LSBM101 Marketing Principles and Practice | British Airways

MAIN BODY

Key marketing concepts and terminology applicable to British Airways

Marketing concept is a strategy which is used in order to satisfy the needs and requirements of customers and increases the sales of the company. Marketing is the department of company which design the strategies and also develop profitable relationships with targeted consumers. The concept of marketing proposes the satisfaction of the objectives of organisation which fulfils the wants and requirements of consumers and also satisfy them efficiently instead of their competitors. Key concepts of marketing are discussed as under:

Branding: It is a marketing practice which is used by companies in order to create its name, symbol and design which can be easily identifiable for other people (Rowley, 2017). It is helpful for British Airways in order to recognise the product and make difference from other products and services. It is way which distinguish its products to others or from its competitors. Branding is important because it can drive new business and improves the brand awareness. It is essential for British Airways in following ways:

• Increases value of business: It is important of British Airways as it helps in generating future business and develop strong value for business by proving more leverage. It also develop opportunity of business in order to set up a new marketplace (Bacon, 2017). Moreover, it create trust among people by making appropriate strategies which put excellent impression of company on the mind of their respective customers.
• Develop new customers: A company who have excellent image in market does not face lot of trouble in order to develop new customer base. Strong branding means that the company put positive impact on their consumers. For this, British Airways has excellent reputation at the marketplace and all of this is because of their consumers who are more familiar and dependable on the company and also trust its name (Flora, Schooler and Pierson, 2018). Moreover, word of mouth is also effective for the well established and recognised brand.

Product Strategy: It is used for the road map of product as it provide a big picture of product in terms of sales and in future what product will become. For this, British Airways use various strategies and also do planning in order to identify the specific direction for the activities of company. Strategies for product is made up of specific process which include the vision and strategies which can be effectively achieved. British Airways need to be clear about its target market in order to make plans and strategies which helps in achieving the goals and objectives. Product is the most significant element of the company as without it the other components of marketing remains incomplete and business does not carry its functions. Product is the component which is offered by the company in order to satisfy the needs and requirements of the respective consumers (Gilligan and Lowe,  2018). It is the important factor of marketing mix and describe the exchange of products, services or an idea. In terms of British Airways, it offer various kinds of products and services, flights across the destination and many more. Services which is offered by company are intangible as product product carry a performance or effort which is stored and in this consumers can easily take participate as it is termed as production process.

Promotional Strategy: It is also the part of marketing in which the marketer need to advertise or market its products in terms of attracting more and more customers as it is termed as promotional strategy. It is an attempt which is done by marketer in  order to inform, persuade and influence their consumers in order to increase their sales and profitability. Promotion is important for the company as it include various methods in order to market and advertise the products (Pererva, Nagy and Maslak, 2018). By considering British Airways, it provide various offers at the time of festivals such as Christmas, New Year etc. and the tickets which is provided by company is termed as British Airways escape ticket. At that time, rates have been decreased or cut down and the people who travel in gold or silver class are provided free upgrades for the one way of the journey. Moreover, they provide discounts or vouchers and the flights rates at domestic level are also get decreased. 

Get assignment help Australia from professional experts to score higher grades.

Marketing strategies which is helpful for British Airways to achieve their objectives

Marketing strategy refers to the overall business plan of company which is useful for the organisation in order to reach to their respective consumers or offer its business services. This strategy contains the value of company, details of targeted customers and other elements. Marketing strategy is the important component of the marketing plan as it a tangible document which provide the details about the various types of marketing activities (Dahl, Gorn and Weinberg, 2018). It is also termed as long term or forward looking approach which is useful in planning or helps in achieving the goals and objectives which is used in attaining sustainable competitive advantage. Various marketing strategies are discussed as:

STP:

• Segmentation: It is used in order to divide the consumers into different groups by developing the common needs and requirements. It allows to develop an approach which helps in order to meet the needs of the group in an effective manner and also provide huge advantage. British Airways use demographic and psychographic segmentation strategy in order to analyse the important functions of market as it help the company in describing the nature and behaviour of each segment of customers.
• Targeting: It defines the target market of company which is used in order to find the most attractive consumers. There are various factors such asExplain two of the following m profitability, size and growth of customer group. British Airways use differentiate targeting strategy as it make classifications of its target market.
• Positioning: It include the position of company in the dynamic market. British Airways become the leader of market because of its strategic marketing plans, alliances and customer groups. Currently, it use customer class based positioning strategy.

Marketing Mix:

• Product: It is a service which is provided by company in order to satisfy the needs and requirements of their respective consumers. The products which are offered by British Airways are brilliant as it satisfy the needs and requirements of  their customers. Company provide reasonable range of flight tights and its airway is connected with the busiest airports as it provide brilliant scheduled flights (Keegan, 2017). In addition to this, British Airways provide best in-flight services in terms of drinks, food, entertainment, comfortable seats etc.
• Place: It includes the location or the service provider and its accessibility to the significant components of marketing. British Airways consider this fact and join hands with most of the important destinations. The main channel of company are the call centres, online websites and travel agents. Company also focuses on the easy accessibility of various locations for smooth and rapid transactions. British Airways is considered as the famous airline by covering six continents and providing its services to 160 destinations.
• Price: It include the various levels of price, discounts and commissions and the price which is charged by company by offering its product. British Airways acutely kept its pricing policy by considering each and every class of consumers avail themselves in terms of its services (Moravcikova and et. al., 2017). Economy pricing strategy is provided by company for those people who want tickets for low prices, medium pricing strategy is provided to those who want fringe benefits and the premium pricing is for those who want to travel with all high class benefits which is provided by company.
• Promotion: It includes the publicity, advertisement, sales promotion and many more. British Airways use various strategies in order to attract more and more people as it use mobile applications for the special airline customers, take help of internet as the techno-savvy customers can save their time in order to book tickets by using internet. Moreover, company use special flight tickets at reasonable prices for special occasions and they also name their tickets with the name of festival and by this customers travel to certain places at reasonable prices.
• People: This factor of marketing include the people who are employed in an organisation as they directly impact the customers and their spending by considering their services. The staff or the employees should be trained in order to deal with customers in an appropriate way. Good and well managed staff helps in attracting more customers and boosting the reputation of company. In terms of British Airways, they give excellent level of training to their employees as they provide training from crew to engineers (Chernev,  2018).
• Process: In includes the procedure by which products are being reached to their respective customers. British Airways has proper base in order to provide its services to their respective customers (Atwal and Williams,  2017). Company have a process which helps in ensuring that customers get the excellent standard of quality every time when they purchase any product from the company. For instance, in-flight meals, which provide good quality standard every time.
• Physical Evidence: It defines the exact place from where the products have been sold and ensures the quality of the services. British Airways design its tickets which is made with little efforts and can easily attract more and more customers and for this, consumers expect better quality and effort for their payment.

Ethical considerations

It defines the accretion of values and principles which helps in finding questions about what is good or bad in the behaviour of human. It is defined by the ethics which find the reason for acting of the actions of their employees. It defines the issues which arise in British Airways which are mentioned as under:

• Codes of Practices: It define those practices by which British Airways deal with like its issue of fuel which results in harming or damaging the atmosphere (Mokwa, 2017) . For this, British Airways have big amount of CO2 emissions which develop the global warming or damage the environment as it become the ethical issue by which they can lost the trust of their respective customers. For this, their system need to be centralised which allow the employees of British Airways in order to gain access of different areas. For instance, the employees who are in marketing department need to have information about the promotion and advertising. 
• E-mail: British Airways use e-mail in order to provide information to their clients about the flights like changes in time. But it has negatively impacted the company as sometimes customers does not check their e-mails or there might be the chances that their emails can get hacked or the personal details can be leaked (Charter, 2017). For this, consumers feel secure as British Airways make sure about the security and privacy of their respective consumers when it comes to their communication. For this, British Airways are able to overcome its problems as they can provide access points to their customers and give different passwords in order to connect their devices with cloud Wi-Fi hotspot. While sending emails, British Airways use codes of practice as it provide employees rules so that they can easily follow while writing emails to their customers. For instance, employees should not send any sort of emails to their consumers for their own personal use as they have access for the purpose of business only.
• Whistle Blowing: It is the system which allow the workers and administration to report about the wrong things which happen in the organisation. It involve the internet, emails, abuse or bullying. It helps the British Airways as it allows their administrators to stop anyone in the organisation from being abusing or bullying others by forming some sort of policies and norms. Thus, to keep people safe in the organisation British Airways have its own confidential email and its own phone number of its organisation. For instance, a network technician can easily notice any illegal activity which happen in the organisation (Armstrong and et. al., 2018). Moreover, British Airways does not allow the use of internet in its working hours but somehow employees do it but it is against the practices of company. In British Airways, its internet codes of practices defines that their employees are not allowed to made any changes or modifications in their computer systems. Thus, it means that from the system of British Airways, anything which is downloaded is stored on the local system of company.

RELATIONSHIP OF MARKETING FUNCTIONS

Covered in POSTER

RECOMMENDATIONS

            From the above discussion various recommendations are given to British Airways which are mentioned as under:

• British Airways need to conduct market research which is divided in terms of primary and secondary sources as it easily classify that what is urgent and also describe that which need to be fulfilled first.
• They need to make category of its customers in order to target them as because of this it becomes easy to target their potential customers and also easy to sell their products and services.
• Moreover, Company can also use penetration pricing policy or can fluctuate its pricing according to their competitors as it helps them in gaining more and more customer base or acquiring new market segment.

CONCLUSION

Thus, it is concluded that marketing is important in order to exchange the products and services and also make the flow of products. For this, branding, strategy of product and promotional strategy is used in order to promote the products in market as it helps in increasing the sales of company. Moreover, marketing strategies are define which is used in order to achieve the objectives and also the ethical considerations are described which is helpful for the company. In addition to this, various marketing practices are defined such as 7P's, STP and marketing research for the operation of organisation and also describe the relationship of marketing functions with other functional areas. Lastly, recommendations is given in order to improve the marketing functions of company.

You May Also Like to Read

Innovation Is a Term Used For Introduction

Unit 8 Marketing Essentials Assignment Level 5 UKCBC

Managing Communication, Knowledge and Information Level 5 University of East London

How to Prepare a Memo Based on Business Marketing Activities

Foundation Business Essentials