Harley-Davidson Motor Company Marketing Plan

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Background

Marketing is an important exercise in both services and goods industry; it ensures that target customers access goods and services a company manufactures. Marketing involves processes that determine the kind of products or/and services of interest to customer then the company knows exactly what to manufacture or trade in.

Other than advising a company on the kind of products to make, marketing goes further and establishes the right method, channels, strategies and systems to get the products/services to target market (Mullins, Walker, 2010).

The American motor cycle industry is one of the fast growing economic sectors where motor cycles are used for various functions like trade, transport, sporting, as security officials automobiles, and sometimes for leisure.

Harley is an international motor cycle manufacturing company based in the United States of America; the company is respected for making reliable heavyweight (over 750 cc) motorcycles and genuine motorcycle accessories.

The automobile industry has been ventured by cheap aftermarket sales that compete with original accessories; the market is favoured by the cost and the room for customizing once motor vehicles offered by the automobile. The challenge by the secondary industry offers a challenge to Harley-Davidson Motor Company; report is a marketing plan that the company can adopt to compete effectively in the market.

Company overview

Harley-Davidson Motor Company was founded in 1903 by three childhood friends by the names William Harley, Arthur and Walter Davidson; the initial idea was to make racing bikes with engines however they advanced their idea to have the bikes used for transport.

In 1905, the company had started to be recognized and advertising its products in media in the United States; currently the company has its head quarters at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States and headed Keith E. Wendell, the company’s chief executive officer.

In 2010, the company recorded total sales of US$ 4.46 billion which translated to US$ 259.7 million; of the amount about thirty percent was derived from sale to foreign markets. As at December 2010, the company had 6302 members of staffs distributed in its outlets (Harley Official Website, 2011).

Executive Summary

No single statement can explain what is marketing; briefly, it is a link between customers and a company, the feedback from either side is crucial in improving goods and services produced. Harley-Davidson Motor Company is facing an increasing competition from aftermarket accessories, thus the marketing team has found it important to develop a marketing plan to form the base of an aggressive marketing for the products.

The main target market that the plan will focus on are existing customers, which the plan will embrace customer relation management strategies to build, maintain and manage customer loyalty; the second fold will focus on automobile users where the company will aim at convincing buyers to use its genuine parts; this will embrace strategic marketing tools like communication marketing strategies (MARCOM).

The last target market that the company will focus is diversification of its market base, to use this approach; the company will make use of blue ocean marketing strategies. The report will also include the suggested marketing budget for the launch of the strategy.

Target Market

The campaign strategy will be divided into three main target groups differentiated by their behaviour as far as use of Harley-Davidson Motor Company spare parts and those from after market sellers.

The first category encompasses customers of Harley-Davidson Motor Company spare parts; they can be seen as people who have loyal to the company and have the characteristic of using genuine products. The main focus on these customers involves enacting measures to maintain current market base and improve the relationship with the customers.

The main activities that will take place focusing on this target market are the following: measure approach; this is an approach where information from customers is collected; the information is on the level of satisfaction that customers are getting from the company.

The second move will be to manage products and service delivery, what the customers are finding as correctly done should be reinforced and what they find as wanting should be rectified.

With the feedback from the customers, then the company can decide on ways to improve service delivery; by service delivery, the company should be interested on the level of service that aftermarket accessories suppliers are giving then aim at surpassing the level set.

The second target market segment that the company will be looking at is the “undecided customers”, they are people who buy either Harley-Davidson Motor Company genuine spare parts or sometimes buy after market products. The reason for their behaviour should be determined by a market research. It is likely that they buy the available product, thus policies that make genuine parts available should be made.

The third target market that the management should look into is the untapped market; this is market that is less competitive with the aftermarket products. To venture into this, it can be through robust marketing campaigns that sells both bikes and spare parts. The company can decide to open its own market where they sell bikes then later on reinforce the use of genuine spare parts.

Competitors

The main competitors that the company will have to deal with are aftermarket sellers; they are people who sell spare parts or body and engine parts that can fit certain models of Harley-Davidson products. There are many reasons why some people prefer to use these products other than using the genuine parts.

One of the post quoted reason why some people prefer after market products is because they are made by specialists thus they are of high quality, other people prefer them because they are less costly than genuine parts. The above two reasons happens to be the strength of competitors; Harley-Davidson company should embrace the challenge and aim at countering the strengths of the companies.

To challenge the competitors, the company should venture in programs that improve the quality of their spare parts, in the case there is a certain modification that can breakeven when made as an accessory, and then the company should adopt such an accessory.

Price has always been an issue when marketing for commodities, there may come sometimes that Harley-Davidson products are expensive than those of the aftermarket, the management has two interventions to make; one ensure than the price of accessories represent value for money.

The second intervention that the company should ensure is that it has attained high quality products and efficiency in their products. The best weapon to counter competition rests in understanding customers, providing high quality products, aggressive marketing that educate users on differences, and products differentiation.

Product or Service

The subject of the matter in this marketing plan is the sale of genuine motor cycle parts; the accessories involve engine parts, body parts, and other related accessories like bolts and nuts. When creating the products, the company should be aware of the model and the demand that the parts will have in a specific area.

The products aims at offering repair accessories owners of Harley-Davidson products, it aims at winning customer loyalty in the market filled with aftermarket products. Different model of bikes require different repairs parts, thus they need to be made available; one of the main characteristic that the product will be selling to the people is its originality, quality, guarantees, and genuineness.

When developing and improving the products, the sales book will of great use as it will help the company analysis the market, on where is a certain product or certain model of bike; with the clear understanding, and then campaigns will be focused on the particular area that has a certain machine (Vorhies, Morgan & Autry, 2009).

Marketing Budget

When making a marketing strategy, there is need to develop the budget that various activities involved will fall under. Budget follows some costs heads that is a consolidate figure involving different individual costs.

The following budget will be incurred:

Activity	Cost (US $)
Research and collection of data	20,000
Staffs subsistence and other fixed costs	10,000
Experts and professional fees	500
Structure and infrastructures laying	5,000
Policies support costs (they include costs of advertising, promotion etc)	5,500
Follow up costs	500
Total	41,500

The above costs heads involves costs that can be classified under the heading.

Description of Location

Since there are different models of bikes, the location of market will be determined by the model and type of spare parts that may be applicable to the particular area. When the above has been determined, the locations that will make them accessible will be determined by the marketing team.

Some of the suggested places that the parts can be stocked include garages, supermarkets, automobiles accessories shops, and the bikes distributing channels. The main reason for determining the location is to ensure that the goods reach to the target customer at the right time in a form that is acceptable.

With the suggested place in mind, the marketing team should come up with the best transport, supply and logistics methods that should be implemented to get the goods to the customers. The right channel of communication should ensure that the company’s products get to the target market in the shortest time possible.

The nature of some of Harley-Davidson products users is that they are likely to attend motor shows and other promotional events, the management should set a budget that can be used to market the products one on one in these places (Lyus, Rogers & Simms, 2011).

Pricing Strategy

Price is an important marketing parameter that should be looked into when making a marketing strategy; it is through the price of a commodity that the company meets its expenses and gets a gain form the sale. There are two main elements that an effective price should have; the price should be high enough that the company will get some profit from the sale and the price must be affordable.

Harley-Davidson products marketing team will have to undertake a market price review where they will compare the costs and prices that competitors are able to sell, when they note them, they can work back and set their prices.

In the situation of Harley-Davidson products, the best pricing approach to use is the premium pricing approach, under the method the management sets a price that is slightly higher than the prevailing price; the reason for the high price is both psychological and economical.

From the psychological part, some people believe that quality is expensive thus they are likely to buy the products; the second reason is because the price set should represent quality offered by the company (Hsuen-Ho & Jia-Wei, 2010).

Summary and Implementation Plan

The implementation stage has a number of processes that will be involved, they are as follows:

Marketing research

Marketing research involves the marketing team undertaking a desk and field research that determines the company’s rate of performance verses the rate at which aftermarket products are selling.

The information offers the background that the strategy will be built on; the gaps realized should be analysed and meanings derived from them. The initial market research offers the team an overview of the areas they should address in the strategy.

Analysis of data

The initial stage was involved in the team collecting volumes of qualitative and quantitative data; the data from customers, bureaus, and internal information and industry reports should be reviewed to ensure that the problem that the company is facing is well understood. It is through problem and gap analysis that the company can come up with the most effective solutions.

Strategy development

With the data and problem well interpolated, there is need to have systems that are focused on the problem. The three main target markets needs different approach thus the marketing team should be clear on the approach to use and at which point they will have to quality a certain employee to the next higher level.

Policy enactment and implementation

Specific strategies to address a certain issue needs to be enacted through policies and infrastructures; the infrastructures needs to be put in place. For example to maintain customers there is need to have effective communication systems where the company can get feedback on various issues.

Enforcing, monitoring and controlling

When all is good to go, the management should ensure that it has enacted policies to maintain an improved relationship with customers. The policies enacted should be improved appropriately so that they do not fall out of relevance.

In the implementation stage, the management should have the policy of marketing mix in mind; the following sample of an applicable marketing mix can be used:

The above diagram gives a guide of the areas that the management should look into when enacting the marketing strategy (Day, 2011).

Conclusion

An effective marketing strategy is a competitive advantage tool; Harley-Davidson Motor Company should embrace tools of strategic marketing to remain competitive amidst increased suppliers of aftermarket repair accessories.

The company should embark on effective communication campaigns that create awareness and differentiation of its products; it should also embrace the concept of “Blue Ocean” to widen its market base indirectly.

For an effective marketing campaign that can stand competition, Harley-Davidson Motor top and line managers need to support efforts made by the marketing department; on the other hand the marketing department should work closely with research and development segment for more informed decisions.

References

Day, G. (2011). Closing the Marketing Capabilities Gap. Journal of Marketing, 75(4), 183-195.

Harley Official Website. (2011). Harley-Davidson Motor Company. Web.

Hsuen-Ho, H., & Jia-Wei, T. (2010). A Model of Marketing Strategic Alliances To Develop Long-Term Relationships for Retailing. International Journal of Business & Information, 5(2), 151-172.

Lyus, D., Rogers, B., & Simms, C. (2011). The role of sales and marketing integration in improving strategic responsiveness to market change. Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management, 18(1), 39-49.

Mullins, J. W., Walker, Jr., O. C. (2010). Marketing management: A strategic decision making approach. Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

Vorhies, D. W., Morgan, R. E., & Autry, C. W. (2009). Product-market strategy and the marketing capabilities of the firm: impact on market effectiveness and cash flow performance. Strategic Management Journal, 30(12), 1310-1334.

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