Environmental Analysis in Marketing

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- Each customer who is wanting to buy a Case Tracker needs to know that they are in good hands with our team. Who is involved in the process, would be the customer, our company, our team that is making that specific suitcase, those who make our added amenities for our suitcases, as well as the process and team of how we are going to get your newly bought luggage to you.

- Targeting: Nearly everyone in America (and most people in the rest of the world) will travel by plane at some point. This means that the amount of potential customers that Case-Tracker could have is nearly unlimited. However, it is difficult to devise a marketing plan if it is not clear who you are marketing to. Therefore, Case-Tracker will specifically target people who travel often, such as businessman, or traveling salesman.

- Positioning: In order to specifically market to these people who will travel a lot, we need to find a way to expose them to our product. One way to do this is to figure out where they will be on a regular basis. The one place we know they will be is the airport. We can put advertisements in airports so we know that they will see them. Also, they will have their suitcases with them, so the hassle of having a suitcase that they can’t track will be fresh in their mind.

- Segmentation: Market segmentation for the Case-Tracker deals with the the grouping of our customers. Some groups that our customers can be split into that may have similar wants and needs are frequent flyers, family/group travelers, and first time fliers. The wants and needs of an individual who is flying to a destination for work may be different that, then the group of friends going to the same location for a spring break trip.

How are the needs and behavior of business customers influenced by organizational connections and considerations?

- In most cases large corporate organizations who have frequent employees who travel will partner with organizations that provide traveling services or products (ex. University of Minnesota's affiliation with Delta Airlines). In return those organizations will provide special discounts or wholesale prices in return for business customer loyalty. Special connections influence business customers to buy those products as opposed to other competitors. Customer loyalty is valuable in maintaining and growing the consumers who choose to use our product.

- Since the Case-Tracker is a device that would be particularly useful for frequent flyers, our company should strive to partner or be affiliated with organizations to increase our customer base.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lQl6ZFifeI

PowerPoint: https://docs.google.com/a/umn.edu/presentation/d/1ErCh88hf7-Ddtq4ndgruoolEk8sud4balHRcRpX7omU/edit?usp=sharing

Sources:

- http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/13/us/airport-luggage-theft/

- http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/07/02/tsa-damage-tops-3m/29353815/

- http://groupstoday.com/business/404-travel-trends-by-age-demographic

- https://www.transtats.bts.gov/TRAFFIC/

- http://www.euromonitor.com/bags-and-luggage-in-the-us/report

- http://www.traveller.com.au/the-worlds-biggest-travellers--which-nationality-takes-the-most-trips-11979j

- http://fortune.com/2016/06/08/online-shopping-increases/