Marketing Communications: Promotion & IMC

Study Notes

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

Definition: The coordination of promotional efforts for maximum informational and persuasive impact on customers.
Goals: Send a consistent message to customers, foster long-term customer relationships, and use promotional resources more efficiently.
Importance: To avoid confusing customers and other stakeholders.

Promotion and Communication

Definition: Promotion is communication used to build and maintain relationships by informing and persuading one or more target audiences.
Communication: A sharing of meaning between a sender and a receiver, involving encoding, decoding, and a medium.
Functions of Promotion:
- Inform consumers about new products
- Persuade consumers to choose a brand over others
- Remind consumers to continue using certain products
- Assist with other elements of the marketing mix

The Communication Process

Elements:
- Source/Sender: A person, group, or organization with a meaning to share
- Encoding: Converting meaning into a series of signs or symbols
- Message: The physical form of communication transmitted from the sender to the receiver
- Communication Channel: The medium that carries the encoded message
- Decoding: Converting signs or symbols into concepts and ideas
- Noise: Anything that reduces the clarity and accuracy of communication
- Feedback: The receiver's response to a message as perceived by the sender

Selecting Promotional Mix Activities

Factors to consider:
- Objectives, policies, and resources
- Characteristics of the target market and product
- Cost and availability of promotional methods

Objectives of Promotion

Types of objectives:
- Push strategy: Focus on channel members, trying to push products into the market
- Pull strategy: Focus on end-consumers, trying to create demand for products

Advertising

Definition: Paid, non-personal communication about an organization and its products transmitted to a target audience.
Advantages:
- Control
- Brand equity
- Wide reach, low cost per person
Disadvantages:
- Impersonal, one-way communication
- Costs of media and production
- Credibility
- Clutter
- Weak force
- Difficulty measuring effectiveness

Hierarchy of Effects (Setting Objectives)

Cognitive (thoughts): Provide information and facts
Affective (emotions): Influence attitudes and feelings
Conative (motives): Stimulate desires and actions

Creating the Advertising Message

Elements:
- Copy: Verbal portion of ads
- Artwork: Illustrations, images, and layout
- Illustrations: Photos, drawings, graphs, charts, and tables
- Layout: Physical arrangement of an ad's illustration and copy
Appeal styles:
- Rational appeal: Promotes factual information
- Emotional appeal: Stirs emotions

Media Types

Television: Good mass-marketing coverage, low cost per exposure, combines sight, sound, and motion
Digital, mobile, and social media: High selectivity, low cost, immediacy, and interactive capabilities
Newspaper: Flexibility, timeliness, good local market coverage, broad acceptability, and high believability
Direct mail: High audience selectivity, flexibility, and no ad competition within the same medium
Magazines: High geographic and demographic selectivity, credibility, and prestige

Self-Regulation of Advertising

Benefits:
- Costs of administration and enforcement are borne by the industry
- More flexible to change than legislation
- Responds to both industry needs and public opinion
- Limited government interference
Examples of industry codes:
- Code of Practice for Direct Marketing in NZ
- Code of Practice for Telemarketing
- ISP SPAM Code of Practice

Public Relations

Definition: Activities to build good relations with the company's various publics and manage unfavorable rumors, stories, and events.
Advantages:
- Credibility
- Lower cost
- Difficult to imitate for competition
- Engages consumers and makes them part of the brand story
Disadvantages:
- Less control
- Variety of specialists required
- Can be relatively time-consuming

Public Relations Tools

News releases: Short pieces of copy distributed to others to publish and disseminate, publicizing an event or product
Consumer information: Releases information to help consumers make purchase decisions
Speeches: Prepared for company executives to deliver
Lobbying: Provides information to government officials to persuade them on future legislation

Personal Selling

Definition: Paid personal communication that attempts to inform customers and persuade them to purchase products in an exchange situation.
Advantages:
- Provides greatest freedom to adjust message
- Customizes delivery and message
- Most precise focus on sales prospects
- Feedback from salespeople can improve the marketing mix
Disadvantages:
- Usually most expensive element in the promotion mix
- Limited reach
- Time-consuming

Sales Promotion

Definition: Short-term incentives to build interest in or encourage purchase of a product during a specified time period.
Types:
- Consumer sales promotions: Using short-term price reductions, frequency programs, and attention-getting promotions
- Trade sales promotions: Offering financial incentives to trade partners to stock products
- Salesperson sales promotions: Providing incentives to salespeople to sell more products

Description

This quiz covers the fundamentals of marketing communications, including the nature of promotions, integrated marketing communications (IMC) campaigns, and the development of advertising campaigns. It also explores the role of advertising, PR, and sales promotion.