Introduction
The Unique Selling Point of Toyota will be identified in this report. Toyota is a Japanese multinational automobile company and one of the best companies in the sector. It sells automobiles in 170 countries and manufactures automobiles in 67 countries (Toyota Europe, 2020). The company have 5 regional headquarter and 20 design and R&D centres (Toyota Europe, 2020). Toyota has 370,870 employees across the world, and it generates revenue of about $272,612.00 (Fortune, 2020). In this report, different facts about Toyota have been demonstrated.
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USP of Toyota
Toyota brings the most innovative features to their cars by utilizing the latest technology. It has maintained its top-rated position from the beginning of its journey. The unique selling points of Toyota are demonstrated below:
Outstanding durability: Toyota’s car has outstanding durability than other cars. For example, 80% of Toyota cars still exist on the road, which was sold out 20 years ago (Jerry’s Toyota, 2018). Therefore, the customers who have wanted to use a car for decades by Toyota.
Relaxation features: Customers’ can relax when the car is outfitted with roof-mounted AC vents while sitting back. Other features such as rain-sensor wipers, auto headlamps, rear sunshade, cooled glove compartment and infotainment centre can be controlled through gestures (Jerry’s Toyota, 2018).
Fuel-efficiency: Toyota manufactured Prius which was the first mass-produced gas/electric hybrid vehicle (Kendal Toyota, 2018). Toyota is researching on making the process of making more fuel-efficient cars.
Safety features: Toyota cars have been designed with special safety features in order to ensure customers’ safety. The safety facilities are tire pressure monitoring systems, rear and front parking sensors and seven airbags which are features in Toyota Yaris. Toyota Camry has mandatory Bluetooth Hands-Free features and it has many more safety features which the competitors of, Toyota are unable to provide (Kendal Toyota, 2018).
Marketing strategies of Toyota:
Ensuring global presence through extensive dealership networks: Toyota has an outstanding global presence. They sell their cars in 170 countries, and this outstanding global presence has a great impact on customers’ minds (Toyota Europe, 2020). Find Toyota cars in most of the countries of the world therefore, it has become successful in selling 10.74 million units globally in 2019 (Japan Times, 2020).
Using social media and active web presence: Toyota has a strong social media and web presence that helps them to attract more customers globally. It uses Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Digg actively to stay connected with its customers and inform them about its products (Fact Company, 2011). It has increased its sales by about 1.4% with its outstanding digital marketing and traditional marketing approach and tends to grow more in future.
Value for money pricing: The pricing structure of Toyota consists of two pricing strategies such as market-oriented pricing and value-based pricing (Course Hero, 2020). Value-based pricing is used to determine the price of high-end luxurious cars of Toyota, and it creates value for money. Customers get the value of their money and purchase Toyota cars more than others which increases its revenue.
Explicitly presenting the features of products: Toyota cars have outstanding durability, safety features, relaxation features and fuel efficiency features that compel customers to have their cars. Because of these advanced features, Toyota was able to generate higher revenue. For example, in the first quarter of 2019, Toyota generated revenue of $272.3 billion (Forbes, 2019).
In this part, a sub-brand of Toyota has been selected. Toyota Land Cruiser, which is used as a safari car. This part has conducted the STP analysis, has set the marketing and brand awareness strategies and finally has applied the marketing mix.
Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning (STP) of Toyota:
Toyota Land Cruiser represents a high level of utility with good value for money because of its exclusive features and reasonable prices. There are many bases on which market segmentation can be done: demographic, geographic, Geo-demographic, psychographics, behavioural etc.
Figure: Market Segmentation. (Armstrong et al., 2014)
This report has used behavioural-based segmentation to categorize the types of buyers who usually purchase and use Toyota’s Safari Car (Land Cruiser). The rationale for choosing behavioural segmentation basis is that this best explains the insights for which a customer may purchase a safari car from Toyota.
Market segmentation for Toyota’s Land Cruiser (Simao and Lisboa, 2017).
For the report of the report, the specific target market is Forest Explorers. There are a number of reasons which have inspired the researcher to select this group. Toyota’s Land Cruiser has been built for destinations such as forests or adventures (Choi and Chung, 2013). Therefore, it can be best applied in all terms of marketing. Furthermore, other users of Land Cruisers use this vehicle for the above-mentioned reasons, which are not the primary intention of building this car.
Market positioning of Toyota (Jindal, Laveena and Aggarwal, 2015)
As the infographic shows above, Toyota Land Cruiser is positioned as more than average quality at a lower price. This position represents a better position for Toyota for the many features that the company has offered. The cars offer the below features that have made the vehicle exceptional compared to other vehicles of the same category. The vehicle has a sound record of 60 years with excellent service; extra space vehicle for eight people; travellers can enjoy nature through top openers; it can move smoothly even through sandy deserts; it has a stylish and comfortable interior (Toyota Motor Sales, 2020).
How Toyota can increase brand awareness, market share, sales and profitability:
Safari vehicles belong to luxury car segments in the automobile industry. The main features of the luxury car market are that customers demand comfort, safety (such as airbags, electronic stability controllers etc.), uncommon features and styles, LED headlamps, tyre pressure monitoring systems, 360-degree parking cameras, and ventilated seats etc. are some of the common features expected in luxury vehicles (Monden, 2019).
Mentioned features in the above portion are the ones which Toyota should include in its Land Cruiser because luxury-seeking customers will not be impressed because other competitors such as Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Audi offer more than the above features.
There are some other issues which must be considered to increase brand awareness and market share of Toyota Land Cruiser.
Visual social networking: Social networking mediums have become a major communication channel where most people of the world spend time (Juwaheer, Pudaruth and Noyaux, 2012). Using visual graphics in social networks can be a great effort to increase brand awareness and customer attention. Toyota Land Cruiser must make graphics of the Land Cruiser, the functionality, and luxury in lucrative ways to seek the attention of potential customers.
Building a website combining style, user experience, and functionality with SEO: A website has always been a proven way to make communication with customers (Jamal, 2014). However, it is important to present the style of the vehicle, and user experience through images and graphics and functionality must be presented in a friendly manner. SEO can also be applied to present the search options at the top of search results. Thus, there is a good chance that the searchers will visit the website.
Explain the heritage of the product to educate the customers: Toyota Land Cruiser should tell the story of every product in a meaningful way, this approach will educate the customers about the use of the product. This will also show the value of the product.
Remove unqualified audiences: All customers are not qualified and target customers, therefore, spending time for such unqualified groups is a waste of valuable time and money (Kormin and Baharun, 2016). Toyota Land Cruiser should remove such unqualified customers by uploading an algorithm that customers searching “cheap or free” will not be able to see the ads of Toyota Land Cruiser. Thus, the company will be able to seek the attention of the target customers only, maximizing the chances of landing with potential customers.
Target audience based on income levels: Advertisements can also be tailored based on the income levels of customers (Shafiulla, 2012). Such a strategy will help Toyota Land Cruiser to reach potential customers only. Income levels can be tailored to social networking advertisements and search engines. Microsoft (2020) has reported that 25% of the browsers of Bings have income which is the top 25% of the total browsers. This implies that relatively wealthy people brows Bing. Therefore, Toyota can also target to advertise on Bing to target wealthy customers.
Application of the above strategies will help Toyota Land Cruiser to increase brand awareness, sales, market share and profitability.
Marketing mix of Toyota:
Price: Efficient pricing strategy is one of the major attractiveness of Toyota’s products. The company sets affordable prices and makes fuel-efficient vehicles (Batzer, 2019). Both of these features attract a large number of customers. The price of 8 seated Land Cruiser is around $80,000, whilst the price of an Audi 4-seated car is $70,000 (Rao and Kurtz, 2015). The target market of Toyota is the mass market for which it sells at comfortable prices.
Product: Toyota Land Cruiser makes beautifully designed utility vehicles with excellent features and comfortability. The vehicle has a sound record of 60 years with excellent service; extra space vehicle for eight people; travellers can enjoy nature through top openers; it can move smoothly even through sandy deserts; it has a stylish and comfortable interior (Toyota Motor Sales, 2020). All these features have made the vehicle a good value for money.
Promotion: Promotion plays an important role in promoting brand awareness and sales of any product (Das, Dash and Padhy, 2012). Toyota also takes a wide range of strategies and actions to increase brand awareness, to raise sales. The company has a website where it graphically shows the functionality, usage, comforts, and features of the products in convenient ways. The company also applies SEO to present the search result at the top of search results. Thirdly, it has an active presence on social media, where it regularly update the new arrivals and new updates to be actively engaged with the customers.
Place: The location of the product is important because, through this, customers reach the brand. Toyota has a presence in almost every country of the world. Thus it has excellent supply chain management to be close to every potential customer in the world (Tomiyama, 2014). The worldwide presence of Toyota has played a significant role in making the brand more successful.
People: All work of Toyota is evolved around the people. The company puts great emphasis on people management, pays good salaries to the employees, and retains the employees through intensive training and development programs (Ito, 2019). As a result, trained and talented employees play a continuous and significant role for the further growth of the company. They ensure that employees get a friendly work environment where they can give their best.
Process: Toyota believes in process, lean manufacturing, state-of-the-art technologies and continuous improvement (Hoque et al., 2013). The company is firmly opposed to the process and people who waste of time and materials. It also has a tendency not to celebrate success because it believes that success is not to celebrate, rather, successful work should be run better in future.
Conclusion
The automotive market is too competitive at present days and companies are replacing each other’s market share. Toyota has so many competitors in the market, and the competitors are offering price-efficient cars with the latest features and customer-based services. Toyota is investing more in the R&D sector to bring more fuel-efficient cars than their present fuel-efficient cars. It is making its production process and cars more eco-friendly to hold on to its leading position in the automobile industry.
Reference
Toyota Motor Sales, 2020. 2020 LAND CRUISER. Retrieved from: https://www.toyota.com/landcruiser/ [Assessed on 15 March 2020]
The New York Times, 2014. Toyota Is Fined $1.2 Billion for Concealing Safety Defects. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/business/toyota-reaches-1-2-billion-settlement-in-criminal-inquiry.html. [Assessed on: 3 March 2020]
Toyota Europe, 2020. Toyota in the world. Retrieved from: https://www.toyota-europe.com/world-of-toyota/this-is-toyota/toyota-in-the-world. [Assessed on: 1 March 2020]