The Marketing Environment

Harley-Davidson has been able to dominate it's marketing environment by placing high value on its customer's feedback and economic status. Taking this as well as the external marketing environment with high importance has kept Harley-Davidson relevant and a strong force in the motorcycle industry.

Harley-Davidson's single-agency marketing proved to be effective for the thriving company up to last year, when they made the conscious decision to take different route and switch to the crowd-sourcing approach. With changing economic times and demographics they felt it was crucial for the company's success. They took into consideration the economy and what their current buyers were purchasing in order to effectively choose the best way to market what is an "expensive" product and make it feasible to those that don't own a Harley-Davidson. Taking these three factor's into consideration when choosing it's pricing :the used motorcycle market, lower priced motorcycles, and Harley-Davidson's  lack to keep up with demand.

Harley-Davidson's marketing mix consists of people who enjoy to ride motorcycles and the lifestyle that accompanies that. There is also the people who don't ride motorcycles but enjoy wearing the gear and Harley-Davidson logo which brings in revenue for the company in high volume like their bikes do. Harley-Davidson also created the V-Rod muscle motorcycle to appeal to its younger market, a single model to compete with Japanese and American muscle bikes. This has proved to be effective targeting the young generation even using a Victoria's Secret model for the ad campaign.

Harley-Davidson's marketing when it come's to distribution is stated clearly on its website "Harley-Davidson's dealer's are the company's life-line to our customers, with a wide variety of product offerings, dealer's provide knowledge, service, and information to riders out on the road."