Samenvatting

Management summary
The company Autobedrijf van der Wereld wants to communicate with their target group but they do not know how to do this properly. The company would like to have more customers and it also wants the customers to feel more involved with the company. Another problem they are facing, is that the information that they communicate with the outside world, does not always reach the target group. The company wants to know what the wants and needs from the target group are.
The next thesis is state for this problem: What are the wants and needs from the target group with respect to the communication? The goal in this paper is to give insight in the wants and needs from the target group. It will also give advice to the company about the communication capabilities which helps the company to respond to the wants and needs from the target group.
The model that is used for this research, is the communication escalator from Bill Quirke. This model shows that the more people are concerned with the company, the more the communication should be interactive. The model has five different steps and every step is a category. Every category has his own goal, which can reached with different communication. It is important to think about the goal you want to reach. If you know the goal, you know which way of communication should be used. The model can also help a company to look at the wants and needs from the target group. It shows in which step the target group is standing. With that information, the company can adjust the communication strategy to the target group.
Quantitative research in the form of an online questionnaire is used to research the communication options. 116 respondents have completed the questionnaire. These are current and potential customers.
The results of this research are that most people know the company through word-of-mouth or from passing by the company. The current ways of communication, like advertising, the website and Facebook, are not the ways of communication where the target group knows the company from. Another result is that the people do not know that they can buy a new car at Autobedrijf van der Wereld. They also do not know that the company helps people to look for a car on the Internet and that they can tune their car at the company. The target group wants to stay in contact via the website and Facebook. They want to read about offers and cars that are for sale. They will read this information once every month.
The results conclude that Autobedrijf van der Wereld needs to use Facebook and the website to communicate with their target group. The target group wants the company to use interactive communication. This is a way to make the customers feel more involved with the company.
In response to the results, the company is advised the following things: Use Facebook and the website to let the people know which offers the company has. It is also advised to show all the occasions that the company has. Next to that it is important to improve the website. The homepage from website should be re-written, that way it is more attractive for customers to read. It should also be clearer what the company does. People need to read that on the website and also on Facebook. Another advice is to place a billboard along the road. This billboard should show what the company does. A last advice is to e-mail the current customers once a month with special offers for them and news about the company. This will create more involvement from the customers and also more customer satisfaction.
These advices will not cost the company a lot of money. The people who are going to do most of the things are Sandra and Leslie. They are volunteers and do ask money for work they do. The only costs the company will have are for creating and placing the billboard. YourStyle Design will do this and they ask an amount of money for it.