The E-Marketing Strategy of Emirates Airline - Research Paper Example

E-Marketing Industry Report - Emirates Airlines Executive Summary The Government of United Arab Emirates founded emirates Airlines. The company is based in Dubai and was founded in 1985. Emirates Airlines now tops the list of the airline industry and are one of the most favorite airline carriers in the world. To effectively reach segment and target audience, the company utilized every medium including online / digital media as well (Melly 2013). The e-marketing strategy of the company is sound and stable and has been found profitable as well. It includes its website, promotional campaigns, advertisements, social media forums such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. (The Emirates Group 2013-2014). The company has utilized the media in the most effective manner and their e-marketing strategy is undoubtedly very efficient (Oxford Business Group 2008). However, there needs to be few amendments in its strategy that will help in improving the company’s overall operations online (Graham, Papatheodorou and Forsyth 2010). The e-marketing strategy of Emirates Airline is discussed below in this report. Introduction The Internet is considered as one of the fundamentals of marketing and advertising. Due to its vast reach and effectiveness, it is now a dynamic source for the consumers of every industry. Since the twenty-first century has opened new doors of technology and communication for almost every corporate sector, therefore, the airline industry have also utilized the medium in an effective manner. The airline industry is utilizing the internet for online reservations, promotions, advertisements, marketing, etc. through websites, social media, mobile apps, and various other e-marketing tools. This report will analyze the e-marketing strategies and online presence of Emirates Airlines. Furthermore, the report will discuss how the corporation has utilized e-marketing for improving its performance. Suggestions and conclusions are also included in the paper. Online Analysis Online analysis or Web analysis is an assessment or measurement /gathering of web data for the purpose of comprehending and optimizing the web page (Kaushik 2009). The online analysis helps organizations to revise their e-marketing strategy as per the market and their research (Graham, Papatheodorou and Forsyth 2010). It allows assessing the effectiveness of the website of a business and how influential their advertising and marketing techniques are (Lurie 2014). There are numerous websites through which other websites can be assessed and analyzed (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2014). The web analysis and e-marketing / online assessment of Emirates Airlines are presented below. Emirate’s e-Marketing According to Melly (2013), Emirates is present everywhere on the digital media. Since Emirates is now the number one airlines company in terms of its fleet (The Emirates Group 2013-2014) therefore, it has utilized the field of e-marketing in the best possible manner. The company effectively uses the online forum for online sales and promotion. Online advertising and marketing are again an important factor of the company’s strategy (Oxford Business Group 2008). For this purpose, the company has also established a virtual in-house agency that solely focuses on its advertising and marketing campaigns and products (Koranteng 2000). The virtual in-house agency of Emirates is known as EmPower. It not only focuses on the online content and strategic campaigns for Emirates but also keeps track of its clients and is in collaboration with as many as 30+ local advertising agencies and interactive agencies throughout the world (Koranteng 2000). The company conducts background research in the marketing sector and then creates campaigns for both online and offline medium (emirates.com 2014). Emirates Airlines has utilized different approaches for e-marketing. Since the major target audience of Emirates is the corporate sector therefore it utilizes the direct email marketing strategy for such clients. It keeps them updated and aware of the upcoming promotions and offers (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2014). According to (Lurie 2014), email marketing has many benefits. For example, it has the highest reach. When customers subscribe to your emails they automatically notice your email in their inbox. Furthermore, it has greater flexibility as well. The company is not bound to corporate customers in such kind of marketing and can reach any customer through email. It has minimal risks and does not involve high costing. Emirates utilize the email marketing strategy to build relationships with its clients. It efficiently uses the content in the email and the attachments, if there are any. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important aspect of e-marketing or online promotions (Enge 2012). The SEO is the process through which the visibility of any website in any search engine (for example Google, Yahoo, etc.) becomes greater through their search results. It is one of the key internet marketing strategies that are being utilized by almost every small and big organization. Emirates in this regard are particularly focused and spend more effort on its SEO as it wants to be amongst the top searches of the airline industry (Graham, Papatheodorou and Forsyth 2010). According to alexa.com survey of Emirates.com, the traffic on emirates website comes from SEOs like emirates (38.03%), emirates airlines (6.63%), fly emirates (3.36%), emirates airline (1.97%) and emirates airline in Arabic (3.51%) (emirates.com 2014). The graph and the chart below show the SEO of emirates.com. Figures 12 and 13 in the appendix section show the usage of SEO and HTML. (alexa.com 2014) It is evident that Emirates Airline has utilized the online medium in the most effective manner. The company easy segments the audience through internet and technology (Melly 2013). Since Emirates Airline is world’s leading airline carrier and travels to almost every part of the world therefore, it has a diverse and segmented clientele (Duckett 2011). The internet and e-marketing allows the company to cater effectively to this area in the best possible manner. For example, the company with collaboration with Google and other search engines utilizes the technology and only the search relevant to the customer in certain part of the world will be shown to him or her (Dover and Dafforn 2011). This illustrates that if the client is sitting in Middle East and there is some festive of Eid then the Emirates will market promotional offers related to Eid to the Middle East customers. Similarly if the customer is in America and its Christmas then relevant search and promotional results will be shown to him (Graham, Papatheodorou and Forsyth 2010). On the other hand, Google Adwords / Adsense are some other key features that the company has effectively focused on (Dover and Dafforn 2011). For example if we search for the word Emirates on internet then with the help of the CRM that is present on the internet, there is an increased number of advertisements on Emirates that are shown on the window screen (OConnell and Williams 2011). It should be noted that Emirates always tops the Google list of search queries, which illustrate that the company has effectively utilized the forum as a commercial platform (Enge 2012). The AdWords banner and other ads allow the customers to engage with the company and its promotions in an effective manner (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2014). Figures 10 and 11 show how the company aims to engage diversity in their advertisements and promotions. Similarly, the factor of cultural diversity is well perceived by Emirates and is effectively incorporated in its advertisement on both traditional and online medium (Lurie 2014). The e-marketing strategy includes advertisements and promotions that include cabin crew, staff, customers depicting every race and class, and not just some specific race (Melly 2013). For this reason, the company also recruits its workforce from all ethnic backgrounds. The advertisements and marketing campaigns over the Internet have been appreciated by the customers and were a positive point for the company (Wilson 2007). The picture below illustrates the online advertisement that was part of a global campaign known as ‘Hello Tomorrow’. The advertisement includes an Asian, white and brown individuals who are enjoying together. This was very well perceived on online media forums and distributed a message of global acceptance (Home Page - Emirates Airlines 2014). (Home Page - Emirates Airlines 2014) Core elements of the Websites Emirates’ website is the heart of emirates online business and marketing strategy. According to Wilson (2007), if the website is analyzed then it is 67% accessible. This illustrates that regardless of being the core fundamental in the online sector, the company is leaving the aspect of the accessibility behind. It should be noted that accessibility is one of the significant factors in SEO’s strategy (Enge 2012). The accessibility of the Emirate’s website can be seen from different perspectives. It is evident that from the audience point of view it is important that the reader should be able to read the content of the website without facing compatibility issues. The website template is presented in figure 2 in the Appendix section (Home Page - Emirates Airlines 2014). Furthermore, the design of the website is XHTML 1.0. It has numerous options such as booking flights to more than 100 destinations across the globe. It also advertises Emirates travel deals. The keywords of the websites are flights, Emirates, holidays, book flights, economy flights, first class flights, etc. the Page title of the website is mainly Book Flights, Find Hotels, Find Car Rentals, etc. The website has at least thirteen different images that can be downloaded. It represents 83.1 ko for downloading. All the images are cached. Lastly, the website is linked with 335 networks (alexa.com 2014, emirates.com 2014). Figures 3 to 9 in the appendix section shows the website analysis of emirates.com as per the results of alexa.com. Strengths and Weaknesses The strengths of Emirate’s e-marketing strategy are countless. It has provided the company additional sales and easy methods of interaction with the clients (The Emirates Group 2013-2014). According to (alexa.com 2014), the official websites are able to attract 17.80% of visitors for at least 7:17 minutes daily (alexa.com 2014). Furthermore, the option of online reservations, email marketing, and other promotional campaigns on the online forum are useful techniques that are major strengths for the company. On the contrary, one of the major weaknesses of their e-marketing strategy is their website. They do not pay certain attention to their website as it is slower than 89% of the websites (Kaushik 2009). It takes 4.254 seconds to load. Secondly they should make their presence on social forums noticeable. It is noted that the posts on their Facebook page are posted daily or in alternative days (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2014). Channels of Online Presence Social Media is another important aspect of Emirate’s e-marketing (OConnell and Williams 2011). Regardless of the fact that the company is active on these forums or not, it is nevertheless present on all the social media forums including Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pin Interest etc. (Betz 2010). The following figure shows the official Facebook page of Emirates with 3,714,071 likes and fans. The number is huge and shows Emirates social interaction with its clients and other people (The Emirates Group 2013-2014). The Facebook page is part of their e-marketing strategy and regularly posts various advertisements and promotions to engage the customers (Duckett 2011). Figure 1: Emirates Facebook Page Suggestions and Conclusions It is evident that Emirates Airline is one of the leading airline carriers in the world. The company has worked hard to reach this position to maintain a brand loyalty and position. However, it should be noted that it would not have been possible without adequate e-marketing strategies and implementations. The aforementioned report clearly illustrates that the e-marketing strategy of the company is sound and stable, and the company is making plus profit through the promotions and advertisings campaigns on the online / digital forum (Koranteng 2000). There are a few things that strategy makers at Emirates need to look into and work on. Keeping in view the increased competition in the Airline industry as well as in the e-marketing business, there are now millions of websites and companies that are trying to make their way up on the ladder through strategies like SEOs, HTML etc. therefore, it is the core duty of Emirates to consider revising their strategies and to allocate different teams for each category that is discussed above in this report (Wilson 2007). For example, their Facebook page should be monitored on an hourly basis and the customer queries should be addressed right away (Betz 2010). It is the case with other social media websites. On the other hand, new methods and approaches of engaging customers and people on their website should be introduced. This will increase traffic, and that will automatically increase the profits (Graham, Papatheodorou and Forsyth 2010). Undoubtedly, Emirates Airline is doing great regarding its e-marketing strategy, however if the company focuses a bit more on it then there are chances that it might engage more customers than ever before. Thus, it can be concluded that e-marketing strategies play an important role in an organizations progress. In the case of Emirates, the e-marketing report clearly shows that the company has made the most out of it and was still exploring new opportunities that come their way. BIBLIOGRAPHY alexa.com, 2014. emirates.com. http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/emirates.com. Betz, F., 2010. Creating and managing a technology economy. New Jersey: World Scientific. Enge, E., 2012. The art of SEO. Sebastopol: OReilly. emirates.com, 2014. Home Page - Emirates Airlines. http://www.emirates.com/pk/English/. Duckett, J., 2011. HTML and CSS : Design and Build Websites. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Dover, D. & Dafforn, E., 2011. Search engine optimization secrets : do what you never thought possible with SEO. Indianapolis: Wiley. Graham, A., Papatheodorou, A. & Forsyth, P., 2010. Aviation and tourism : implications for leisure travel. Farnham: Ashgate. Hitt, M.R., Ireland, D. & Hoskisson, R., 2014. Strategic Management: Concepts: Competitiveness and Globalization. Mason: Cengage Learning. Kaushik, A., 2009. Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons. Khanfar, M. & Gouher, A., 2014. Customer Perceptions of e-Commerce in the United Arab Emirate. International Journal of Global Business, 17(1), pp.95-109. Koranteng, J., 2000. Emirates creates virtual agency. Advertising Age International, May. p.3. Lurie, J.L., 2014. The Profit: A Concise Guide to Corporate and Management Strategy Formulation, Implementation, & Sales Executio. London: Five Lions Publishers. Ledford, J.L., 2009. Search engine optimization bible. Indianapolis: Wiley Pub. Melly, P., 2013. Emirates. MEED: Middle East Economic Digest, 32(1), p.18. Oxford Business Group, 2008. Report : Dubai 2008. London: Oxford Business Group. OConnell, J.F. & Williams, G., 2011. Air transport in the 21st century : key strategic developments. Farnham: Ashgate. Shearman, S., 2011. Emirates targets rivals with Facebook strategy. Marketing, 23 November. p.3. The Emirates Group, 2010-2011. The Annual Report. Corporate. Dubai: Emirates group. The Emirates Group, 2013-2014. Going Further- The Emirates Group Annual Report. Corporate. Dubai: The Emirates Group. Wilson, G., 2007. Emirates: The Airline of the Future. New York: Media Prima. Appendix Figure 6 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 Figure 8 Read More