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| Table of Contents Introduction1 Market segmentation1 Turkish airlines market segmentation2 Marketing mix strategies2 Turkish airlines marketing mix strategies3 Price4 Sample Fare Deals for Turkish Flights5 Place5 Turkish airlines distribution strategies 6 Promotion6 Turkish airlines promotioanl strategies7 Recommendation8 References ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………9 Introduction In general terms, marketing is all related to the places of buying and selling of goods and services to satisfy customers’ needs.
Nowadays marketing is the most important issues for success of every business marketing is the activity, set of institution, and process for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offers that have value for customer, clients, partners and society at – large. (Armstrong ; Kotler, 2009, p. 38) For my assignment, I have chosen the Turkish airline which is the national airline of Turkey. Turkey is located in South Eastern Europe. The Turkish Aegean and Mediterranean Coasts have become popular tourist destination for people.
The population of Turkey counts around 74 million. www. euroflights. info A Turkish airline is a member of Star Airlines, and is the flag carrier of Turkey, working out of Istanbul. It services 103 international destinations and 30 domestic cities, and also had a hub in Ankara. In 2006, the airlines carried 17 million passengers. Since adding to its fleet in 2006, it now works with 101 aircrafts. In 2007, Turkish airlines were awarded a fourth star by independent air travel reviewer, Sky trax. Market segmentation
Marketing segmentation can be define as a process of breaking down a market into distinct groups of buyers who have distinct needs, behaviour, characteristics and who might be more important than others or might require separate products or marketing programs. Market can be segment by different ways based on geographic, demographic, psychographic and behavioural factors. Segmentation helps the firm to satisfy the needs of its every single customer. Turkish airlines market segmentation First class -Targeted to rich and high income people. They provide exclusive service for their first class passengers.
Business class -Targeted to business people who often travel. Economy class -Targeted to the low income groups or who wants to save some money. Special medical service -Targeted to the passengers travelling with wheel chair and stretchers. They are transferred from the aircraft to the terminal and from the terminal to aircraft by a professional medical team- port clinic-consisting of specialized people giving service 24 hours a day. Domestic cargo -Turkish cargo offers the fastest domestic or go service within Turkey and mainly targeted to the citizens of Turkey.
General cargo –This cargo offers service to the local and international people. It is constitutes the largest product line. It offers the service network that covers almost the entire globe from the U. S to Middle East, from Europe to Africa, including 329 domestic and 127 international destinations. Entertainment – In entertainment section they have provided movies, music, games, audios, book and short programmes. For the international people, they have put international movies, blockbuster movies. For the kids they have kid movies, cartoons and the various types of games.
For the local people they have put movies, news and radio channel in their native language. And people who loves documentary they have put different types of documentary. www. turishairlines. com Marketing mix strategies Marketing mix is the most famous marketing term. Marketing mix can be defined as a process in which a business uses product, price, promotion and distribution (place) to market and sell its product. It is also known as the four P’s; they are price, place, product and promotion. Product – anything that can be offered to market or anything that the customer obtains.
Price – how much the customer wants to pay or pays for the product. Place – the process which includes the distribution of product and services to the customer. Promotion – an activity, such as a sale or advertising campaign designed to increase visibility or sales of a ‘product’. www. investerwords. com www. marketingteacher. com Turkish airlines marketing mix strategies: Product Product is a key element I marketing mix. Today as products and services become more, many companies are moving to new level in creating value for customers.
In the case of Turkish airlines, it offers following products to their customers- Passenger service – as being a one of the most preferred European air carrier with global network coverage, Turkish airlines’ first focus is quality service to its passengers before the can during the flight. Passengers can buy tickets, check in, make reservation, examine flight timetable, read arrives – departures information, make the transaction of miles and smiles etc. Catering –Turkish airlines friendly cabin crew welcomes passengers on board with a choice of meals and drinks.
Flights for morning, they serve a hot breakfast menu accompanied by butter, jam a variety of cheese and olives, plus fruit salad or yoghurt (alternatively) and a hot breakfast place. Flights for afternoon and evening they served a cold meal menu accompanied by a range of delicatessens products. Flight for night they provide a full hot meal services and range of delicious desserts that are selected. From Turkish and international kitchens are served during lunch and dinner hours. www. turkishairlines. com Online service – Turkish airlines also provide the online service to its customers.
Customers can buy ticket online and can check all their schedule of flight. It also provides the service of online check in which helps customers compete their check in before arriving at the airport. Cargo – Turkish cargo offers the safest and swiftest sender-to-recipient transport service for a wide variety of provide lines. Three types of cargo service that Turkish airlines provide are general cargo, special cargo, and domestic cargo. It always focuses on the quality and fast cargo service to its customers. Entertainment – another service that Turkish airlines provide to their customer is entertainment.
Passengers can enjoy on board with variety of movies, games, music, documentary, cartoon, sitcoms etc. Price Price is the amount of money changed for a product or service. In other way, we can define price as the value that customers exchange for the using that product or service. According to Armstrong ; Kotler, there are these types of strategies for pricing. They are as follows- 1. New product pricing strategies * Marketing skimming pricing – focus on high price to cover the cost of new product development. * Marketing penetration pricing – focus on low price to attract to large number of customer. 2.
Product mix pricing strategies * Product line pricing * Optional product pricing * Captive product pricing * By product pricing * Product bundle pricing 3. Price adjustment strategies * Discount and allowance pricing * Segmented pricing * Psychological pricing * Geographical pricing * Dynamic pricing * International pricing (Armstrong ; Kolter, 2009, p. 289) In Turkish airlines, it is main focusing in domestic passengers and international passenger as well. Although they are following all strategies, mainly it follows; market penetration, discount and allowance international pricing and product line pricing.
Turkish airlines ticket’s price may vary by season and different policy, the charts below shows the current cheapest prices of Turkish airlines- Sample Fare Deals for Turkish Flights From| To| Sample Fares**| Chicago| Athens| $701| Washington| Milan| $717| New York| Istanbul| $733| Washington| Abu Dhabi| $800| New York| Tel Aviv| $803| | | | | | | | www. cheapoair. com Place Place is the process of delivering the right product, in the right location, at the right time to the customers. There is a process of delivering products to customers from manufacture is called Channel of distribution.
A channel of distribution comprises a set of institutions which perform all of the activities utilised to more a product and its title from production to consumption. There are many types of intermediations such as wholesalers, agents, retailer, the internet, overseas distributors, direct marketing (from manufacture to user without an intermediary) and many others. www. marketingteacher. com Turkish airlines distribution strategies: * It uses travel agents (agency) s that passengers can easily get information about the flights and they also can buy tickets easily. Passengers can book tickets online over the internet. It saves time for passengers and also avoids the long distribution channel. * It has domestic and international flights as well. It helps local people and international people as well to travel different places. * Turkish cargo charter can arrange flights to regions with no schedule flights which helps customers in emergency. * For cargo shipments from turkey to foreign destinations, Turkish cargo works with cargo agents affiliated with IATA (international air transport association). Here is they are using IATA as a middle agents of distribution of channel. ww. turkishcargo. com Promotion Promotion is all about companies’ communication with customers. To attract the customers and to increase profits, the benefits of products have to be communicated to customers. In marketing, this process is known as ‘promotion’. There are four tools of promotion they are as following- Advertising – It is the way of communication of ideas or products in the media like television, newspaper, magazines, bill board posters, radio, cinema etc. Personal selling – It is an oral communication with the potential buyers of a product. Sales promotion It is providing incentives to customers or to the distribution channel to increase the demand for the product. Public relation – It is the way of building good relation with the company’s various publics by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling or heading off unfavourable rumours, stories and events. www. tutor2u. net Turkish airlines promotional strategies Advertising – It is advertising through website, travel agent, magazine, broachers, newspapers, press meetings etc. Mile & smiles – Miles and smiles is Turkish airlines’ advantageous frequent flyer programme.
As long a s customers choose to fly with Turkish airlines and other program partner airlines and to take advantage to many opportunities designed t make life that but easier as offered by their miles and smiles program partners. Customer can collect miles to spend as they wish. Sale promotion – Turkish airlines offers season discount for the customers. In the off season they are providing more discounts in order to attract more passengers. It also applies 25% discount or all applicable domestic and international fare for the passengers who have minimum 40% of disability.
For the people over 65, for student and for youth, they have provided different types of discounts with their terms and conditions. Public relation – For the good relation with the customers they are doing many programs. It supports the medical tourism. In order to increase share to Turkish health care establishment in the market and support national economy, Turkish airlines has prepared a support package for health care establishments who invest in medical tourist. It is working in support for Turkish football at every level. Through this type of activities, it is creating good image among the customers.
Recommendation As a manger of Turkish airlines, I would like to do more research and work on promotion, price with the competitors, and distribution channel and quality service to the customers, as a manger I would like to focus its activities in following areas- * I will be more concern about the passengers care during the flight as passengers who travelled by it are not so satisfy with the service. I will only recruit the qualitative HR who can deal with passenger’s queries and who has knowledge of international languages as passengers are complaining about these things. ww. qualityairline. com * Passengers are very happy with the catering service. So, I will maintain its level and try to give better catering service in upcoming days. * Turkish airlines are providing more discounts in domestic flights than international flights. I will provide some seasonal discounts or offers for the international flights. For the entertainment on board, I will put more international movies, music, games, and documentaries to attract international passengers. www. turkishairlines. com * For the promotion, I will do more work on advertising.
Now, it does not have enough information about in internet. so, I will put up-to-date record and information on internet so that customers can easily know about it. I will improve promotional campaign and advertise about it through leading popular travel agencies. * For the good public relation, I will make it involve in social activities. Now, it is working with Turkish Football and medical tourism only. I will try to do these types of social activities more in local level and in international level. So that it can make good image.
References Armstrong, G. & Kotler, p. (2009) Marketing An Introduction, 9th edn, Pearson Prentice Hall, USA. http://www. turkishairlines. com/en-INT/services/index. aspx(accessed on 2nd may 2011) http://www. turkishcargo. com. tr/cargo/genel-cargo. aspx (accessed on 2nd may 2011) http://www. marketingteacher. com/lesson-store/lesson-marketing-mix. html(accessed on 4th may 2011) http://www. euroflights. info/turkey/ (accessed on 6th may 2011) http://tutor2u. net/business/gcse/marketing_strategy_marketing_mix. htm (accessed on 6th may 2011)