Introduction
The business environment has become so competitive, and companies are attempting to lure the limited customers to their services. Due to this limitation in the market share, it is critical for companies to devise effective marketing strategies that will help build a strong customer base and also retain the customers and the market share
History of Budget Air Travel
The revolution of budget flights began following the deregulation of the European domestic markets thus allowing the rise of several airline companies. Such deregulations allowed airlines to take routes of their convenience thus creating a culture of liberalization in the domestic travel markets across Europe. In 1985, Ryanair was established and sooner became the low-cost airline in that decade. The year 1991 saw the restructuring of Ryanair along with the Southwest Airlines thus marking the beginning of European low-cost flight (Kim & Prater, 2011). In 1997, the European domestic market became liberalized thus creating the surge in low-cost airline model. It allowed the budget flights to boom. It marked the beginning for several budget airlines such as SkyEurope, EasyJet, and Aer Lingus that continued the transformation of the airline business model to low-cost.
Why Conair is losing the market share
Poor branding-proper branding is important for the company image. However, a poorly branded company might not appeal to the customers thus even lose the existing customers. It is thus important for the company to adopt mechanisms that will improve the company brands.
Poor marketing strategies- marketing types help retain and gain existing and new customers respectively (Pal & Kapur, 2013). However, poor marketing strategies can spell doom for the company thus leaving the customers to seek the same services elsewhere.
Modernization-modernization of the airline companies has been detrimental to the rigid companies that are still buried in their past market glories. Failure to adjust to changing market landscape can lead to been outmuscled by competitors thus lose the customers to them.
Increased Price- liberalization of the market implies that every airline decides on what to charge their customers. However, when a company charges a little higher than the competitors that offer the same quality of service, they are likely to lose their clients to the competitors thus minimize its market share (Ledford, 2009).
Target market
The target market for the airline companies are normally the business persons, tourists, locals, and government officials. This group of people travels for various reasons that make it
Aim of the report
Compare two types of marketing and make a recommendation on the appropriate one.
Literature Review
Marketing is often a communication between the company and the potential customer in which the company targets the sale of services or products. In the business world, marketing is critical for rolling out a new service as well as creating awareness about your product to customers (Vrontis & Melanthiou, 2011). It is important for the business to communicate about a product to their customers. Communication is often the core of marketing as it entails the actual engagement with the customer regarding the product. Customers are normally unaware of the service or product that companies offer. However, through marketing, they can gain knowledge of the company as well as the get attached to the product to the service being offered. Therefore, it is essential for every company to market their services to lure the customers towards their services.
Marketing in the airline industry is very competitive and engaging. Different companies employee different marketing strategies in a bid to outwit their competitors. The marketing strategies usually used are advertisements, social network marketing as well as promotions (Romani & Grappi, 2014). It is important for the companies to identify the best strategy that will help compete fairly with others even if have a reputation in the industry. Marketing is the primary determinant of business success. Many companies prefer these strategies due to their popularities with the customer.
Overview of marketing types
Internet marketing-the use of internet has become so common and many potential customers spend a better part of their time on the internet thus, it becomes a good type of marketing that can be useful to companies (Romani & Grappi, 2014). It takes into account the social media, viral, and content marketing.
Advertising-advertising has been the popular type of marketing for a good period due to the increasing popularity of the print media as well as visual partners. It has enabled many people to access information about the company from the comfort of their homes.
Options to compare
Direct Marketing
Presentation and comparison of options
Presentation
Direct marketing
In this type of marketing, the company often communicates directly with the customers through media exploits like emails, catalog, TV, messages, print media (Romani & Grappi, 2014). Many companies have used direct marketing as their main way of communicating essential business opportunities to their customers. For a long time, direct marketing was the main form of advertisement but has been overtaken by the other forms of marketing. Several companies have used this type of marketing with Ryanair as well as Easy Jet both using it to communicate to customers.
Comparison
Price
The cost of running content marketing is relatively low compared to direct marketing. In content marketing, the prepared visual content is often shared online at very low costs or no cost depending with the package of social network account that the company runs. In many cases, it only takes the company to register a social network account and is set to post the content. In the contrary, direct marketing involves huge costs of digital media in the form of print media and television. They normally charge exorbitantly.
Effectiveness
The effectiveness of the two is measurable by virtue of coverage and possible clients reachable through the type of marketing. Content marketing has the largest coverage and access as many people can access it limitlessly. Content marketing can be accessed at any time and from any part of the world thus reaching many people compared to direct marketing. On the other hand direct marketing is limited to certain geographical areas thus making it difficult to reach many people as content marketing does. Therefore, content marketing is the effective between the two.
Brand image
Conclusion and Recommendation
In conclusion, marketing is the core of every business prospect thus must be embraced the right way. However, several competing companies have developed better marketing strategies thus leapfrogging them and dislodging them from the market by taking a better share of what they previously enjoyed. It is thus important for companies to understand the market trends and apply appropriate strategy that will ensure they remain relevant to customers as well as competitive against their rivals. The complexity of the market is a result of the increasing customer knowledge about their needs and the prior knowledge of getting the service thanks to the Internet that has made information access a simple task. Customers can thus use their handheld gadgets to access any relevant information regarding the target company and the industry. Therefore, companies should embrace content marketing more due to its growing popularity and limitless boundaries of access. ConAir should thus switch to content marketing due to its cost advantage and market coverage.
References
Kim, J., & Prater, E. (2011). Service Marketing Productivity and Firm Profit: Evidence From U.S. Domestic Airline Companies. Services Marketing Quarterly, 32(3), 181-198.
Pal, S. K., & Kapur, V. (2013). Marketing Strategies & Service Excellence for Low-cost Airline in India. International Journal of Research in Business and Technology, 2(2).
Ledford, C. J. (2009). Content Analysis of Internet Marketing Strategies: How Pharmaceutical Companies Communicate About Contraceptives With Consumers Online. Social Marketing Quarterly, 15(Sup1), 55-71.
Vrontis, D., & Melanthiou, Y. (2011). Assessing Website Effectiveness of Airline Companies. International Journal of Online Marketing, 1(1), 12-23.
Romani, S., & Grappi, S. (2014). How companies’ good deeds encourage consumers to adopt pro-social behavior. European Journal of Marketing, 48(5/6), 943-963.
