Summary
Modern marketing calls for more than developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it accessible. Marketers must establish a marketing communications mix through various effective means that places knowledge and awareness of a product in the minds of consumers. Communication objectives can be to create category need, brand awareness, brand attitude, or brand purchase intention. Communication strategies can be personal or nonpersonal. Companies should decide which communications budgeting plan is best for their strategy. Companies must also devise a method to measure the effectiveness of their marketing communications and adjust as needed. Integrated marketing communications recognize the added value of a comprehensive plan to evaluate the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines.
A. The Role of Marketing Communications
1. Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers, either directly or indirectly, about the products and brands they sell.
2. Marketing communication can take many forms – advertisements mailed to your home (junk mail) or seen and heard on television or radio, coupons in newspapers, pop up ads on webpages, or product placement in TV shows are movies.
3. Technology and other factors have changed the way that consumers process communications, and have even given them a choice not to process it at all. There are now digital video recorders (DVRs) that allow consumers to skip over the commercials and have eroded the effectiveness of mass media. Some customers feel that marketing communications have become invasive; therefore, marketers must find creative ways to use technology without intruding in consumers’ lives. The marketing communications mix consists of eight major modes of communication: 1) advertising; 2) sales promotion; 3) events and experiences; 4) public relations and publicity; 5) direct marketing; 6) interactive marketing; 7) word-of-mouth marketing; and 8) personal selling. Two communication process models are useful in helping marketers understand the fundamental elements of effective communications – the macromodel and the micromodel. The macromodel has nine factors in effective communications that involve – sender/receiver, message and media, encoding, decoding, response, feedback and noise. Micromodels concentrate on consumers’ specific responses to communications and assume a buyer passes through cognitive, affective, and behavioral stages.
B. Developing Effective Communications
1. Developing effective communications requires eight steps: 1) identify the target; 2) determine the objectives; 3) design communications; 4) select channels; 5) establish budget 6) decide on the media mix; 7) measure the results; and 8) manage integrated marketing communications.
2. Companies who want to sell toys or other “kid” products may advertise during time periods when kids are most likely to be watching. Household products seem to be advertised more during the day and vehicles are heavily advertised during the evening to reach the audience that will be most likely to purchase these items.
3. The process of developing effective communications must start with a clear target audience. The target audience is potential buyers and current users and those who have some influence on these consumers, individuals, groups, particular publics or the general public. Four possible communication objectives are: 1) category need; 2) brand awareness; 3) brand attitude; and 4) brand purchase intention. Communications that achieve the desired response requires solving three problems dealing with message strategy (what to say), creative strategy (how to say it), and message source (who should say it). In message strategy, companies search for appeals, themes, or ideas that will tie in to the brand positioning. In creative strategy, messages can be classified as either informational (tells what the product can do for you) or transformational appeals (elaborates on a nonproduct-related benefit or image). For the message source, messages delivered by attractive or popular sources can achieve higher attention and recall, hence using celebrities as spokespersons. Communication channels that carry the message may be personal or nonpersonal. Personal communications let two or more persons communicate face-to-face or person-to-audience. Word-of-mouth and personal influence carries a lot of weight. Nonpersonal communication channels are directed to more than one person and include advertising, sales promotions, events and experiences, and public relations. How much that’s spent on marketing communications varies from industry to industry but there are four common methods for deciding on a budget: 1) the affordable method – what can the company afford? 2) percentage of sales method; 3) competitive-parity method – setting the budget to achieve share-of-voice parity with competitors; 4) objective-and-task method – setting the budget by determining objectives and setting the tasks to achieve those objectives.
C. Deciding on the Marketing Communications Mix
1. Companies must allocate the communications budget over the eight major modes of communications. Companies search for ways to gain efficiency by substituting one communications tool for another and this is why marketing functions need to be coordinated.
2. A company such as Coca-Cola may advertise to build up a long-term image and a retailer might advertise to let consumers know about a sale or specials that are available in a certain area.
3. Each communication tool has its own characteristics and costs. Advertising can reach geographically dispersed buyers, generate quick sales, and allow advertisers to focus on specific aspects of the brand and product. Sales promotions use tools such as coupons, contests, premiums to draw a stronger and faster buyer response. Public relations and publicity can be effective when coordinated with other communications-mix elements. Events and experiences are seen as highly relevant and more actively engaging for consumers. Direct and interactive marketing are customized for the addressed individual, are able to be prepared very quickly and can be changed depending on the response. Word-of-mouth marketing can be influential, personal and timely. Personal selling is most effective in the later stages of the buying process, particularly in building up buyer preference, conviction and action. There are several factors in developing a communications mix: 1) type of product market, 2) consumer readiness to make a purchase, and 3) stage in the product life cycle. Once a communications plan is in place, the company should measure its impact so they will know how many consumers are aware of their brand, buy it and like it. This helps them to adjust their plan to sell more products and better serve their customers.
D. Managing the Integrated Marketing Communications Process
1. Integrated marketing communications (IMC) process is a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.
2. An example of IMC is when marketers use web sites and social media sites, such as Facebook to advertise their products and services.
3. Skillfully combining the strategic roles of communications disciplines can provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact through seamless integration of messages. Companies will need to coordinate the media across and within media types and should combine personal and nonpersonal channels through multiple-vehicle and multiple-stage campaigns. Promotions can be combined with advertising and online and offline communications can be combined by printing web addresses on printed media so customers can explore a product more fully on a company’s website (and possibly see other products). Integrated marketing communications can produce stronger message consistency and help build brand equity and create greater sales impact.
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