Promotional Strategies - Essay Example

Promotional Strategies The concept of marketing plays an important role in assuming the direction and strategies of the organization and its products. All the factors including deciding from the products, it’s pricing, promotion and placement are the elements which are contained in the marketing activity of a business. Thus, the marketing department in any organization pays the vital role in the success of its operations and activities. This paper shall discuss upon the marketing and promotional strategies of the two different categories of products. It would also perform a comparative analysis on the products and will elaborate upon the differentiating factors of both classes of products. The two products included in our discussion are the comparison of the promotional strategies of airline flights and breakfast cereals. Promotional Strategies Airline Flights The promotional strategies of the airline industry carry great importance in term of its operations and activities and determine the levels of its success. The first feature that has utmost significance for the airline is a well-formulated segmentation for its market. It is necessary to segment or divide the market into small groups according to the category of relevant population. This sophisticated design helps an organization target its products to a profitable market without incurring any excessive expenditure. For this purpose, an airline industry segments its operations mostly on the demographic and geographic basis. It takes its target population to be those people who are either the businessmen or the tourists. This population mostly travels by air for the sake of business or for entertainment along with families (Anon, 1979). Then, the next most important element of promotion is the targeting factor, which pertains to the way the business would communicate with its customers. Thus, an airline would cope up with the rivals by marketing and promoting itself in the form of both, print and television channels. In order to secure a successful position and share in the market, the organization would try to be extremely cost- efficient and avoid the excess expenditures. Besides this, most of the advertisement in the airline industry is undertaken through the word of mouth advertisements (Anon, n.d.). One of the major success factors for the positioning of the airline company is to be considerate regarding its market positioning. The term’ positioning’ refers to the unique image and the distinguishing position that the business makes of itself in the minds of the consumers. Since, airline is a service industry; it needs to put in extra efforts to provide superior quality services to its customers in order to give rise to a better word of mouth advertisement (Goizueta & Roberto C., 1990). Thus, the company needs to have with it a well-defined and sophisticated model of the business which utilizes the short hauls and single aircraft type for the purpose of positioning itself while keeping its costs low. The lowest possible fares, more routes to be flown, timely flights, excellent services in the plane, and getting the passengers to their destinations quicker are all the services which shall be helpful in creating the company’s positioning in front of its competitors. Moreover, the communication of messages for the purpose of advertisement and publicity of the airline company can easily be delivered through its quality services. The provision of quick services, comfortable environment and the reasonable costs is all what forms the unique image of the company. This strategy, furthermore, assists the company build a positively reinforced image in the minds of the customers (Benady & Simonian, 2005). One of the companies following the above mentioned promotional strategies include Southwest Airlines, which has been able to generate quicker revenues at relatively lower costs. Breakfast Cereals Breakfast cereal is one of the consumer goods which is bought and consumed on an everyday basis by the people of almost every age group. The promotional strategies of this particular category of product require innovation and an excellent marketing mix. The cereals are marketed to a particular segment of customers which specifically includes the small kids and school going children mostly. They are the target market for the sellers of the breakfast cereals and this category of potential customers is targeted through the television channels in order to attract a mass market most of the times. The segmentation is done on the demographic and psychographic basis and largely involves the ads focusing on the labeling, packaging and branding to attract the customers (kids and school goers). Moreover, the nutrition and health magazines are also the major source of the promotion of consumer’s goods (Buatsi, 1986). The brand promotes itself with the help of attractive packaging and labeling in order to create a unique picture and different image in the minds of the consumers. The target market of the product is further maintained through the advertisement messages stating the products’ benefits for the health of the kids and people of all ages. The nutritional factors, weight of the package and its beneficial ingredients tempt the consumers to buy the particular product and thus, attract new customers and retain the existing ones. The breakfast cereals offered by Nestle undertakes the promotional campaign outlined above in order to capture the growing market of consumers and compete with the leading competitors in a successful way. The company has also been able to generate good revenues by applying professionally designed promotion and exclusive advertisement (Carlsson, 2003). However, there is a wide difference between the advertisements styles followed in the promotion of both the product classes. The airline industry cannot undertake the marketing strategy which is followed by the consumer good’s industry. One of the major reasons accounting for this fact is that both the classes carry the products of entirely different nature within them. Airline industry is more useful for the people of executive class and tourists while, the cereals are mainly the consumer goods and thus, the target market containing the potential customers for this product would be the kids and other younger consumers (Cavusgil & Zou, 1994). Moreover, the breakfast cereals require mass marketing while the airline industry would by accumulating more expenditure if it would follow the same strategy. Thus, the marketing strategies for different classes of products follow different strategies. They are designed according to the market and the type of the product being offered. References Christ, Paul (2011). Principles of Marketing. Retrieved May 22, 2011. Anon. (n.d.), The Selling Process * Marketing articles. Retrieved on May 22, 2011 from Anon. (1979). Adapting export packaging to cultural differences. Business America. Benady, A. and Simonian, H. (2005). 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