Worldwide e Bikes Venturing into Australia

WORLDWIDE E-BIKES 13

Executive Summary

The marketing director at Worldwide e-Bikes engaged consultants to develop a report on the company’s digital marketing strategy in light of a plan to expand into the Australian market. The report provides crucial insights to the board of directors on the digital marketing opportunity in Australia, persona research, strategies for short-term market impact, and KPIs for fiscal oversight. The research conducted concludes that the Australian market provides a viable opportunity for digital marketing given the high levels of internet penetration, internet usage, and access to mobile devices such as smartphones. To counter the high intra-industry competition, the company could differentiate itself by providing additional aftersales services in line with customer needs, offering personalized customer experience, and selling through established ecommerce businesses such as Woolworths.com.au, apple.com, and coles.com.au to reach more customers online. To effectively develop its personas, the company could use a combination of research strategies, including focus group discussions, website analytics, interviews, and online surveys. These would provide an adequate understanding of customers’ needs, expectations, and profiles. To realize short-term market impact, the report advises that the company employs per-per-click advertising and geofencing marketing, and then uses KPIs to measure the effectiveness of the selected marketing tactics. The most appropriate KPIs would be the click-through rate, goal completion rate, average time on page metric, and the return on Ad measure.

Digital Marketing Strategy

Digital Market Opportunity

The Australian market presents a promising market opportunity for e-Bikes. First, Australia offers a flourishing e-bike market that has not been exhaustively exploited. The use of e-bikes only began to take off in Australia in 2017, when the country harmonized e-bike regulations and adopted the Pedelec safety standards used in Europe to govern the construction and design of e-bikes (We Ride Australia, 2021). These measures helped reduce the number of accidents involving e-bikes. These, together with the increased focus on healthy lifestyles and environmental conservation efforts have resulted in a consistently flourishing cycling interest that the company could exploit. E-bike sales in the Australian market have grown by over 500 per cent since 2017, with sales nearly doubling every year since then (We Ride Australia, 2021). The demand has increased substantially since the start of the Covid19 pandemic in 2020. This is due to increased reliance on e-bike riders for on-demand food delivery programs and the fact that bikes allowed one to move around while still maintaining social distance. Projections indicate that e-bike sales in Australia will increase dramatically over the next decade, from 100,000 units in 2025 to 500,000 units in 2035 (Institute for Sensible Transport, 2019). This projected growth presents a viable business opportunity for Worldwide e-Bikes Co.

The company has indicated that it intends to sell bikes through its ecommerce platform and retail partners should it decide to venture into the Australian market. The Australian market also presents a flourishing opportunity for digital marketing. Ninety-nine per cent of the country’s population has internet access, with 91 per cent having access to home internet and 75 per cent having access to the national broadband network NBN (Australian Communications and Media Authority, 2021). Furthermore, 94 per cent of Australian adults have access to a mobile phone or mobile device that they use to access the internet (Australian Communications and Media Authority, 2021). In 2021, almost half (45 per cent) of adults worked online from home, 32 per cent studied online, and 41 per cent accessed tele-health services on their devices (Australian Communications and Media Authority, 2021). Australian customers are also firmly established in ecommerce – in 2021, 37 per cent of adults sold items online, and 85 per cent bought items online (Australian Communications and Media Authority, 2021). The high levels of internet access and high ecommerce usage rates make the Australian market a viable option for digital marketing.

The bike dealer industry in Australia is fragmented and characterized by high levels of intra-industry competition, with over 600 motorcycle retailers (IBIS World, 2021). Motorcycle Holdings Group takes the lead market position, although its control is not sufficient to influence the market in a specific direction (IBIS world, 2021). None of the companies is big enough to influence industry dynamics. Further, the fragmented nature of the market implies that there are minimal barriers to entry, better opportunities to stand out through differentiated offerings, and ease of reaching target customers (IBIS World, 2021). Given the similarities in brand offerings, Worldwide e-Bikes could differentiate itself from other companies by providing personalized customer experience and additional aftersales services in line with customer needs. The company could also invent in digital marketing platforms or sell through established ecommerce businesses such as Woolworths.com.au, apple.com, and coles.com.au to reach more customers online.

Persona Research

A persona is a fictional representation of who a company’s customers are, how they buy, how they make purchase decisions, and what their goals are (Hannerberg, 2016). Marketers will often generate personas by conducting research on customer behaviour (Hannerberg, 2016). Research helps to strengthen the foundation for the persona developed (Hannerberg, 2016). The organization could use several research methods to research the persona of bike customers in the Australian market. The methods selected depend on the specific features of the target customers, the nature of the market, and resources available.

To research the personas for their bike customers, Worldwide e-Bikes could use a combination of methods including focus group discussions, in-person interviews, online surveys, and website analytics. Given the high level of competition in the industry, it may be important for the company to use a combination of methods to ensure that it collects sufficient data on the needs of the target customers.

Since the company will mainly be using digital platforms for its marketing activities, it may be vital to administer an online survey with questions seeking to understand the profile of potential customers. To ensure a wider reach, the researchers could share the link to the survey on their corporate website and on social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. They could encourage their followers to share the link with their friends and family on social media sites to create a snowballing effect and ensure that they collect as many responses as possible from diverse customers. The survey will require the respondents to provide information on whom they are, their demographic profile, their goals, what they value most, the factors they consider before making a purchase, and their expectations from a vendor objections (Hannerberg, 2016). This method is cost-effective and will help the company gather a lot of information.

Since this is a new market, it may also be plausible to carry out focus group interviews in addition to the online survey. Focus groups would allow for a real-time exchange of ideas between the researcher and respondents that would not be achievable in the online survey (Hannerberg, 2016). The company could organize a focus group discussion where they bring one of their e-bikes for the participants (potential customers meeting a specific profile) to see, test, and then give their views and opinions. Focus groups will also provide an opportunity to observe participants’ attitudes, feelings, and expressions. Hannerber (2016) advises that focus group moderators hand out printed questionnaires for each participant to fill as a means to ensure that everyone speaks their minds. Further, to minimize the risk of social desirability bias, the company’s staff could hide behind a glass wall during the discussions so that the participants do not see them because. Social desirability bias is the tendency to provide answers that seek to please the moderator rather than demonstrate the truth (Bergen & Lamonte, 2019). Focus groups are expensive and hence, it may be important to engage a reputable moderator for maximum efficacy.

Additionally, it may be prudent for the company to conduct in-person interviews with their sales teams, customer service personnel, and other employees who interact with customers to obtain their views on what the potential customers’ values may be (Hannerbeger, 2016). The company’s ecommerce site could also serve as a valuable source of information through website analytics (Hannerbeger, 2016). By analysing the details of customers who visit the website, the company could obtain crucial information on preferences, geographical location, and demographic characteristics, all of which could inform the development of a profile.

Well-researched personas could yield several benefits for the company. First, personas that are well-informed through research ensure that the company gains an adequate understanding of its customers or potential customers. This facilitates the process of tailoring content and messaging to address the target group’s specific behaviours, concerns, and expectations (Hannerberger, 2016). For instance, the company’s customers are bike lovers. However, to obtain a full understanding of their specific interests, needs, and what dictates their purchasing decisions; the company needs to develop well-researched personas.

Secondly, well-researched personas allow the company to personalize its marketing strategies in line with the needs of different customer segments. For instance, rather than developing a television advert for all its customers, having proper personas would guide the company to engage in targeted marketing. For instance, the marketing team could develop television adverts for the older group of segments and social media adverts for younger customer segments (Hannerberger, 2016). Thus, personas provide room for creating targeted marketing content, which increases the effectiveness of the company’s marketing strategy. Finally, having well-researched personas helps to cut down on costs. Targeted marketing minimizes waste and ensures that resources dedicated to marketing are allocated efficiently.

Short-Term Market Impact

Should the company decide to venture into the Australian bike market, it will need to create a buzz and awareness around its products for effective short-term results. One strategy of short-term marketing that the company could adopt is the pay-per-click advertising (PPC). PPC is a form of digital marketing where the advertiser pays a fee anytime a customer clicks on their advertisement (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). Essentially, the advertiser buys visits to their sites rather than have the customers find the link themselves. A form of PPC is search engine advertising, where an advertiser places their ad in the sponsored link of a search engine such as Google using certain keywords. When a user searches on the search engine using the same keyword, the ad shows up in the results page.

For example, the company could put up an advertisement creating awareness of its presence in the Australian market on Google Ads. In this case, the advertisement appears on Google properties such as the Google search engine whenever a user searches using the specific keywords. Every time a person clicks on the ad, they are redirected to the advertiser’s website and the company then pays a small fee for each click.

When the PPC system works effectively, it is highly cost-effective because what one pays is small compared to what they make (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). The effectiveness of an ad, however, depends on the company’s ability to select the right key words from the research they conduct, organize the identified words into properly-organized campaigns, and identify the right landing pages for the advertisement (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). In order to attract more companies, search engines such as Google will often offer discounts for well-designed advertisements that attract more clicks. Thus, companies have great potential to generate profits if their advertisements are effective and appealing to the public.

Effective keywords for PPC advertising have certain features. First, they are relevant, which implies they relate closely with the products that the company sells, thus attracting a higher click rate (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). Secondly, the words are expansive, which means that they adaptive and constantly growing to reflect diverse customer needs (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). Further, the words should be exhaustive, which implies that they contain the long-tail keywords that are less common, yet more specific, rather than focusing only on the frequently-searched and popular words limited to the company’s niche (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). For instance, for their Google Ads, Worldwide e-Bikes could use less common words such as ‘outstanding design’ rather than the common words such as beautiful, attractive or elegant.

Geofencing Advertising

Geofencing advertising is a form of marketing that uses location to connect with smartphones users within a certain geographical area (Quesenberry, 2020). Geofencing technology uses Bluetooth, radio-frequency identification (RFID), GPS, and Wi-Fi to track a smartphone’s location, and then sends an advertisement to all users within a specified geographical area. Statistics indicate that 94 per cent of the Australian population has access to a smartphone, which makes geofencing advertising a plausible option for Worldwide E-Bikes.

The first step in geofencing advertising is to create a geofence within a specified geographical area and an advertising campaign to serve that geofence (Quesenberry, 2020). Once a user enters the created geofence, they are added to the company’s advertising audience and the company starts delivering ads to the specific user via display ads, in-app ads, or notifications (Quesenberry, 2020). Geofencing advertising is costly and the company can expect to spend between $1,000 and $30,000 per month in addition to the standard campaign services management costs (Quesenberry, 2020). Worldwide e-bikes could begin by creating a geofence of say 1000 square feet within the area where its sets up its store and 1000 square feet within its chief competitor’s location. This would provide a means for the company to send ads about available bikes to any user within the specified perimeter.

Fiscal Oversight

One way to maintain oversight over the selected short-term marketing tactics is by identifying and measuring KPIs. A KPI is a measurable value that a company could use to measure its progress in achieving a business target or departmental target over s specified time period (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). A KPI will usually have three components: a measurable data point or metric, target, and timeline. To measure the effectiveness of its pay-per-click advertising and geofencing advertising tactics, the company could adopt these four KPIs.

Click-Through Rate

Target KPI: A click-through rate of at least 5 percent on its Google Ad. The click-through rate (CTR) is a ratio of the number of clicks an ad receives versus the total number of views (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). It measures the number of users who click on an ad as a proportion of those who view the ad (Pride and Ferrell, 2021). The click-through rate indicates the success of an ad campaign and gauges how relevant the ad’s keywords and quality are. Worldwide e-bikes could use the click-through rate to measure the effectiveness of its pay-per-click advertising tactic. If the Google Ad receives 5 clicks from 50 views, the click-through rate would be = 10% . A CTR of 10 per cent is an indication that the ad, with its current design, has a 10 per cent likelihood of reaching the target population. The higher the click-through rate, the more likely it is that the ad has an effective design, uses relevant key words, and reaches the target population.