla has had a hard time finding a respectable position in the auto industry.  The reason is that Tesla has a prize that can be compared with its competitors and yet it lacks many features that seem to be “basic” for cars lovers.

One of the reasons why Tesla might not be engaged in sales is their lack of marketing on Television, the Internet, and the lack of dealerships. Tesla is the product of not having dealerships, and it is part of the essence of the brand, making unnecessary the presence of these places for now. Nevertheless, Tesla is an innovative company and bringing young entrepreneurs, and social media stars can help the company to show its qualities while reaching an audience that pays attention to the recommendation of their “idols.”  Many of the Tesla’ rivals have celebrities that expose the brand’s image to the consumers. It is certain that consumers are in part driven by whom they see or know that shows up on their screen.

But what is the problem behind Tesla for car enthusiastic? To answer this question we interview to electrical engineers at the Monterrey TEC who explained:

As we mentioned many brands previously incorporate blogs and digital media to expand the relationships with the consumers. Again, the idea is not to make sales at this point but to enhance the bond between the brand and the public, showing them what the features that make them unique and different from others. This will be the main focus of this marketing campaign; Tesla believes in technology and incorporating social media, as a way to interact with people is a method that follows those ideas.

The Tesla Motors focuses all announcements and advertisements on its main website. We still keep doing it when announcing new product, promoting the campaigns, and giving the complete details through the website directly. Next, we use digital communication strategy by using Twitter, Instagram, or blogs instead of traditional marketing strategy such as TV or radio ads. This strategy will be a major driver towards saving company marketing costs and being directly connected with potential customers.

The next step will be to host an event like any other, where different influencers get together to show their audience the features of Tesla vehicles. Tesla will host a race with beauty influencers and YouTuber’s who do reviews for cars who are familiarized with the company. The main point of the competition is to measure the time of the influencers while being on the grand pix. The best three times will win different prizes, which are: a money reward donated to charity of the influencer’s choice, a trophy for the first, second and third place, an opportunity to visit the plant with one of person of the influencer choice, and it will have a chance to drive the vehicle for a week.

Communication Strategy Plan

While some of the influencers are racing on the race circle, the rest can record content for their channels with other creators who they connect with. This type of collaborative meetings has been conducted by YouTube before and has been very successful for both, the brand and the creators. Moreover, the YouTubers can record a video with the Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk who is extremely popular between young audience and who can represent proper engagement on the platform. Tesla is one of the few car companies owning a YouTube channel, which already gives it an advantage over other brands. The influencers will also create content for this channel and promote it on their platforms to build Tesla’s engagement. The idea is to recreate videos such as the ones created by Jeffree Star where he does his makeup on autopilot; in this scenario, the YouTuber can show his or her creativity while applying the features of the vehicles. The influencers are going to be provided with food, with accommodation for them and two of their fans who will be chosen by the influencer.

Nonetheless, a Tesla team will be helping the influencers to decide the winners to make the task less complicated.  Tesla is going to earn revenue from the views generated by the channel while also gaining popularity with different audiences. Tesla can make this event once per year and can invite recurrent influencers of different ones to create the expectation of who will be participating; in some ways is a media show just as the Victoria Secret Fashion Show hosted every year.

Finally, to address the problem at the supply chain management, Tesla will be establishing how many models will be assembled per model and then will promote the product as special editions that won’t be in the market ever again. In this way, Tesla can keep the status of being eco-friendly, luxurious but still affordable when compared with other high-end brands.

As Tesla only focus on online sales, site traffic has become a major concern for the company. For the growth of the company it has become essential to increase the site traffic. As discussed above, communication strategy for the company will be beneficial and work on these media sources mainly: Google’s Ad words, social media outlets like twitter, instagram, and company sponsored events.

Website and Social Media: Like all other big brands, Tesla will use its website for all major announcements and advertisement purpose. Tesla will announce all launches of new cars, promotion of campaigns, and to avail all details directly through the website. Company will also use its social media platforms for making announcements and promotion of the future events that would likely to happen. All Ads will be placed on the homepage so that maximum users can visit the advertisement as soon as they enter the website through other channels. Tesla is going to spend around $1400 million dollars for the research and development of new technology that will produce lower priced cars which is affordable to the larger customers. To lower the expenses on the research and development, company will use the existing technology.  Tesla will implement communication strategy in the first phase and remain throughout the year. This will cost around $400 million to the company. For placing Google ad words, it will cost $20,000 for the whole year and advertisement on different social media will be around $350 million dollars.

To create network by taking membership and subscription on YouTube channels it will cost around $3 million dollars. For organizing a racing event, charges will include valet services for the visitors, celebrity endorsement which is $12 million dollars, accommodation and meal charges of influencers and the company staff is around $15,000, therefore, a total cost of around $392 million dollars for organizing the event. In addition to this, money given to the charity as reward is $5 million dollars.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Tesla has had issues positioning its brand as luxurious and to create a relationship with new users. We believe this is caused because Tesla refuses to advertise its cars. They want to follow the line of Lamborghini, Ferrari, Bugatti but all of these cars have been in the market for years. Tesla cannot assume the brand is equally successful without building a “name” first. Thus, Tesla needs to involve young and innovative methods to highlight its values while also selling the product.  For example, through events and Internet marketing, it has worked for brands such as Red Bull and Fashion Nova, and it could work for Tesla too. Today, young generation which is the major target of Tesla is seen mostly on internet through social media like you tube, instagram, Facebook and many more. Tesla has to focus on these social media platforms and target the young generation by campaigning their products on these platforms. In Appendix, the budget for the communication marketing strategy for Tesla is described which will cost around $4693 million dollar to the company. But it is cheaper than the traditional methods of marketing and also target large nu8mber of customers.

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