Interactive Marketing - Essay Example

 Interactive Marketing Interactive marketing has been growing steadily for the travel industry. In 2006 the government of U.S.A. had amended the tourism marketing plan to increase the number of visitors who had been affected by hurricane Katrina. Interactive marketing played a huge role in this campaign to increase the number of travelers (Hall and Lew, 289-290). There are four major steps of developing an interactive marketing plan for the company. The first step will be to plan the marketing plan, the next step would be to accumulate the materials and the content for campaign, the third step would be to activate the campaign to the customer and the final step would be to measure the effectiveness of the campaign (Ferry, “How to Develop an Interactive Marketing Strategy”). The product/price strategy The core objective of value proposition by any organization is the understanding of the problem faced by the customer and providing solutions for superior experience of the customer. The understanding of the needs of the customer is extremely important as this will only allow the company to deliver what the customer expects of the company. Only based on this understanding the company will be able to design its products such that the use of these products results in experiences which surpass initial expectations of the customers (Lubbe 160). The root of successful value proposition lies in the ability of the supplier company to constantly communicate about the value of its products to the customers and obtaining effective feedback from the customers. The value creation by a travel company is somewhat different and it cannot be compared to the other supplier based companies (Bamford and West 134). The primary reason behind this is the fact that travel companies have very little control on the products they sell and they mainly act as intermediaries selling products of third party suppliers and producers like airlines and hotels. Moreover the products of travel and tourism are considered to be services rather than tangible goods (Bennett and Strydom 3). Product differentiation is a way of attracting consumers for travel agency. Product differentiation is a strategy in which travel agencies attempt to create and exploit differences between their products and those offered by competitors (Yang, “Analysis on Product Differentiation Strategy and Product Innovation of Travel Agency in China”). This can be done by booking air tickets at lowest possible rates and finding the hotels that can provide the best value for money for the customers. Based on this theoretical understanding the product and price proposition of Gap 360 will be interesting to formulate. Firstly, it has been found that the company offers a range of products for its customers, which ranges from offering trips for the purpose of pure leisure to doing voluntary works for communities, from opportunities of doing jobs in the foreign countries to learning new languages. This means the company can set different prices based on the purpose of the travel as consumers will be willing to pay different amounts because of the differentiated services they receive. The analysis of the target market reveals that the customers of the company are mainly young and after the global recession most of the trips are organized around finding temporary work on the trip to abroad. This means the company will have no use of the high priced business class tickets and luxury hotels. The company will be more sellable if it advertises itself as the company which can provide the cheapest deals at the best affordable prices. This will include booking hotels which are reasonable and provides a good bargain and booking cheapest airline tickets. Another product which can bring huge revenues for the company will be selling travel insurance and travel-based merchandise. As the customer segment is mainly young so the high fashion merchandise goods can turn out to be popular among the customers. For attracting more customers the company can introduce loyalty cards for its customers to provide them better deals at lower costs. This will ultimately create a strong base of loyal customers who will return for service whenever they travel abroad. The products that are available for the company can be can be divided into five main group leisure trips, trip for working abroad, conducting voluntary work, learning new set of skills when visiting a foreign country and vacationing around the world. This shows that the company offers different type of products to its customers and the unique features of each of the category should be explained. Leisure trips: Gives complete relaxing environment for the customers which make their stay during the travel exotic. The customers can get full details about the various attributes of the destination where they want to visit through the company website. The company takes a considerable time to read the experiences of the travelers through blogs and then take out the best feature of the places and the best offering from there. This makes the trip worthwhile. Work Abroad: This helps the customers to surf through the societal and the occupational structure of the country they want to visit which provides a clear picture about the occupation of the country and the customers can make a wise decision. The travel councilors can provide additional information about the current occupational status of the country against mere charges. Voluntary work trips: These trips are particularly for people actively associated with the NGOs who immerse themselves in the community and social works. Provides the customers about details of the country and the type of the community services conducted there to help them decide. Trips to learn skills: Particularly aimed towards the younger generation and provides the people opting for this product the cultural and traditional details of the destination and also the various types of skills they can learn there. The company has thorough knowledge about each of the offerings and recommends the customer the skill set they are most interested in. Vacation trips: These are mainly quality trips. This product can be suited for the older customers who want quality trips to abroad. These trips should provide maximum satisfaction to the customers who chose to avail them and belongs to the most expensive category. The pricing strategy that can be followed by the company is demand based pricing. This is because the demand for each category of travel will not be the same among customers and therefore it will be beneficial to understand which category product is in highest demand and then charge the price accordingly. In order to improve the popularity of the company among the older customers the company should make arrangements for quality tours. Research has found that customers from the older segments are more attracted to the culinary, garden and genealogy tours. They are more concerned about the quality in accommodation, transportation, food or other activities (Ankomah 42). This group of customers is willing to pay more for the services than the younger group who mainly take trips for employment purposes. Different pricing strategy can be applied for the two groups. Again in order to make the company appealing to the older customers the company should use more traditional mode of advertising like newspapers and televisions which is more popular among the older segment of customers. The company can win over customers by providing incentive travel. The importance of incentive travel approach will provide Gap 360 to connect with the participants in a unique way. This can be achieved by: Destination selection: There is a wide range of destination available to the customers ranging from India to Australia. Travel councilors: These professionals can provide a good insight to the customers about what should be their purpose of travel and which category of travel will benefit the customers the most. Loyalty cards: These will provide the customers with the additional discounts in planning their trips if they hold this card against a small subscription fee. The company should To communicate the incentive program strategy it becomes important to communicate these strategies to the customers. The employees of the company are experts in the field in which they operate and these include creative managers, web developers, digital media specialists and production specialists. This creative team makes sure that the customers can have once in a lifetime experience when they are visiting the destinations. The creative inputs developed by the efficient in-house staff are communicated to the customers through email, mobile, promotional videos and social media. In order to ensure that the clients derive maximum satisfaction the company team ensures that a group of well trained people are constantly dedicated to improve the experience of customers through timely booking of the tickets, best hotel accommodations and even on-site service to the customers. This is particularly essential if the customers are availing for community programs or any skill learning abroad. This improves the customer experience and generates more business for the company. The company also provides the program for post trip review which allows the customer to share their experience. Works cited Ankomah, Paul. Time Shift, Leisure and Tourism: Impacts of Time Allocation on Successful Products and Services. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag GmbH. 2006. Print. Bamford, Charles E. and G. Page West. Strategic Management. Connecticut: Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Bennett, J. Alf and Johan Wilhelm Strydom. Introduction to Travel and Tourism Marketing. Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd, 2001. Print. Ferry, Lee. “How to Develop an Interactive Marketing Strategy”. Arizona Government. n.d. PDF File. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. Hall, C. Michael and Alan A. Lew. Understanding and Managing Tourism Impacts: An Integrated Approach Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism and Mobility. London: Routledge, 2009. Print. Lubbe, Berendien. Tourism Distribution: Managing the Travel Intermediary. Cape Town: Juta and Company Ltd, 2000. Print. Yang, Zhao. “Analysis on Product Differentiation Strategy and Product Innovation of Travel Agency in China.” International Conference on Innovation & Management. n.d. PDF File. Web. 6 Feb. 2014. Read More