Marketing plan for HLD via Drones

Assignment Taken

The objective is to become the market leader in the drone delivery service

Case Understanding

The courier company is exploring delivery via airways using short-distance drones. Being able to add the drone delivery system to the existing services provided by the company will help it achieve a sustainable competitive advantage in the market. To become the industry leader, the company needs to focus on all areas such as marketing, finance, HR, IT, etc so that all the areas can work synchronously to achieve the goal.

BCS Solution Summary

The solution gives a detailed situation analysis along with a complete marketing plan that is required to build a brand and become the market leader in the industry. The situation analysis is based on SWOT, PESTEL and 5C analysis. The target market is chosen based on demography, geography and psychography of the customer segment. The solution also talks about a detailed marketing strategy required to position the company as a market leader. It is of utmost importance that the company builds a brand and maintains its brand equity. To do so, the solution contains all the steps that need to be taken for establishing the brand and the brand journey projection.

Solution

A] Marketing Plan
 

Situation analysis: From the SWOT analysis, the strengths of the company and the services are shorter delivery time, efficient delivery routes, easy rescheduling and re-directing, lower energy requirement. The weaknesses are weight restrictions, high investment cost. The opportunities that can be explored are delivery of medicines, delivery to remote areas, and the potential threats can be the safety of the device, cyber threats.

Summarizing the PESTEL analysis, politically, privacy issues can be raised, in terms of the economic factors, high initial investments are required, the social impact will be that only a selected set of people will be able to avail the service, technological factors are the requirement of trained operators and latest technological breakthroughs. The environmental factors are that drones might pose risks to birds but are a cleaner way of delivering packages, lastly, the legal aspect of the laws in India, restricts the areas that can be traversed by the drone, hence requiring longer routes at times.

Coming to the 5C Analysis, the company is a well-established courier company, delivering to almost all pin codes across India. The customers will be based out of Mumbai, it is one of the busiest cities. The collaborators will be business partners such as grocery stores, supermarkets, food joints, restaurants, chemists, etc. Some of the competitors are Zipline, Amazon Prime Air, Wingcopter, however, none of them have their presence in India. This provides a first and fast-mover advantage to the company. However, as the context is laid, it can invite certain privacy issues and the laws of the country can restrict the drone movements when long-range is explored.

Target Market: The target segment consists of people from Mumbai, as we will start the operations in Mumbai and then eventually expand. The TG will be from the age group 24 to 40years as people of this age group are self-dependent and comfortable with technology. Psychographically, the customers who are open to new experience and value convenience over cost is what we are looking for.

Marketing Objectives – The objective is to become the market leader in drone delivery for hyper-local deliveries. The operations will start from Mumbai and we aim to expand to other metros after a successful operation in Mumbai for about 2 years.

The marketing strategy

revolves around the marketing mix. The product(service) is quick delivery via short-distance drones. The prices depend on the parcel weight and hence vary. They have been pre-decided as mentioned in the case.

Category of courier	Courier weight	Price
A	0.1-500gm	60 Rs
B	501gm – 1kg	80 Rs
C	1.01-5kg	100 Rs/kg
D	5.01- 10kg	110 Rs/kg

 The promotion will be done by using various kinds of advertisements. (Details in the Brand establishment section). The geography focussed will be Mumbai for the first 2 years.

B] Brand establishment

Stage 1: Pre-purchase

1. Outdoor Advertising:

i) Bill-Boards:  The marketing campaigns will focus on speed of delivery and customer convenience. The billboards will be placed near the flyovers and local and metro stations to increase visibility.

ii) Newsletters: To make our presence in houses we will use local new letters which are comparatively cost-friendly

2. Digital:

i) Facebook Ads: We will run targeted advertisements on Facebook groups and Videos. The advertisement will be done through 30 seconds non-skippable targeted ads on YouTube

ii) Promoting Earned Media through Owned Media: Owned media, including website and social media accounts, will utilize the earned media through social media posts. This will improve customer engagement and increase brand equity

iii) YouTube ads (Focus on Youth): Sponsored ads in videos by famous entertainment channels like Filter copy, TVF, etc. This through will increase brand recognition and recall

Stage 2: Purchase

The purchase stage is all about the distribution. In this case, the drones will be under the complete control and authority of the company. However, the customers can buy the services using a mobile application. The process will be simple and the customer journey will be mapped at every point. Marketing automation tools will be used to keep the customers engaged throughout their journey, right from pre-purchase to post-purchase.

Stage 3: Post Purchase

The post-purchase stage will focus on customer retention. Hence a few loyalty programs that have to be introduced are discounts for regular customers and a subscription model. For excellent customer service, 2-3 dedicated employees will be available 24x7 to tend to the queries and difficulties of the customers.

C] Brand journey projection

Interactions: the interactions will happen through various advertisements. Apart from that, the phones that will have the apps installed will interact via the notifications. This will happen for the first 3 months at an excessive pace.

 Consistency: The interaction will be kept consistently using various channels of communication including SMS, emails, and notifications. In terms of performance, new initiatives will be informed to the customers. This will be continued throughout the customer journey.

Authenticity: To establish authenticity, the use of testimonials will be done so that the brand can be established as a trustworthy brand. This will be done in the initial phase for about 3 months.

Trust: To develop trust, excellent service with 24x7 customer service will be provided. Customer grievances will be dealt with utmost importance and attention. This will be continued throughout the customer journey process.

Loyalty: To encourage customers to reuse the service and be loyal, loyalty programs will be introduced after 6 months of successful operation. The customers will be encouraged to provide feedback and their feedback will be taken into consideration. This will be reflected in the advertisements.

Conclusion

To make sure that the customers perceive the service as an essential one, it is required to generate the (perception of) need. This will be achieved with the help of various marketing campaigns. To create positive and high brand equity, the marketing strategy will help to position the brand as the solution to all logistics woes along with being trustworthy.

Attached File Details

View Attachment file (cost structure.pdf) View Attachment file (swot.png) View Attachment file (5C.jpg) View Attachment file (pestel.jpg)