Assignment:
Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications
1-What are the major steps in developing effective marketing communications?
2-What steps are involved in developing an advertising program?
3-What explains the growing use of sales promotion and how are sale promotion decisions made?
4- How can companies exploit the marketing potential of public relations and publicity ?
1 - Modern Marketing deals nowadays not only with developing a good product , pricing it and making it accessible . This is where communication enters .
The marketing communication mix consists in advertising sales promotion , public relations and publicity , personal selling and direct marketing . Keeping in mind that the key is to know "what to say " , "to whom" , and "how often" .
There is then an interactive dialogue between the company and its consumers that is proceeded during the preselling ,selling , consuming and post consuming stages .
With the help of newer technologies such as the Internet , more firms move from mass communication to more targeted communication.
The eight major steps in developing effective marketing communication are :
- Identify the target audience :
Potential buyers of the company's products , current users , deciders or influencers
Such as individuals , groups , particulars , publics or general public.
Once the audience is targeted, the company would create an image of the product around that same audience .
- Determine the communication objectives :
Now that we know the target audience and its perceptions, the marketing communicator can decide on the desired audience response , seeking a cognitive, affective or behavioural response. The marketer would put something into the consumer's mind , change his attitude or get the consumer to act .
- Design a message:
The purpose of the message is to gain attention , hold interest , arouse desire and elicit action .
- Select communication channels :
Use of publicity in journals, samplings , telemarketing etc.
In general firms can use two types of communication channels : personal and non personal .
Personal communication channels involve two or more persons communicating through e-mail , audience or the telephone .
Non personal communication channels include media, events such as news papers, broadcast media etc .
- Establish the Marketing communication budget :
Basically it is how much industries and companies spend on promotion .
There is There is the affordable method, percentage of sales method , competitive parity method , objective and task method .
- Develop and manage the marketing communication mix :
Now that the communication budget is established , companies must decide how to disperse it evenly over the five promotional tools that are advertising , sales promotion , public relations , and publicity , personal selling , direct marketing.
- Measure results :
It is all about the feedback . For example : Do you recognize the message or brand ? How many times have you seen it ? What points do you remember ? And so on .
- Manage the Integrated marketing communication process.
2 - First , a company has to identify the target market and buyer motives . Then make critical decisions known as the five M's : Mission , Money , Message , Media , Measurements.
The steps involved in developing an advertising program are :
- Set the advertising objectives :
Is it an informative , persuasive or reminder type of advertising ?
- Choose the advertising message :
Develop a creative strategy and follow those four steps : message generation , message evaluation and selection , message execution, and social responsibility review.
- Decide on the advertising budget :
Product life cycle stage , market share and consumer base, competition and clutter , advertising frequency , product substitutability .
- Developing media strategies :
Decide on media timing , select media and vehicles .
- Evaluate advertising effectiveness.
3- Sales promotion is a key ingredient in many marketing campaigns . An incentive tool, mostly used on a short term , designed to stimulate or create quicker or greater purchase of particular products or services .
The use of sales promotion seemed to be really effective those past years and sellers use it for multiple reasons :
Attract new triers , reward loyal customers and increase the re-purchase rates of occasional users (This is why we always want a good long-term relationship between buyers and sellers )
Plus , since the economic crisis , people lost their confidence in buying . Saving money is the main concern and making sales promotions brings back that confidence.
Sales promotion are made by :
-Establishing objectives
-Selecting consumer-promotion tools
-Selecting trade promotion tools
-Selecting business and sales force promotion tools.
-Developing the program.
-Pretesting the program.
-Implementing and evaluating the program.
4- A lot of companies turn themselves to marketing public relations to directly support corporate or product promotion and image making.
Marketing public relations plays an important role in :
-Assisting in the launch of new products
- Assisting in repositioning a mature product
- Building interest in a product category
- Influencing specific target groups
- Defending products that have encountered public problems .
- Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favourably on its products .
Just like for advertising and promotion sales , the manager must follow the same process:
Establish the marketing objectives , choose the messages and vehicles ,implement the plan and evaluate the results . This is how companies exploit the two assets .