Strategic Marketing Plan for Aviation Firm: Building a Strong Brand Image

The provided content highlights the importance of developing a strong marketing strategy for an aviation firm to establish a positive image in the market. It emphasizes the use of internet marketing approaches such as pay-per-click, SEO, and e-commerce. The study also stresses the significance of considering various aspects of internet marketing, including the 7Ps of marketing mix. Overall, the content suggests that effective marketing is crucial for business success, and companies should consider integrating online and offline strategies to achieve their goals.

Internet Marketing
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................3
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................................3
LO 1.1 Elements of Internet Marketing................................................................................................3
LO 1.2 Evaluating internet marketing mix............................................................................................3
LO 1.3 Comparing different internet marketing tools...........................................................................4
LO 1.4 Examining interactive order processing....................................................................................5
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................................5
LO 2.1 Mechanics of search engine marketing.....................................................................................5
LO 2.2 Copy of opt-in marketing newsletter........................................................................................6
LO 2.3 Guidelines on best practices for online public relations...........................................................6
LO 2.4 Ways to use new digital media communitities..........................................................................6
task 3..........................................................................................................................................................7
LO 3.1 Conducting secondary market research....................................................................................7
LO 3.2 Designing an online survey.......................................................................................................8
LO 3.3 Electronic customer relationship marketing.............................................................................9
Task 4.......................................................................................................................................................10
4.1 Outline of an internet marketing plan............................................................................................10
conclusion................................................................................................................................................10
Reference..................................................................................................................................................11
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INTRODUCTION
Internet Marketing as a business function in recent some years has evolved and developed by
great margins, as new and new dimensions are being added to it on a constant basis (Hayter, 2012). In
the modern world, one of the most vital aspect of marketing is that of promoting goods and/or services
of an enterprise through means of internet. Present report assesses and evaluates the concept of internet
marketing from view point of Virgin Atlantic, one of the leading UK based airline company.
Furthermore, utility and importance to internet for purposes of marketing also have been discussed in
the report.
TASK 1
LO 1.1 Elements of Internet Marketing
Digital marketing is a concept of marketing different goods and/or services by using various
internet based tools and techniques. Herein, various electronic devices such as personal computers,
mobile phones, tablets, TVs etc. are used. There are various elements and components which make up
Internet Marketing.
'E-commerce - It can be defined as a process in which consumer can buy different products and/or
services by means of using internet based platforms. In this sense, it may not be wrong to say that to
develop a successful and effective marketing campaign, management of Virgin Atlantic need to pay
attention to developing their own e-commerce portal, using which customers can buy tickets by using
website of the company.
E business – This element may help management of the aviation firm would be able to reach out to a
large audience base and thus increase its customer base by significant margins (Gay, Charlesworth and
Esen, 2007). In addition to this, it will also enable the authorities to simplify their ticketing process.
This way the customers can be provided a unique yet rich experience with the company.
Macro factors:
 Presence of strict regulations regarding to
taxes, labour polices .
 Prior permission from authorities
Micro factors:
HR department - Need to recruit talented and
skilful employees and retain them
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 follow data protection and consumer
protection
 Increasing consumer spending
 changing economic conditions
 Changing lifestyle of people
 demand of techno-savvy customers
Marketing department - proper use of pay-per-
click, e-commerce techniques
Training department - providing training to its
staff
Benefits of internet marketing
 highly popular tools of marketing
 provides companies and business organization with extensive reach
 attempt to increase its customer reach
 Increases and clientele base significantly.
LO 1.2 Evaluating internet marketing mix
In the corporate scenario, 7 major components of an extended marketing mix which have to be
followed by companies.
 Product - The very first constituent of this mix is that of the 'product'. Herein management of the
given aviation firm would have to pay attention to developing their goods and/or services in an
efficient and effective manner, so that needs and demands of customers can be fulfilled with great
ease and comfort. It will be important for the management that they develop their products in such
a manner that they are efficient and effective in meeting demands of the customers (Fritz, 2013).
 Place - The next element of internet marketing mix is 'place', i.e. the system in which products or
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services are delivered to target customers. In such situations authorities have to pay attention to
deciding on the best and most effective ways in which goods can be provided to the customers.
Therefore, it can be said that distribution strategies have a very crucial role to play.
 Price - Next element is the 'price' (Burt, 2000). It requires utmost attention to be paid to ensure that
prices of goods provided by the company are as per industry trends and justified. The concept of
'promotion' is the next very important constituent of the internet marketing mix. It states that
company formulates such promotional strategies which would allow it not only reach out to a large
number of customers, but also be able to attract as well as retain them.
 Physical Evidence' - another element of internet marketing mix, would enable management at
Virgin Atlantic to provide some kind of evidence or proof to the customers that they had purchased
ticket of the company. It is an important constituent, mainly because it would help in making a
connection with the target customers (Gardener, 2002).
 'People- i.e. the human resources, company will have to provide appropriate training so that they
can carry out their tasks and duties in an efficient and effective manner, contributing to attainment
of organizational goals along with satisfying needs of the customers.
 Promotion - Simple and effective processes will have to be developed by management at Virgin
Atlantic so that marketing strategies can be developed in such a manner which would result in
development of a positive image in the market as well as delivering goods to the customers in an
effective manner (Chaffey, 2008).
LO 1.3 Comparing different internet marketing tools
The online marketing activity is to be carried out via different tools of marketing that enable
marketers to gain attention of customers. The marketing activities of Virgin Atlantic are to be
conducted through using different tools of marketing. The internet marketing tools involves Company’s
website, E-mail marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Internet banner ads and so on. However, all the
tools are used to gain attention of market customers and to ensure online presence of businesses entity
but there are many differences in all such tools. The difference between such tool are explained in
following points :
Company’s website: The tool is used by the marketer to ensure online presence and to shown
the vision and mission of business. Through online website, it has been seen that the customers are
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provided with information regarding products and services of customers. The tool is used to pass the
information about company's offerings that different it from other customers. Virgin Atlantic has a
unique website for gaining attention of customers.
E-mail marketing: The next famous tool of internet marketing is email marketing that is
considered the low cost and effective tools that offers customers with information regarding company's
new offerings. Using this tool, customers can be easily transferred to company's website while they
search travel services in future time.
Search Engine Marketing: Search Engine Marketing has been seen as an effective tool that is
used to market the service over the web. The tool affects the visibility of a website and is used to
promote the website of company in to online market using various search engines i.e. Google.
Pay per Click: Pay per Click (PPC) tool is used by marketers to services of organization among
target customers and to promoter sales of firm. It is used to achieve and retain competitive image in
online market.
LO 1.4 Examining order processing of Virgin Atlantic
Order processing of Virgin Atlantic is crucial to identify the online initiatives taken by the
company to offer the product ad services to customers. This is an important tool used by the
organization to promote products and/or services to target customers. The primary function of
company is to access the information of suppliers and to collaborate with them. In case of Virgin
Atlantic internet service providers are known as the suppliers as well as the people of travel industry
who conduct internet related services for travellers are to be approached (Roberts and Zahay, 2012).
The organization has to pay attention to the companies who are taking initiatives in effective service
providing in regard to offer traveller service of Virgin Atlantic in online market. To the other hand,
traveller agents need to be approached to conduct online practices. The secondary function is to provide
the information regarding flight timings, their destinations, time of departure and arrival, etc to the
information providers so that the correct data can be provided to the clients. In this way, the or deer
processing of Virgin Atlantic flights is to be conducted. The organization tries to meet the needs and
demands of passengers so that they can be retained in the organization.
TASK 2
LO 2.1 Mechanics of search engine marketing
A widely used form of internet marketing whgich refers to promotion of website with the help
of various tools and techniques is referred to as a Search engine marketing (SEM). The objective of
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using SERP is increase visibility of using search engine results page (SERP). The advantage of using
this technique is to use modern marketing tactics. This is helpful in case where the number of traffic
which refers to people visiting site can be noticed (Atuma, 2011). This is effective and efficient way of
marketing products and services by the Virgin Atlantic. In an aviation form, there are ample of benefits
which are used as a part of internet marketing. It provides mode of efficient and cost effective way by
which more number of customers can be attracted. SEO is considered as a very effective way of
gaining good respeonse from the side of internet users who access the web pages. With the increase in
access to internet web pages, chances of increase in sales has also been observed. However, there are
some of the disadvantages that are carried by use of SEO by the organisation. It is very time consuming
process which sometime may affect the resultant outcome. There are instances when the Virgin Atlantic
faces delay in time and finalizing of final process for getting things achieved.
LO 2.2 Copy of opt-in marketing newsletter
Dear Customer,
We at Virgin Atlantic, are pleased to inform you that your preferred Atlantic has one of the top
spots in aviation industry in the country. To celebrate this moment we are giving a flat 5% discount on
all flights flying within the UK. We thank you for your support and expect to the same in the future.
We are waiting to see you again having traveller service with us.
Thank-you,
Customer Service Department,
Virgin Atlantic
LO 2.3 Guidelines on best practices for online public relations
Developing and maintaining relations with public, i.e. the customers and various other
stakeholders is imperative, mainly because of reason that it has a direct impact over working of the firm
as well as its survival in the market (Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels, 2009). Maintaining public relations
through online mediums becomes all the more difficult for the cited aviation company. There are
numerous positive sides of Online Public Relations (OPR). One of them is that customers can contact
and communicate with Virgin Atlantic on a 24*7 basis throughout the week. This way target customers
can interact with the company at any given point of time and get their query or any problem solved.
Herein, the OPR guidelines states that such customer care executives should possess a variety of skills
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which may include the likes of politeness; good and strong communication skills, etc. (Hsia, Chen and
Chen, 2009). This means that the care executives would have to have proper and effective interactive
abilities, along with being polite with the customers. In addition to this, guidelines on OPR states that
marketing and promotional strategies must be such that they do not defame any other organization
operating in the same industry. In this sense, it can be said that authorities at Virgin Atlantic will have
to take precautionary measures to promote themselves, but do not negatively publicise any other
aviation firm operating in the country (Kriemadis, Terzoudis and Kartakoullis, 2010).
LO 2.4 Ways to use new digital media communities
In digital era, for the purpose of attracting customers and business communities, management of
company can use instant messaging, discussion group and mobile-commerce technologies in their day
to day business functions. Besides that, firm has also launch its own mobile apps for the purpose of
providing facilities such as mobile voucher coupons and loyalty cards to its clients throughout the
world (Shaw and et.al., 2012). In addition, for sharing files and other information with business
partners, firm can use Flickr and extranet. Along with this, different file sharing sites can be beneficial
for the organization in promoting its products online. Digital media marketing techniques used by
company can be showed with help of below figure.
There are certain ways which have been applied to share file between two different locations in a safe
and secure manner that can be enlisted as follow.
Dropbox: In the context of sharing file in safe and secure manner and provides storage solutions to
their employees, business organizations can use this technology. It offers 20 GB free space and 200 GB
paid services to its users (Hollensen, 2015). In addition, it provides facilities of FTP upload and file
versioning so that users can perform variety of operations such as back-up, file sharing,
synchronization and web sharing etc.
Office 365: In order to meet small business needs and improves business collaboration, enterprises can
be employed this office suite in their day to day business operations. It allows employee to securely
work across team without compromise between security and ease-of-use (Blumentritt, 2006). It
provides a place where more than one people can chat or interact with other. This is considered as best
way to foster relationship which is the biggest requirement of markets these days (Dennis, 2002).
Businessmen and enterprises can use office 365 and Dropbox technologies in the context of building
relationship by using online interaction and communication with the large number of customers or
clients.
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In context to Virgin Atlantic, both target and potential clients are interacted online and facilitated with
best of information online in this regard, these types of technologies can be beneficial for company.
TASK 3
LO 3.1 Conducting secondary market research
In the context of collecting secondary data, researcher can use books, journals and online published
articles. Popick (2012) explored that for managing better communication with customers, enterprise is
used social media marketing communication channels. Apart from this, firm also launches Clubhouse
contest where customers took pictures of them and shared at any platforms.
Figure 1: Clubhouse contest
(Source: Popick, 2012)
From the critical comparison of British Airways and Virgin Atlantic, it is found that average price per
customers of virgin airline was 614.1 and it was much higher than price of BA which was 468.2 in
2011. Moreover, in term of service and quality, virgin airline more emphasizes on its promotion
strategies and meeting needs of customers in a proper manner (Fritz, 2013).
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Figure 2: Price comparison of Virgin and BA
(Source: Yoo and Donthu, 2015)
In addition, firm also used Customer relationship management tool which helps company in perfuming
marketing functions effectively (Chauhan, 2010). In many past investigations and research studies, it
has been determined that managing relations with customers is essential, mainly because of reason that
it helps in prolonging company's existence in the market and also its effectiveness in the target market.
Considering the fact that Virgin Atlantic operates in a competitive market thereby making it difficult to
manage consumer relations. Fahy, Farrelly and Quester (2003), believes that customer relationship
management is not a very crucial aspect of business functioning, and does not need to be paid a lot of
attention to (Fahy, Farrelly and Quester, 2003). According to Zahay and Fredricks (2009), modern
marketplace are highly competitive, and those companies which do not share effective and healthy
relations with the customers, have very less chances of being able to succeed in the market, as well as
to fulfil its goals and objectives. Kriemadis, Terzoudis and Kartakoullis (2010) support this by stating
that effective customer relationships can help an enterprise so as to attract new consumers and retain
the present ones. The author further opines that management of an organization must instead of it, pay
heed to quality of operations of the company, as it is the one that would help in attracting customers in
large numbers and also retain them with great ease and comfort (Carrigan, Marinova and Szmigin,
2005).
LO 3.2 Designing an online survey
With a need to develop effective marketing tactics and strategies, it is imperative that
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companies, regardless of market that they may operate in, conduct a thorough survey of the target
market, so as to obtain various kinds of information about the industry. In this sense, if management of
Virgin Atlantic would conduct a survey of the market, then they would get access to a lot of valuable
and sensitive information about the industry, which would help in enhancing firm's position and its
efficiency and effectiveness (Blumentritt, 2006). This survey would be conducted to obtain thorough
information about needs, demands and perceptions of customers towards Virgin Atlantic. In this survey
a total of 100 customers who at least once have availed services of the company would be contacted
through online mediums such as emails, as the survey will be conducted over internet. Following is a
questionnaire for the survey:
Q.1) How many times you make travel plans in a year?
 Once a year
 Twice a year
 Thrice a year
 More than three times
Q.2) Classify your travelling purpose?
 Business trip
 Short Break
 Vacations
Q.3) which factors is essential for you in terms of overall satisfaction or dissatisfaction while travelling
with Easy Jet?
 In flight quality of food and beverages
 Pricing norms
 Quality of services provided by Easy Jet
 Responsiveness towards consumers
 Security procedures
Q.4) Which of the following airlines is prefeered by you while making short-haul routes?
 British Airways
 Easy Jet
 Virgin airlines
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Q.5) Which airline is prefeered by you while making long route travel?
 British Airways
 Easy Jet
 Emirates
 Qatar Airways
Q.6) what is the reason by which you prefer a particular airline again?
 Effective in flight and ground service
 On-board entertainment
 Pricing
 Security processes
 Ticket flexibility
Q.7) Will increase pricing by Easy Jet affect your loyalty quotient?
 Yes
 No
LO 3.3 Electronic customer relationship marketing
In order to manage clients’ account history and store details about product purchase, eCRM tool can be
beneficial for organization. Virgin Atlantic uses this software in order to retain its existing and attract
new customers for long time period. By using electronic customer relationship marketing technique,
enterprise would be able to develop effective links with the customers and maintaining dialogue online
and offline with their customers. In this sense, it can further be said that these tactics aids the company
to remain competitive in the market (Hollensen, 2015). Moreover, by making use of electronic
marketing, firms get a chance to enhance their customer loyalty. Along with e-CRM, marketing
department of company can also consider different new emerging technologies like Cloud and Big Data
etc. to capture and store large amount of data in safe and secure manner. Hence by making use of these
tactics enterprise can improve its consumer base. In addition, predictive modelling can be used to
forecast sales of products and increase chances of firm’s survival in hostile aviation industry. Electronic
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) can be regarded as the crucial area of internet marketing
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tactics that should be worked upon by management of company. Apart from this, Vendor management
system can be used to collaborate with filtering and segmenting customers.
TASK 4
4.1 Outline of an internet marketing plan
For companies such as that of the Virgin Atlantic, it has become imperative that they develop
and put in place effective internet marketing plans, as it would help the company to prolong its
existence in the market and fulfil its goals and objectives (Trusov, Bucklin and Pauwels, 2009). In this
sense, it can be suggested to the management at Virgin Atlantic that they musst focus on improving
their clientele base, for which, authorities must pay a lot of attention to reaching out to and interacting
with customers through internet based mediums. Current situation of the company is not very good, as
it is facing a lot of troubles from various angles of business operations such as brand image and brand
awareness, in addition to financial problems that the company is going through. In this sense,
management of the aviation firm needs to develop such marketing plans which may help in preparing a
strong and effective image in the market (Hsia, Chen and Chen, 2009). Herein, it can be suggested to
management of the company that it should use approaches and techniques of internet marketing, which
could include the likes of pay per click, SEO, etc.
CONCLUSION
Marketing is a very crucial aspect of business operations to which management of an
organization, regardless of market that it may be a part of, needs to pay a lot of attention to. During the
present study, it was observed that concept of internet marketing is a very wide one, as there are
number of areas that need to be considered in it. Study revealed that e-commerce is a prime element of
the internet marketing concept. Further, researcher through this study, also stated that 7P's of marketing
are very crucial and applicable to internet marketing mix as well.
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