Developing A Strategic Market Plan For Ingogo - Essay On Analysis, Strategy, And Implementation.

Discuss about the Strategic Marketing Plan of Ingogo.

The aim of the report is to develop a strategic market plan for Ingogo for the coming 18 months. In order to develop a marketing strategy for the online cab booking Ingogo, it is important to carry out a detailed market analysis to understand the present situation of cab industry and the competitive analysis as well. The report shall give a brief analysis of the customer segmentation and the regions where the cab company can actually expand its business. On the basis of the findings, a marketing strategy to increase the market sales and the revenue of the organisation shall be presented that would help the organisation to achieve the desired financial and marketing objectives.

Overview of the company:

Ingogo is the Australian taxi company that specialises in the online taxi booking and payment. At present, this taxi company operates in the regions of Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Brisbane and Adelaide. The taxi has become a reliable service for the people of Australia (Ingogo.com.au, 2018).

Service features:

The taxi app ahead of the ASX listing has been found to overhaul its app in order to improve the user experience. Ingogo is the first online taxi company that has provided the riders with fixed fares that include the tolls and other charges (Ingogo.com.au, 2018). The taxi company does not charge any surcharges to the customers and also allows the users to book the cab even two days earlier.

Current market situation:

According to 2015 statistics, Ingogo has raised $12 million that has valued the company at $100 million. It has been found that more than $4 million was raised from crowd funding. Ingigo also received a grant from the Australian Federal Government in order to build the business in Australia (Ingogo.com.au, 2018).

Macro force analysis:

Customer analysis:

Reports suggest that there has been an increase in the usage of the online cabs by 5.1% within a period of six months. Over one million Australians have been found to download online cab apps on their mobile (Bashir, Yousaf & Verma, 2016). The consumers are embracing the app service and there has been a considerable increase of the customers using the mobile phone apps to book their cabs. The concept of ride sharing has also helped in attracting more consumers to use the online cab service.

Competitor analysis:

Uber is the primary competitor of Ingogo. Uber has established its market in Australia and it has been found that 7.6% of Australians have already downloaded the app and 4.3% actually books a cab once in a week; according to 2016 statistics (Poó, Ledesma & López, 2018). Other important players of the industry are GoCatch and Cab Charge. Ola is also set to enter the market of Australia considering the cab market opportunity in Australia.

Competitive Analysis

Other stakeholder analysis:

The stakeholders of the Ingogo cab include the consumers, the business partners, government bodies and others. It is important for the company to abide by the rules and regulations of the transportation policies considering the macro environmental factors.

SWOT analysis:

Problem statement

The online cab services have been facing certain challenges in the recent time due to the increase competition of the online cabs in the market. Ingogo is facing highest challenges in terms of this factor as this company is comparatively new in the market and is yet to take over the market (Wirtz & Tang, 2016). Other online cab service giants like Uber and GoCatch are already established organisations and have been operating in the market since a long time. It would be a great challenge for Ingogo to enter a new market unless proper marketing strategies are applied. Ingogo is in the expansion stage and has been considering the expansion of its services to other regions of Australia and thus, the aim of this report is to come up with a potential marketing plan that would help the organisation to reach its business objectives and goals.

Discussion of potential market segment

For the current market expansion and the marketing strategies, Ingogo shall target the markets of Queensland, Victoria, New South Wales and the regions around these territories. The target group of customers are the users of online cabs. These groups are mainly the office goers as they are the ones who need the cab services on a regular basis. However, they are not the only potential group but other groups include any traveller who requires a ride to reach out a particular location. From the statistics it has been found that that there are more than 174,600,000 passengers travelling on a regular basis with over 7,347 taxis available in New South Wales (Refer to the appendix for more details). However, the demand for the online cab booking services has been increasing and thus, there is a potential market need for the cab service.

The market segmentation can be defined as below:

Discussion of target market and positioning

The target group of people who shall be responsible for booking the cabs can be considered to be in between the age group of 14 and 50 years as the app offers easy means of booking a cab and can be operated by anyone. The target based on the income group need not to be high as the cab service offers its service at a lower and competitive price. People who prefer to enjoy a hassle free ride and want to reach out the location at the earliest without waiting for the traditional cab services prefer to use this service (Angus & Valentijn, 2018).

Customer Segmentation

Considering the need of the demand of the target group of people, the positioning strategy for the cab should include innovative approaches. For instance, it is very important that the app should be designed in a way that it would be very easy for the people to book the cab. In order to create a greater domination in the market, it is equally important that the cab service comes up with a plan of giving better discounts and offer (Poó, Ledesma & López, 2018). In fact, any kind of loyalty program would also be effective in keeping a hold of the target group of consumers. However, it is equally important to maintain a high quality, competitive cost and flexibility in order to maintain speed, innovation and great service.

Marketing objectives and goals

• To increase the sales by at least 5% within 12 months that will result in growth of market share
• To enter new market and target new customers
• To build brand awareness and enhance the customer relationship

Financial objectives and goals

• To generate minimum $5,000,000 revenue within the span of 18 months by entering new market segments
• To increase the distribution or the reach of the service among the new segment group to increase the sale
• To achieve the desired cost in return that has been spent against the promotional and marketing objectives

Marketing mix

Marketing strategy proposed implementation

In the view point of Armstrong et al., (2014), a marketing strategy should always follow a particular theme in order to increase the impact of marketing strategy among the target consumers. For the Ingogo cab services, it is equally important to come up with a promotional theme that would be followed using various media. For this particular duration of 18 months, the theme that has been proposed is, “Let’s go in Ingogo” with the idea that this cab service will help any person to reach out their destination at the right time within a comparatively low cost. As mentioned above, the commercials and advertisement would focus on the various strategies or facilities including pre-booking, availability of car within few minutes, comfortable journey, loyalty programs and other benefits that the cab service might come up from time to time in order to increase its customer base and services.

The proposed budget for the 18 months promotional activities can be given below.

Conclusion

A detailed analysis of the present market situation of the taxi industry in Australia has been carried out and it has been found that there is a great opportunity for the online cab services as the demand of the cab services has been increasing in the recent time. A detailed market analysis has been carried out and a proposed marketing strategy has been given in the report. It is expected that considering the present market scenario if Ingogo understands the need of the hour and carry out its marketing in a unique way, it can easily achieve the targeted marketing and financial objectives of expanding its business.

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