Marketing Objectives
With regard to the SWOT analysis represented in the Marketing Analysis report, the Virgin Blue Airline pursues three major purposes. To begin with, the company strives to provide their customers with high quality catering services. Second, it also seeks to introduce management strategies that would reduce costs and, as a result, introduce lower prices to customers.
Finally, the company focuses on the changing the consumer behavior and attracting more clients to use their services, which should also increase the company’s competitive edge. All these strategies are justified by the existing strengths and weaknesses of the proposed services, as well as threats and opportunities.
In particular, because the major mission of Virgin blue airlines is to sustain and develop a respectable image that would attract wider customer segments and would introduce new marketing strategies for future growth. The accomplishment of the presented goals is possible through consideration of both external and internal environments.
Target Segment
The major target audience that the services are designed for involve consumers that are oriented on the adequate ratio of price and quality. Therefore, the company seeks to meet the needs of customers from middle social class.
The choice of target segment is successful because it has several advantages. The first one lies in wide market segment that the company receives while handling this target audience. The second one proves high cost-effectiveness of the catering services.
Product Position Analysis
With regard to the highlighted marketing objectives and SWOT analysis, the main purpose of airlines is to offer acceptable, affordable, and high quality services. The uniqueness of this positioning statement consists in combining the incompatible patterns.
Thus, the philosophy of our catering services lies in persuading people that they deserve receiving exceptional quality for lower prices. Affordability and luxury are two main concepts that the company pursues.
Each person can be attracted by such a positioning map and, therefore, the airlines can ensure high market potential for their services.
The potential buyers of the catering service involve middle class who prefer comfortable business and family trips and who want to receive extra benefits from their flights. Additional bonus schemes should attract more clients who search for greater opportunities and who are interested in high quality propositions.
The main attributes of our services is high quality and affordability. These aspects have high level of competitiveness because this dimension has always been attractive to all customers irrespective of their social status and purposes. Moreover, investors will also be interested in the project because of a number of benefits the catering services offer to their buyers.
Aside from customer satisfaction, the company seeks to enhance their image and brand. Introduction of loyalty programs that were previously applied in various shops can also be applicable to the flights, which can also be regarded as a product to take advantage of. Choosing these airlines, customers have an opportunity to receive points that could be used for other useful purposes.
The services positioning will be effective with the introduction of effective strategy of customer engagement. In this respect, considering the competitive environment and understanding the value and accuracy of prediction is vital for asserting the company’s brand and image.
Information exchange is another important condition for enhancing the brand and image management within a company. Specifically, the company’s managers should be constantly involved about external and internal challenges to be able to provide immediate response to critical situations.
Finally, establishment of effective quantitative measures for evaluating the effectiveness of the proposed service is indispensible because it indicates the level of company’s readiness to face changes. The balance between highest possible return and preservation of customer value is the key to successful management of flights and supporting catering services.
Finally, effectiveness of the proposed marketing strategies depends largely on personnel whose teamwork should be aimed at meeting the customer needs and predicting possible problems and threats.
Seven Ps of the Service
Considering the marketing mix of the proposed services, catering and lights at lower cost are premised on successful combinations of the Seven Ps, including price, product, place, people, promotion, process and physical evidence. Before analyzing the components of the marketing mix, it should be stressed that the Virgin Blue Airlines can be regarded as word-of-mouth and delivery-intensive business.
While selling directly services, it is important for the staff to understand the elements of the marketing process. Specific attention should be given to communication techniques, engagement of personnel into managing clients’ needs. The orientation is mad on selling rather than on marketing.
The main product that company proposes is multi-faceted because it involves catering services and lower cost flights to the most popular capitals and recreation cities of Australia. It also creates optimal opportunities for business trips to people working in Sydney and Melbourne.
This service is especially important for people who value time and who have tough schedule. The choice of service is successful because it manages to engage large consumer segments and forecast future trends in managing this sphere.
The service offered is the core component of the marketing mix and, therefore, it should be advertised effectively to make customers believe that the service they will use is full of benefits.
International orientation is also important in shaping the main elements of the service and, therefore, establishing and developing international contact is another method to enhance the popularity of the service proposed.
In addition, the company should fulfill the marketing strategy it has chosen, as well as introduce the product within domestic space in accordance with the highest international standards. A focused deliverable can provide the company with wider opportunities of service development. Hence, the service itself is the core for the identified markets.
Price is another important component that needs to be carefully considered. The company should make sure that its services have an adequate price policy. Positioning, along with the demands, finances and, pricing policies should be congruent with the services proposed. As soon as the company ensures high quality of the services, they can expect high returns.
Alternatively, clients could immediately refer to other airlines companies offering similar services at much lower prices. They can also spend less while using services of same of even higher quality. Besides, the services should not only cover all possible benefits, but also create more opportunities for flight to various destinations.
Time schedule is also important for me covering the prices offered for service. The task of a company, therefore, is to establish optimal time management to attract more customers valuing time. Focusing on exact target and conducting constant research will help to avoid competition challenges.
Special emphasis should also be placed on personnel organization because it directly influences the cost management within a company. Effective training program and persuasive philosophy will create a favorable organizational climate. Motivation, training, and quick response to problems should be at the core of staff’s methods of working with people.
Promotion should be based on mainstream thinking and immediate decision-making. Positioning the airlines as experts in the sphere is important for attracting higher market segment and target audience. In this respect, public relations expenditures are vital for sustaining this domain.
Establishing relations with the restaurants, hotels, and other resort complex in major Australian cities is necessary for building a powerful recreational network for the customers. In addition, advertising policies should over various communication media, including television, radio, and the Internet.
The latter is especially important due to the increased demand of online services nowadays. Meeting the requirements of the globalization era is also significant for sustaining a competitive advantage over other airline companies. Internet domination, therefore, is among the core marketing strategies that should be used to increase the popularity of services.
Word of mouth is among the most effective ways to increase the demand for services. Therefore, the personnel should be able to ensure that the first impression of clients using online services is good enough.
The concept of place does not only refer to the location of Airport, but to the points of destinations for regular flights. Because the offered services refers directly to clients, it is vital to decide which segment of population will prefer using our airlines and fly to various destination for business or leisure purposes.
In this respect, the concept of place is of secondary importance because it only serves as the starting point for other destinations. Either using online services or attending airport, the clients will be more interested in the number of options and opportunities the company can offer, as well as what benefits they can gains using the Virgin Blue Airlines.
In this respect, the chosen flights and destinations should be orientated on the target audience. All the destinations should meet the purposes of the clients’ trip. In case, the customers prefer to attend a resort spot, they should rely on the hotel proposing high quality at a moderate price.
Concept of people in a marketing mix is an integral component of successful management of clients. In this respect, the direct relation between the service offered and the client consists in the effectiveness of communication during the flight and after it. This aspect is often ignored and, therefore, many other airline companies can lose their competitive advantage.
In the majority of cases, personnel neglects the clients need to communicate and express their needs. However, there should be a strict set of rules that would provide clients with confidence and trust that these airlines suit their requirements. The task of a flight attendant and other members of personnel is to reveal all information that would make flight comfortable.
It is important to mention about all options and privileges the customer receive as soon as they choose the services of Virgin Blue Airlines. The process of providing service should be strictly organized to be able to define what gaps and problems the process have, as well as what possible improvements can be introduced to increase the demand for the service.
Process management is crucial for ensuring the quality of the offered service. Process mapping guarantees that your service closely depends on the target consumers. Considering this process allows the company’s managers to take greater control over the measurable activities that assess the achievement of the marketing objectives.
In this respect, to improve the quality of catering services provided, it is necessary to introduce to consider all type of process, including attracting customer via communication channels, monitoring the effectiveness of the training programs, ensuring the efficiency of technological support, and establishment of relevant contact with restaurant and hotel networks.
Physical evidence is closely connected with customer behavior and satisfaction. Because the proposed services are predominantly intangible, physical evidence plays an important role to influence consumer’s judgment. In response to this component of the marketing mix, the airline introduce various loyalty programs and discounts to persuade the customers that their service have a number of advantages.
Hence, to meet the customer needs, the company should focus on the quality of personnel treating their clients. This is of particular concern to support during flights, catering services, as well as escort proposed after the clients arrived at the point of destination.
Hence, the quality of service will be evaluated according to the experience, attitude, and approach through employees manage their responsibilities. For instance, flight at lower cost should not presuppose any disadvantages over the flight services proposed in other companies.
With regard to the above-presented-scheme, all elements of the marketing mix are closely interconnected to meet the marketing objectives. However, the central focus is made on the product promotion, price policy, and customer’s satisfaction.
Though technological innovation is of secondary focus, the employees are motivated to highlight problems and introduce viable solutions that would support that idea of seven Ps.
Implementation and Control
Because the main essence of any marketing strategy is to introduce constant improvement, the airlines should strive to carry out the proposed marketing objectives to enhance the effectiveness of services.
The implementation of the marketing place is accomplished with regard to the macro- and micro-analysis. Because the main orientation is high quality and lower costs, the implementation program should involve the following phases:
1.Evaluation of customer needs;
2.Establishment of training programs;
3.Budget planning;
4.Assessment of international standards of quality;
5.Advertising of the service via the Internet;
6.Organizing press releases;
7.Research and development;
8.Time and cost management;
9.Success management;
All these processes should be carried out consistently. However, such aspects as budget planning, cost leadership, and consumer behavior analysis. The three factors will influence the effective of other points in the implementation plan.
Apart from the assessment of the implementation components, analysis of milestone should also be introduced to ensure control of successful implementation of the marketing plan. In this case, the Virgin Blue Airlines should pay attention to the following challenges:
1.Economic environment;
2.Political environment;
3.Effectiveness of crisis prediction;
4.Establishment of prices with regard to the qualities provided;
5.Constant assessment of the external environment;
6.Level of sustainability of the image and brand of the company;
7.Consistency of introduced services and their relation to the company mission and objectives;
8.Threats of competition;
9.Evaluating performance of the personnel with regard to the levels of customer satisfaction.