EasyJet Airline Company Online Retailing - Essay Example

Marketing MA R008 Table of Contents Concept of integrated marketing communication strategy 3 Marketing campaign by EasyJet 3 Conclusion 6 Supporting materials 7 References 8 Concept of integrated marketing communication strategy Integrated marketing communication strategy refers to coordinating and integrating various communication channels of the company in order to deliver a consistent, clear, compelling message about the company and its products. It refers to recognize all such touch points where the customer can encounter the company and its brands. Each contact with the brand will give a message, good, bad or indifferent. The company will want to deliver a positive and consistent message with each of the contacts. It will lead to total marketing communication strategy which will aim at building stronger relationships with customer by showing how the customers can get help to solve their problems from the company and its products (Koekemoer, 2004, p.212). The integrated marketing communication strategy will make a tie of the company’s images and messages. A blended mix of the promotion tools can be used for promoting our company’s products. It can be advertising, personal selling, public relations, direct marketing and sales promotion. Now a day, customers get bombarded with the messages of company from all directions. The company’s print advertisement and television will have the same look, message; feel similar to its personal selling communication and email (Kotler, 2010, p.362). The material of its public relation will project the same image like its social network presence and website. Under the plan of overall marketing communication unique roles played by different media must be coordinated carefully by the company in order to attract, inform and persuade consumers. It must coordinate all the touch points of customers for ensuring clear brand messages. The online direct marketing is growing at a fast pace. There can be several domains for online marketing like business to consumer, business to business, consumer to consumer, consumer to business. Online marketing can be done by creating a corporate or brand website and designing the effective websites, placing online ads and promotions and participating in online social networks and using email (Stanley, D., and et.al., 1993, p.218). Marketing campaign by EasyJet The British airline, EasyJet Airline Company Limited with headquarters at London Luton Airport. It is the largest airline of United Kingdom in terms of numbers of passengers it carries and in terms of its operation in scheduled services domestically and internationally on over 600 routes in around more than 30 countries. Its parent company is EasyJet plc which is listed in London Stock Exchange. It is a component of FTSE 250 Index. EasyJet made a combination of integrated marketing communication strategy to gain competitive advantage over its rivals in the marketing for low cost aviation. EasyJet Airline Company Limited is a successful and great example of European airline. It has made successful e-marketing campaigns. EasyJet launches its website as www.easyjet.com. The web bookings grew from zero to 26 percent of business within a year. Over the period, EasyJet became the first airline making more sales on internet than through normal television reservations. It recorded regular online bookings of around 80 percent which is the highest proportion of online sales for any airline in the world. EasyJet became a paperless company holding powerful electronic infrastructure which resulted in low administration costs, more responsive decision making and better management information. EasyJet uses sponsored links when a user uses search engine to research a flight to prompt them directly to visit the EasyJet site by clicking to it. It also send email newsletter to customers to encourage them to click through website for generating sales. It sells flights online to both business travellers and consumers. Customers also get themselves served on easyJet.com through review of frequently asked questions. It has created a medium of building relationship where the company interacts with its customers to understand their needs in a better way and to offer them relevant offers and products. It uses its email newsletter and tailored alerts for special deals to keep its customers engage in a dialogue to understand their needs through completing polls and surveys. The EasyJet website serves as a tool of direct response enabling customers to respond to promotions and offers that have been publicized in other media. The facility of direct response or call back has been built into it. The internet is used to support the buying decision even if purchase does not occur through website. The customer information delivered on website must be integrated with other customer database and order information. EasyJet encourages users to check the list of frequently asked questions that has been compiled from enquiries of customers before contacting customer support via phone. EasyJet developed a pricing strategy to promote them. EasyJet facilitates price comparison; its internet booking system provides a platform where both buyer and seller have ubiquitous and equal access to information which is usually in the favour of buyer. EasyJet have maximized revenues for decades with yield management, charging different price for similar product. EasyJet is in B2C marketplace. One on one marketing extends yield management from a class of customer to individual customers. Sometimes, last minutes deal is offered at very low prices. These deals are made very close to the actual flight time. The overall impact of these changes is good news for customer. Internet technologies facilitate consumer easier access to price information which increases their bargaining power. EasyJet has used channel of integrated marketing communication for advertising through mass media and also making use of all the available media to penetrate in the market and to create awareness (Smith, 2012). EasyJet uses internet to sell its ticket and tries to minimize the role of middlemen and agencies. Building up of good relationship with customer is not only dependent on good product, its pricing, attractiveness and its availability to target market is also required. Companies need to communicate the value proposition to customers. Communication is the core activity of any kind of business and success and failure of company is mainly dependent on it. All kinds of communication of companies should be planned and blended into the program of integrated marketing communication. Proper communication is required for building and marinating profitable relationships with customers. To implement integrated marketing communication strategy, a marketing communication director is appointed by many companies who are entitled with the responsibility of all communication of organization (Fill, 2011). There are broadly two kinds of communication channels namely personal and non-personal. The budget of communication depends on these methods. The channels of personal communication are quite effective and it directly has an impact on customer as it allows feedback and personal addressing (Yeshin, 1998, p.201).However, the personal channel is very cost effective as it do not require large amount of money and it has a lesser scope. Whereas, the channel of non personal communication provides broader scope and used for mass level communication. It is used in the form of broadcast media like radio, television, print media like magazines, newspapers, online media like websites and email, display media like posters, signs, billboards. This communication channel requires huge amount of finance and capital (Stanley, 1993, p.198). Now-a-days, most of the companies are adopting the strategy of integrated marketing communication (Jain, 2008, p.213). Planning is required in every action and decision of the activities of commercial business, thus, integrated communication planning plays a vital role. Integrated communication includes identification of target audience and shaping a well coordinated promotional program in order to obtain the desired response of audience. Planned integrated communication helps the organization to marinate strong and healthy relationship with its customers by showing how the customers can solve their problem with the help of the company and its products. The integrated communication system has been producing more efficient and effective result. It also eradicates the conflicting problem arising from different promotional activities and media. It is vital in delivering positive and consistent message concerning the product and the image of the company. Its implementation helps to achieve customer satisfaction, brand recognition, customer’s loyalty and also boosting the sales of organization (Brannan, 1995, p.211). Presently, the private and government corporate business travellers are the major target market of EasyJet. Conclusion A contribution to the profitability of business is always the ultimate aim of e-commerce. Leading companies, to access it, set an internet contribution target to achieve certain proportion of sales via the channel. When EasyJet launched its e-commerce facility in 1998, it sets an internet contribution target of 30 percent by 2000. To achieve this, they put the resources and communication plan in place and their target was reached by 1999. Assessing business contribution becomes difficult to a company who is not selling its products online. The role of internet to influence purchase should be judged. Contributions of service from e-channels are required to be assessed (Stuart and et.al. 2007, p.141). The market share should be increased by EasyJet through serving its services to all the government agencies and offices and also focussing on customers who want the services at low prices (Kitchen, 2004, p.62). For serving the services to customers at low prices company should take some serious steps and should manage the flow of customers online rather than the traditional desk system. Elimination of middlemen will not require EasyJet to pay any commission to any travel agencies and agents and this strategy help the EasyJet to reduce its costs and also to serve its customers in a better manner. Supporting materials http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfDw6CeLmEk http://www.synthetix.com/news-article.php?newsid=52 http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1153695/ http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1131167/Industry-view-easyJets-marketing-makeover-working/ References Brannan, T., 1995. Practical Guide to Integrated Marketing Communication. United Kingdom: Kogan Page. Fill, C., and et. al., 2011. Marketing Communications [Pdf]. Available at http://www.ebsglobal.net/documents/course-tasters/english/pdf/h17mm-bk-taster.pdf. [Accessed on March 15, 2013]. Jain, S., 2008. Integrated Marketing Communication: Trends and Innovations. India: Global India Publications Pvt. Limited. Kitchen, P., 2004. Integrated Marketing Communications: A Primer. United Kingdom: Cromwell Press. Koekemoer, L., 2004. Marketing Communications. South Africa: Juta & Co. Ltd. Kotler, P. and et al., 2010. Principles of marketing, 13th edition. New Jersey: Pearson publication. Smith, L., 2012. Industry view: Is easyJets marketing makeover working?. [online]. Available at http://www.marketingmagazine.co.uk/news/1131167/Industry-view-easyJets-marketing-makeover-working/. [Accessed on March 15, 2013]. Stanley, D., and et.al., 1993. Integrated Marketing Communications. United States: McGraw Hill Professional. Stuart, B., and et.al., 2007. Integrated Business Communication in a Global Marketplace. United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Yeshin, T., 1998. Integrated Marketing Communications: The Holistic Approach. United Kingdom: Butterworth-Heinemann. Read More