Concept of Marketing mix.

Marketing mix means a set of policies pertaining to the product, physical distribution, price and promotion which affects the buying decision of the customers. It consist the elements like Product, Physical, distribution, Price and Promotion. They are under the control of management. By making necessary changes in them we can influence the buying of customers. The success of any business enterprise depends upon marketing and success of marketing depends upon the marketing strategies and the marketing strategies are concerned with the elements of marketing mix.

Marketing mix is also an important concept in modern marketing and they are titled as the set of controllable tools which the firm integrates to produce the response it needs within the market. Marketing mix helps in decision making any of the entrepreneurs is able to integrate the tools and design the market.Aspects of MarketingThe marketing mix involves of four main elements.Product:-Product means something physically visible which is used for satisfying the needs of the customer but in the field of marketing product has a distinct meaning. It is something more than the physical object. It also means a set of attributes in the form of physical product or service and ideas offered to the consumers for the satisfaction of their needs. It includes Physical product, services, ideas, personalities, places and organization. A product is a set of tangible attributes of an object which includes its size, color, design, packaging, prestige of manufacturer and related services provided by them.In a broad sense a product is something that is viewed as capable of satisfying a human need. It includes everything which are concerned with the contentment. All these combination together constitutes the product which is accepted by consumer to satisfy his needs. Marketing mix of British Air ways:-The merger of two major companies British Overseas Airways Corporation and BEA gave the rise to privatize and establish the British Airways. It offers the best services to the passengers getting into premium cabins and the people with the high-profile status. The passengers of the airlines are mostly business tourists.British Airways is the only airlines which serves the destinations over six major continents. It is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet, size, international flights and international destinations. It is being given the slogan as Worlds Favorites Airline. British Airlines serves nearly 550 destinations, including six domestic.

Flights and its services:- However, it is precise that British airways Offers service products, flights across different countries like Europe and many other countries around the world. Its product strategy includes quality of flights. British Airways is known for its esteemed services preferred by executive class, business class, speed, security, support facilities and years of experience in providing quality service. It also provides the fundamental products as well as the other choices of product ranges in order to satisfy all the needs of the people.British Airways has attained its own standard, high quality airline and it is the leader among all the airlines and they try to augment their products and services, modify them and make it suitable to the general masses from the economy class to business class or the first class. It provides lounges for the first class passengers and along with it they serve free food and beverages and also provide entertainment sources like magazines, radio channels etc.

British Airways has different stages of their products they are categorized as below:-:

1)level One: This level includes core benefits for its Customers:Customer needs and preferences: A customer can buy a ticket as per his requirement and budget. They have different class which includes the elite class, the middle class, the upper middle class and the business class. The people of these particular classes purchase their own respective comforts.Customer gaining advantage through online services:- A stage of product when customers enjoy the core benefit which reflects their real buying power. They buy ticket which fits their requirements from various alternatives.Sources of purchase :-The airlines also offer online buying services so people can conveniently purchase the tickets through internet. It enhances communication through giving opportunity to the customers by giving feedback and also by implementing new technologies such as check-in-mobiles, e-tickets and so on. The new technology helps the whole process from buying tickets to experiencing the flight journey. It thus helps customers as well as organizations in maintaining its standard and preserving its priority.2) Customer benefitting from the wide network of destination:-The second level is the basic product where passengers or customers actually book their tickets and travel to their choice of destinations they wish to. British Airlines has the best connectivity globally recently they have launched long haul service connecting London to New York JFK and directing towards strengthening network towards other countries like Dubai and a return to Saudi Arabia.3) Customers demand more than a basic product:-At the third level is a product demanded by the customers like the customers ask for something more than their basic necessity accompanying their journey it may be a meal, a drink and entertainment along with their allocated seats. British Airways are known for its elite class. That is why people expect more than the basic services provided by the airlines. There are various schemes introduced for the different classes of people like blue, silver and gold. The silver and gold schemes comprises of more benefits along with the seats allocated to them the passengers are given complimentary terminal executive lounges that has a marvelous reception counter through which customers can inquire about anything they want. Moreover, the passengers will experience a homely environment and will be more loyal. They will prefer to travel in the same airlines if they are truly satisfied by the services offered to them.4 )Customers enjoying the enhanced product:-This is the level of a product which is re-designed and modified for the customers who desire more than they purchase. British Airlines is the public limited company which offers low fare flights with great service and wide global network, book flight tickets, great value hotels and also offers car hiring services. It also offers check-in facilities at some of the airports. The airline also caters to the needs when asked for credit card deals, luxury deals, clubs, unparalleled comforts. Apparently, the economy class has also been given extra facilities like friendly services, ensured privacy. The passengers can travel with more security and comfortable surroundings it is a one stop solution which fits the customers budget.Pricing Mix of British Airways Pricing is a very crucial matter for the marketing management because it affects the demand sales promotion, competitive strength of the business unit and ultimately the profit. Sometimes, It happens that efficiency of other functional areas is attached by faulty price decisions. Therefore, extra ordinary care should be taken at the time of making pricing decisions. Price decisions are made keeping in mind the objectives of pricing and objectives of pricing and objectives may vary from time to time depending upon the market conditions. Main objectives of pricing can be stated as under:- Earning of reasonable rate of return on investment.

Market penetration, Price stability. To maintain or improve market share. To cope up with competition. Market skimming. Profit maximizing objective.

Various economists defines price as the exchange value of the product or service always expressed in money. To the consumer the price is an agreement between seller and buyer concerning what each is to receive. Price is the mechanism or device for translating into quantitative terms the perceived value of the product to the customer at a point of time. Price should be equal to the total amount of benefits. Money (price) = Balance of expectations or satisfactions.Pricing strategy of British Airways British airways has planned the prices in such a way that the customers can select the seats according to their choices and also ensuring what services they would get by paying in addition to their budget. Like there are also customers who pay 100 buying only the ticket for the purpose of travelling from one destination to another in economy class whereas, on the same fight there are few customers who would pay 400 for getting additional value products in a range of business class. The customers select their products in compatibility of their requirements.

The British Airways offer three different strategies in order to satisfy the needs and tastes of the customers they are as below;- The premium strategy:- Usually this strategy is meant for business class and executive class users the products are offered with high quality in conjunction with high prices. This particular strategy is a layout for targeting the business class in order to prove themselves better than their other rivalries like virgin, American airlines, Jet Airways etc. The medium price strategy:- It is a regulating strategy which provides average pricing not less than the premium and not more than low price strategy. It generally targets the economy class market. The Economy strategy:-It is a strategy which has been developed for the basic product including some extra benefits which adds to the value of the brand British airways to turn out best comparing it to the other low cost airlines like Easy Jet airways.

The pricing objectives of British airways The main objective of pricing is to hike up the profits. The increased competition brought about the downfall of the British Airlines to achieve their goals. The low cost airlines penetrated into the market in order to gain more customers. Therefore to increase the number of customers the airlines had to change their pricing policies and share market maximization. It thus introduced different price plans of economy class with lower price matching the low cost airlines and only due to these actions they are successful. To keep up the brand image the airlines will intensify their pricing strategy as they offer the best product quality.

Promotional pricing:-British Airways has set some prices on flights for the purpose of promoting itself. Like it has promotional offers during Christmas which is termed as British Airways escape tickets. The product is the best offer as it has an affordable price flying more destinations. The domestic fares are also lower so that more people can travel and take advantage of best price offered to them. The club world Business class offer contains upgraded first class free one way ticket while travelling in club world business class.Vulnerable to competitionThere is a huge level of competition and the airlines industry needs to focus upon how it can maximize profits as well as maintain its standard. The other low cost airlines such as easy jet and Ray air have developed their markets by removing the unnecessary costs they just concentrate upon the basic product that is selling the tickets without any additional benefits from one destination to the other upholding the view to just increase the market share.However, British Airlines and Lufthansa have also adopted the same pricing strategy but with the different price which is value added the customers can surely enjoy a good quality product at reasonable rates. Moreover, it also offers the refundable offers. One can buy online tickets through internet as well as ask for the refund if needed all this require is to just apply online and fill the form online and the claimed amount will be refunded and also the tickets will be booked without any ambiguous procedures.

Promotional mix of British AirwaysPromotion means a set of efforts made by the company for stimulating the demand for its product without making any alteration in product mix, price and channels of distribution. It is any communicative activity whose main objective is to move forward a product service or an idea in a channel of distribution. It is a set of efforts made by a marketer to inform and persuade buyers to accept, resell, recommend or use the article which is being promoted. Philip Kilter has rightly described, Promotion encompasses all tools in the marketing mix arise major role is persuasive communications.In a competitive market particularly when production is made in anticipation of demand importance of promotion cannot be overemphasized. The following reasons gave rise to its importance:- To fill the gap between the increased distance between producer and consumer. Need of communication in expanded markets. Informing the market intermediaries. Stimulating demand. Reviving of demand Makes other elements of marketing mix meaningful.

Promotional mix means a set of elements like advertising, publicity, sales, promotion and personal selling used by the marketer for promoting the sales by stimulating demand through persuasive communication. Promotion works out best when they are accompanied with deciding of price, products and place.Promotional mix of British AirlinesIt is a very large and complex area of marketing. Multiple choices are available for communication. It has become easy to select own choice of media. Among these innumerable choices one can select the medium of TV, Radio channels, Magazines, News papers, Websites, Video games etc. The masses face the exposure towards number of posters. It would quite be a narrow concept if the communication is carried on as a single piece as media is a basically a segregation and it has many modes. Sales promotionSales promotion is basically a short term incentive in order to increase the purchase. It can be very effective in combating against rivalries marketing campaigns. For eg;-British Airways is the pioneer carriers through the world and have been operating for over 90 years. Currently, they fly over 300 destinations globally. Its main hub is at London Heathrow. In addition to this British Airways now sells holidays and hotels on their website it and attracts the loyalty of the customers implementing the device of executive club. Special offers are provide year the round like exemption in check-in fees for baggage and online check-in so that passengers can directly take the prefer and choose their seats of the executive club. This schedule is known as BA miles which is known to be a very loyal scheme as it also offers car rental, hotels and their financial and shopping partners. There are other sales promotions too which include: Providing extra free accommodations for the price of two, competitions like win a holiday, free gift like free travel insurance when a holiday is booked.

AdvertisingAdvertising is the best medium available to marketers for the communication. Nowadays, it is becoming difficult to reach the products to right people and at the right price as there is a wider range of media available to the masses. The ranges include TV, News papers, Magazines, Radio and Internet. People become aware only when they get knowledge about the products available in the market. In capturing the emotional perceptions of the people TV advertising plays an important role as it displays the products for all the categories of the people in a very attractive way so the masses are tempted to buy the product. Although, it might not be that cost effective of running the advertising campaign across Television, press, posters and radio an organization to spend too much on a national campaign. Almost there are 30 tools of advertising by British Airways media they are magazines, TV, Audio, Direct mail, airport and On board media. In addition to these there are Business Life online which is the magazine website, High Life Online the travel magazine, Metro-Twin a social networking website which combines New York and London.

Direct marketingWhen the people are approached directly by an organization this method is called direct marketing the best example is direct mail, also there is an increasing use of telephone, email and messaging. This technique has gained more popularity because it becomes easy to supervise the response gained through communication and that too directly as the information can be personalized to each receiver. Sometimes the direct marketing usage encounters many problems like the personal data might be misused or there may be an intrusion of privacy so people are now aware and register with a single server which is centralized to stay out of direct marketing.British Airlines is known for its esteemed services and have always respected privacy and it has always offered the opportunity to collect the databases about exclusive fares, special offers and other news stories from British Airlines group. The details of the customers will flow only in the British Airways group. The customers can sign up for direct marketing by getting registered on its website and by joining executive club. The mobile phone users can get an advantage of knowing special offers through the text message alerts. The organization will make sure that the customers do not receive any duplicate calls or receive any unauthorized messages. If the people have registered themselves in the executive club they are even allowed to change their market preferences by bringing alterations in their membership profile online by going into change my details option.

Personal sellingPersonal selling has always been a trend of selling the products until the invention of technology and sophistications in the field of marketing occupied the space. Personal selling takes place when a manager or representative of the organization comes into direct contact with the customers either one-to-one or on a telephone. The organizations need the sales person so that the customers feel satisfied that they are talking to a knowledgeable person. Personal selling is done either directly or indirectly to give a start button to the sales and increase the sales. Point of sale material will be a lot of helping hand to the organization it will allow the customers to penetrate the market and buy more products or services. There are various goods and services which cannot be sold personally like cars, financial products, holiday packages. In these cases the brochure of the services and goods should be designed in a very attractive way so that the customers come to know the features of the products or services when they inquire about them. British Airlines being a busy airlines company cannot personally sell their products therefore it has designed its products in a very comprehensive way that the customers can purchase at the point of selling

Placing:-Placing means distribution of the products and services and also how they move from the manufacturer to the customer. There is an integration of retailers, wholesale, factory, warehouse, head office to the end user of the product or service. Almost the goods are sold through intermediaries so it is the duty of the marketers to identify the type, size and location of the retailers. Market is impossible without the distribution. The Organization should select such a channel of distribution, place for storage and mode of transport which can be enable the customers to get the product quickly with minimum cost. Generally channel of distribution should be selected taking into account the place of customers, type of product, volume,Cost of distribution etc.According to the changing situation necessary changes should be introduced in the channel of distribution. The buying or purchase decision of the customers is influenced by how effectively the product or service is placed in the market and how much cost effective it is basically also through which media the products or services are sold.In the recent wake of time the organizations like British Airlines directly sell their products via telephone and the internet which however reduces the cost of retailers and therefore the world of manufacturers and the customers have become a small village as they are coming closer. British airlines first used to sell their products via retailers but however they switched on to sell their products on their well published and well furnished website which includes all the details and features of the service products. The flip side of this reason would result into heavy burden upon the organization to launch payment and service systems which was previously done by the retailers the direct selling might also bring conflicts between the organizations and the retailers.