To assess airline companies in terms of their ability to attract customers, segmentation bases are used. They help to draw a demarcation line between different segments of the business and see which company would be more attractive for a particular group of customers. This paper looks upon the segmentation criteria of two airline companies – Jet Blue and American Airlines, and makes a conclusion as to the difference in their segmentation base and ability to attract clients.
First of all, it is necessary to say that these companies are quite different. While American Airlines is the largest airline company in the world that serves flights even to the most distant parts of the globe, Jet Blue is much smaller and newer. Established in 2000, it initially placed emphasis on internal flights and later extended its geography to include European and some Asian countries. Thus, considering the geographic base, Jet Blue mainly attracts customers from the United States as it is little known abroad. American Airlines serves customers from all over the world, as it is known and liked far and wide. Its geographic base is much bigger than Jet Blue’s and includes foreign and domestic travelers.
The demographic bases for the two companies look very similar. People of all ages like traveling, so the companies attract people of all age groups, genders, and occupations. Each company has a business segment that is meant for wealthier clients and standard seats meant for low-income or middle-class families. However, the pricing is a bit different in these two companies since Blue Jet places emphasis on the availability of its flights to customers. Thus, Blue Jet has several fares options that let customers choose a variant that can meet their budget. American Airlines has a standard pricing table depending on the class of travel.
Behavioral market segmentation is a marketing tool that helps to divide potential customers into groups for more effective communication with them. In other words, the more we know about the customer and how he acts at the time of choosing and using the product, the more competent communication we can build with him (Kitunen et al., 2019). For airlines, customers can be divided by the frequency of travel, aims of travel, and traveling class. Both airlines have loyalty programs that allow people who fly a lot by a particular airline to get some discounts. The segmentation is also conducted on the price of tickets; business class tickets allow more comfort while traveling.
Market segmentation by psychographic characteristics is the process of dividing all market buyers into homogeneous groups according to criteria such as values, beliefs, motivation to purchase goods, and personality type. The theory of psychographic market segmentation was born relatively recently but has already managed to gain recognition in the field of marketing, as it is best able to explain the reason for the purchase of goods by different consumers (Brotspies & Weinstein, 2019). It is useful to highlight behavioral signs of segmentation for additional characteristics of the target audience. For example, when collecting leads, we can immediately segment potential customers and build communication with them in different ways in order to achieve the goal.
The reasons that prompted a person to purchase are classified by the time of occurrence. The reason may be business or personal meetings or an urgent need for a product. An effective criterion is a benefit. When choosing, the intensity of consumption can be low, medium, or large. It is most profitable for a company to get one client with intensive consumption of products than several with low. g a service or a thing, a person often thinks about what benefits it can bring him.
References
Kitunen, A., Rundle-Thiele, S., Kadir, M., Badejo, A., Zdanowicz, G., & Price, M. (2019). Learning what our target audiences think and do: Extending segmentation to all four bases. BMC Public Health, 19(1), 1-10. Web.
Brotspies, H., & Weinstein, A. (2019). Rethinking business segmentation: A conceptual model and strategic insights. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 27(2), 164-176. Web.