A marketing plan is a document that serves the purposes of planning the commercial activities of a company during the transportation of goods and monitoring the efficiency of the company’s cargo department. A marketing plan consists of several main section. First of all, a vision, a corporate mission of the company, and strategic goals of the company in the field of cargo transportation should be identified. The vision of the company is to create a customer oriented food truck services, which will be flexible enough to cover large number of clients.
Second, an analysis of macroeconomic (PESTEL = Political + Economical + Social + Technological + Ecological + Legal) and microeconomic factors should be done. The marketing environment is a set of active actors and forces that affect the ability of the company’s management to establish and maintain relationships of successful cooperation with the subjects of the target market. The marketing environment is composed of a macro and microenvironment. The microenvironment includes the forces operating in the immediate area of ​​the company: the company itself, sales agents, consumers, and the general public. The macroenvironment consists of influences that affect the microenvironment: political, demographic, economic, natural, technological, competitive, and cultural. Since the food truck service is not a global service, political aspect of the analysis is not as important as other factors. In terms of economic perspective, company should be oriented to provide the service for small minimarkets, since big malls already have their established transportation system. Social and ecological vision of the company must propagate diversity of its workers and environmentally friendly technologies. For example, electric trucks would be beneficial for the image of the company.
Third, segmentation of the cargo transportation market, selection of target segments, and marketing positioning of the company on them must be considered as well. Separate marketing plans for different products that are being delivered can widen the range of customers. It will increase the number of orders, which will bring more revenue. Moreover, analysis of the strength of competition in the market, strengths and weaknesses of competitors show that most of the food delivery trucks service usually have fixed timetable, so the customers should adjust their timetable for deliveries. However, the strength of the company can be the flexibility in terms of time. The delivery time should be chosen by the customer.
In addition, formation of the product offered by the company should be clearly defined before advertising the service. The company is better to make a stress on “from door to door” and “just-in-time” qualities of the company. Also, it is important to make sure that the client is not worried about the quality of the transportation, which requires creation of quality indicators. For example, the company can compensate all the foods that are damaged during transportation, and offer free transportation, in such cases.
Costs and tariff policy of the company at the beginning of the company’s operation should be cheaper than the competitors prices. It will help to obtain more customers in a short period of time. Moreover, the development of the company’s strategic plan is preceded by an objective analysis of its current position. To achieve optimal results, a company must understand the extent and nature of the impact of the environment in which it operates on its activities (Mothersbaugh et al., 2019). Success factors in the food delivery market are:
- creating an efficient road network and focusing on strategically critical regional routes, in case of transportation of foods between cities.
- entering into strategic alliances and cooperation with other carriers;
- improvement of computerized control systems for vehicle booking to increase profitability;
- innovative management and marketing;
- increased attention to customer needs;
- qualified and customer-oriented personnel;
- favorable image of the company.
Market research is needed in any process, be it the production of goods or the provision of services. Without the help of marketers, manufacturers risk losing all of their potential customers by selling products or services from a subjective point of view. Nowadays, this problem is becoming especially relevant since, with the advent of a market economy, almost all entrepreneurs have to fight tough competition in the market for goods and services. That is why they need to know what people need, what quality, and what price they need to do marketing research. When conducting preliminary analysis, drawing up a marketing plan, and implementing it, managers need a wide variety of information about customers, competitors, suppliers, and other market participants.
Marketing research is one of the constituent parts of all marketing besides defining marketing objectives, choosing target markets, organizing marketing, developing a marketing mix, developing a marketing strategy and plan, and marketing management. All of them are elements of planning and implementing an idea, pricing, promoting, and implementing ideas, goods, and services through an exchange that satisfies the goals of individuals and organizations, namely marketing. Marketing research refers to the systematic collection and analysis of data on various aspects of marketing activities. Thorough knowledge of the consumer and his behavior’s characteristics and motives allows the company to develop in a highly competitive environment successfully.
It is conducting an active advertising campaign that will fully reveal the services provided by the company. Competition in the food truck service market is exceptionally high. It will be challenging to get orders without an extensive advertising campaign. Therefore, it is planned to spend a significant part of the budget on promoting services, especially during the period of the company’s formation. The following advertising methods will be used to attract customers:
- Advertising in the media.
- Newspapers and radio.
- Advertising on the Internet.
- Publishing information on message boards, forums, and social media (Li et al., 2021), networks.
- Posting announcements around the city.
- Outdoor advertising (banners on the track).
References
Li, F., Larimo, J., & Leonidou, L. C. (2021). Social media marketing strategy: Definition, conceptualization, taxonomy, validation, and future agenda. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 49(1), 51-70.
Mothersbaugh, D. L., Hawkin, D. I., & Kleiser, S. B. (2019). Consumer behavior: Building marketing strategy. McGraw-Hill Higher Education.