Digital Marketing Plan for Ryanair

DIGITAL MARKETING PLAN FOR RYANAIR

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Table of Contents

Introduction. 3

Company Background/Overview.. 3

SOSTAC Planning Model 5

Situation Analysis. 6

Objectives. 10

Strategy. 11

Tactics. 12

Action. 13

Control 15

Conclusion. 16

References List 17

Introduction

Ryanair’s fundamental objective is to firmly establish itself as the leading low-cost scheduled-user airline across Europe via expanded offerings of its low-budget services and continuous improvements. The company’s commitment to providing its customers with low-fare options to reach their destinations has shaped its overall mentality, thus making it Europe’s only ultra-low-cost carrier (ULCC). This paper aims to develop a digital marketing plan for Ryanair based on the SOSTAC planning model, emphasising one social media platform: Facebook. The purpose is tailored to augment the airline’s performance on social media, such as Twitter and Facebook pages, and foster engagement with existing and prospective customers. The paper follows a specific structure: the first section offers the company's background, and the second portion delineates the SOSTAC planning framework, which also explains the models and theories as well as the analytics and measurements for key performance indicators tracking. The paper also discusses Ryanair’s brand positioning and target market. The other section details a balanced argument for the report, and the final section is a conclusion summarising the key ideas discussed herein. According to Rosário and Raimundo (2020, p.3004), the Internet marketing plan would help the company realise specific e-marketing goals and augment strategies (Dewi, 2020, pp. 58-59). Due to the volatile business environment following the Covid-19 pandemic, Ryanair must improve its performance on social media.

Company Background/Overview

Established in 1984 under the name “Danren Enterprises,” Ryanair is an Irish low-cost airline company with operations across the European continent. Ryanair is the second-biggest airline in Europe and operates more than 2400 flights daily. The year 2017 saw Ryanair become the first European airline to have ferried 1 billion clients, which is quite an impressive milestone (Yource B.V, 2023, n.p). Whereas the company was founded over three decades ago, it has grown gradually and revamped itself as the ideal budget airline across Europe. Based on Ryanair’s controversial Chief Executive Officer, Michael O’Leary, the company is the best low-cost airline globally. Amid this impressive backdrop, the airline industry recently suffered the most significant shock in business history, with the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting global travel and negatively impacting Ryanair’s bottom line (Kökény et al., 2022, p.458; Stanojević et al., 2021, p.1185). For instance, the yearly traffic of 149 million guests in 2020 dropped to 27.5 million in 2021 (Ryanair Group, 2023, p.4). There has been a partial recovery from the global travel disruptions, and the company remains hopeful that the high rate of European Union (EU) vaccinations will allow the tourism industry and the airline to finally put the pandemic behind them and forge the way forward (Stojanovska-Stefanova et al., 2021, p.60).

Accordingly, the 2022 fiscal year has seen Ryanair experience unprecedented problems because of the extended Covid-19 pandemic (Ryanair Group, 2022, p.2). In this vein, airlines need a renewed push to embrace digital marketing strategies as the target market becomes increasingly volatile (Silling, 2019, pp.48-49; Sheth, 2020, p.281). According to Dimitriou and Abou-Elgheit (2019), customers' expectations from brands are constantly evolving, and marketing to Gen Z is proving to be an intricate endeavour, particularly in the age of social media (p.317). This generation craves a heightened threshold of authentic, humorous content tailored to achieve greater engagement instead of simplistic conversions (Graham et al., 2021, p.344; David-Negre et al., 2018, p.132). It is the company’s continuous improvement promise and the volatile business environment that the current research is anchored to secure Ryanair's growth and sustainability (The Digital Creators, n.d.).

The digital marketing plan for Ryanair should incorporate a strategic social media campaign. The company depends significantly on Facebook and Twitter to engage millions of customers, leveraging the brand’s cheeky voice to cultivate an increasingly unique and memorable online presence (Desai and Vidyapeeth, 2019, p.197). Ryanair’s social media team performs impressively on conversational interactions, promptly responding to mentions and embracing viral content and timely jokes (Frenik Marketing Group, 2023, n.p). Therefore, it is necessary to effectively execute a digital marketing plan to attract new prospects into the airline, particularly by focusing on new clients and new jurisdictions and introducing novel products and services that customers relate with (Deb et al., 2022, n.p; Armutcu et al., 2023, n.p). Despite these advantages, using digital media to achieve great engagement and performance is characterised by downsides because a careless comment could negatively impact the company’s reputation. This means that people will show less interest in the company’s social media platforms, which might negatively affect the company’s performance in the long run (Bala and Verma, 2018, p.321; Mankad, 2018, n.p).

SOSTAC Planning Model

This portion of the report delineates how Ryanair can develop a comprehensive and integrated digital marketing plan centred on the canons of the SOSTAC® planning model. The SOSTAC® planning model will be employed in this digital marketing plan and incorporates six procedures: Sistuation, Objectives and Strategy, Tactics, Action and Control (Nyström, 2022, p.19; Tabrizi and Kabirnejat, 2015, p.74-75). This model was chosen for this digital marketing plan because each of its components ensures that all the related issues will be taken into account (Smith, 2020, n.p; Stephenson, 2020, n.p). The planning framework is considered feasible for reaching a comprehensive marketing strategy (Swan, 2020, n.p). Nevertheless, the SOSTAC® planning model is not without limitations. It is a rigid framework that could limit the researcher’s creativity when creating the digital marketing plan. This is because