UNIT 8: Integrated Marketing Communications PDF

UNIT 8: INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 1. Developing effective marketing communications The promotion mix is the specific blend of promotion tools that the company uses to persuasively communicate customer value and build customer relationships. - Advertising is any paid form of non...

UNIT 8: INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 1. Developing effective marketing communications The promotion mix is the specific blend of promotion tools that the company uses to persuasively communicate customer value and build customer relationships. - Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor. o Broadcast o Print o Online o Mobile o Outdoor - Sales promotion is a short-term incentive to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service. o Discounts o Coupons o Displays o Demonstrations Personal selling is the personal interaction by the firm´s sales force for the purpose of engaging customers, making sales and building customer relationships. Public relations involves building good relations with the company´s various publics by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate image and handling or heading off unfavourable rumours, stories and events. Direct and digital marketing involves engaging directly with carefully targeted individual consumers and customer communities to both obtain and immediate response and build lasting customer relationships. The New Marketing Communications Model Consumers are changing. Marketing strategies are changing. Advances in digital technology. The New Marketing Communications Model: Marketers are shifting ever-larger portions of their marketing budgets away from old-media mainstays to online, social and mobile media. Content marketing: As the lines are rapidly blurring between traditional advertising and new digital content, many marketers now view themselves more broadly as content marketing managers who create, inspire, share and curate marketing content – both their own and that created by consumers and others. Integrated marketing communications (IMC) involves carefully integrating and coordinating the company´s many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent and compelling message about the organization and its products. How do we develop effective marketing communications? 1. Identify the target audience: how, when, who, where and what will be said? 2. Determine the communication objectives 3. Design the message: AIDA Model (Get Attention, hold Interest, arouse Desire and obtain Action). Message Content – “What to say” Rational appeal relates to the audience´s self-interest. Emotional appeal is an attempt to stir up positive or negative emotions to motivate a purchase. Moral Appeal is directed to an audience´s sense of what is right and proper. 4. Choose the media to send the message: Personal communication involves two or more people communicating directly with each other. Opinion Leaders are people whose opinions are sought by others. Buzz marketing involves cultivating opinion leaders and getting them to spread information about a product or service to others in their communities. Nonpersonal communication channels are media that carry messages without personal contact or feedback, including major media, atmospheres and events. 5. Select message source and collect feedback: The message´s impact depends on how the target audience views the communicator. o Celebrities: athletes and entertainers. o Professionals: Health-care providers. 6. Collecting feedback involves the communicator understanding the effect on the target audience by measuring behaviour resulting from the content. Advertising strategy is the strategy by which the company accomplishes its advertising objectives and consists of: o Creating advertising messages: Merging advertising and entertainment  Brand integrations – also known as branded entertainment, involve making the brand an inseparable part of some form of entertainment or content. Native advertising – advertising or other brand-produced online content that looks in form and function like the other natural content surrounding it on a web or social media platform. Message and content strategy The first step in creating effective advertising content is to plan a message strategy – the general message that will be communicated to consumers. Identifies consumer benefits Follows from company´s broader positioning and customer value creation strategies. The creative concept is the compelling “big idea” that will bring an advertising message strategy to life in a distinctive and memorable way. Characteristics of the appeals should be: meaningful, believable and distinctive. Message execution is when the advertiser turns the big idea into an actual ad execution that will capture the target market´s attention and interest. The creative team must find the best approach, style, tone, words and format for executing the message. Message execution styles: Slice of life, lifestyle, fantasy, mood or image, musical, personality symbol, technical expertise, scientific evidence and testimonial or endorsement. o Selecting advertising media: The major steps in advertising media selection are: 1. Determining reach, frequency, impact and engagement: Reach is a measure of the percentage o people in the target market who are exposed to the ad campaign during a given period of time. Frequency is a measure of how many times the average person in the target market is exposed to the message. Impact is the qualitative value of a message exposure through a given medium. Engagement is a measure of things such as ratings, readership, listenership and click-through rates. 2. Choosing among major media types 3. Selecting specific media vehicles involves decisions presenting the message effectively and efficiently to the target customer and must consider the message´s impact, effectiveness and cost. 4. Choosing media timing: When deciding on media timing, the planner must consider seasonality and real time responses. Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness and Return on Advertising Investment Return on Investment is the net return on advertising investment divided by the cost of the advertising investment. Communication effects indicate whether the ad and media are communication the ad message well and can be tested before or after the ad runs. Sales and profit effects compare past sales and profits with past expenditures or through experiments. Public Relations Public relations involve building good relations with the company´s various publics by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate image and handling or heading off unfavourable rumours, stories and events. Press relations or press agency involves the creation and placing of newsworthy information to attract attention to a person, product or service. Product publicity involves publicizing specific products. Public affairs involve building and maintaining national or local community relations. Lobbying involves building and maintaining relations with legislators and government officials to influence legislations and regulation. Investor relations involve maintaining relationships with shareholders and other in the financial community. Development involves public relations with donors or members of nonprofit organizations to gain financial or volunteer support. The role and impact of Public Relations (PR) o Lower cost than advertising o Stronger impact on public awareness than advertising o Has power to engage consumers and make them part of the brand story Personal selling is the interpersonal part of the promotion mix and can include: - Face to face communication - Telephone communication - Video or web conferencing Managing the Sales Force Sales force management is the analysis, planning, implementations and control of sales force activities. - Designing sales force strategy and structure: o Territorial sales force structure: each salesperson is assigned an exclusive geographic area and sells the company´s full line of products and services to all customers in that territory. Define salesperson job, fixes accountability, lowers sales expenses and improves relationship building and selling effectiveness. o Product sales force structure: each salesperson sells along product lines. Improves product knowledge and can lead to territorial conflicts. o Customer sales force structure: each salesperson sells along customer or industry lines. Improves customer relationships. Sales force size Salespeople are one of the companies’ most productive and expensive assets. Workload approach to sales force size refers to grouping accounts into different classes to determine the number of salespeople needed. Outside sales force (field sales force) are salespeople who travel to call on customers in the field.  Inside sales force are salespeople who conduct business from their offices via telephone, online and social media interactions or visits from prospective buyers. Team selling involves using teams of people from sales, marketing, engineering, finance, technical support and even upper management to service large, complex accounts. - Recruiting and selecting salespeople: Careful selection and training increases sales performance. Poor selection increases recruiting and training costs, leads to lost sales and disrupts customer relationships. - Training salespeople: Goals of training: Customer knowledge, selling process and knowledge of products, company and competitors. - Compensating salespeople: Fixed amounts, variable amounts, expenses and fringe benefits. Sales force compensation: A good compensation plan both motivates salespeople and directs their activities. - Supervising salespeople: The goal of supervision is to help salespeople work smart by doing the right things in the right ways. Sales force automation systems are computerized, digitized sales force operations that let salespeople work more effectively anytime and anywhere. Sales force automation: To help salespeople work more efficiently and effectively anytime, anywhere, companies routinely equip their salespeople with laptops or tablets, smartphones, wireless connections, videoconferencing technologies and customer relationship management software. Motivating Salespeople: Sales morale and performance can be increased through: organizational climate, sales quotas, positive incentives. Sales quotas are standards stating the amount salespeople should sell and how sales should be divided among the company´s products. - Evaluating salespeople and sales force performance: Sales reports, call reports and expense reports. Social selling: Online, Mobile and social media tools Social selling is the use of online, mobile and social media to engage customers, build stronger customer relationships and augment sales performance. Digital technologies can make salespeople more productive and effective. Sales Promotion Sales promotion refers to the short-term incentives to encourage purchases or sales of a product or service now. Consumer samples can be a powerful tool. 7-Eleven´s Free Slurpee Day celebration pulls new customer into the stores but also rewards loyal customer and encourages them to “maybe try something they haven´t”. Rapid Growth of Sales Promotion Product managers are under pressure to increase current sales. Companies face more competition. Competing brands offer less differentiation. Advertising efficiency has declined due to rising costs, clutter and legal constraints. Consumer have become more deal oriented. Sales Promotion Objectives Setting sales promotion objectives includes using: consumer promotions, trade promotions, business promotions and sales force promotions. Major Sales Promotion Tools Samples offer a trial amount of a product. Coupons are certificates that give buyers a saving when they purchase specified products. Rebates are similar to coupons except that the price reduction occurs after the purchase. Price packs offer consumers savings off the regular price of a product. Premiums are goods offered either for free or at a low price. Advertising specialties are useful articles imprinted with the advertiser´s name, logo or message that are given as gifts to consumers. Point-of-purchase promotions include displays and demonstrations that take place at the point of sale. Contests, sweepstakes and games give consumers the chance to win something (such as cash, trips or goods) by luck or through extra effort. Contests require an entry by a consumer. Sweepstakes require consumers to submit their names for a drawing. Games present consumers with something that may or may not help them win a prize. Event marketing or event sponsorship is creating a brand-marketing event or serving as a sole or participating sponsor of events created by others. Major tools for Trade Promotions Discount, allowance, free goods and specialty advertising. Major Sales Promotion Tools for Business Customers Conventions and trade shows are effective to reach many customers not reached with the regular sales force. Sales contests are effective in motivating salespeople or dealers to increase performance over a given period. Developing the Sales Promotion Program Size of the incentive, conditions for participation, promotion and distribution of the program, length of the program and evaluation of the program. Direct and Digital Marketing Direct and digital marketing involve engaging directly with carefully targeted individual consumers and customer communities to both obtain an immediate response and build lasting customer relationships. The New Direct Marketing Model For many companies today, direct and digital marketing constitute a complete model for doing business. The new direct marketing model: Online travel company Expedia Group has successfully built its entire approach to the marketplace around direct and digital marketing. Its Travelocity.com unit and the famous Roaming Gnome make it easy for customer to “Wander Wisely”. Rapid Growth of Direct and Digital Marketing Direct and digital marketing have become the fastest-growing form of marketing. Direct marketing continues to become more internet-based and digital direct marketing is claiming a surging share of marketing spending and sales. Benefits of Direct and Digital Marketing to Buyers and Sellers Convenience, ready access to many products, access to comparative information about companies, products and competitors, interactive and immediate. Benefits of Direct and Digital Marketing – Sellers Tool to build customer relationships, low-cost, efficient, fast alternative to reach markets, flexible and access to buyers not reachable through other channels. Marketing In The Digital Age Online Marketing Online marketing is marketing via the internet using company websites, online ads and promotions, email, online video and blogs. Marketing Websites engage consumers to move them closer to a direct purchase or other marketing outcome. Branded Community Websites present brand content that engages consumers and creates customer community around a brand. Online advertising is advertising that appears while consumers are browsing online and includes display ads, search-related ads, online classifieds and other forms. Email marketing involves sending highly targeted, highly personalized relationship-building marketing messages via email. Spam is unsolicited, unwanted commercial email messages. Online video marketing involves posting digital video content on brand websites or social media sites such as YouTube, Facebook and others. Viral marketing is the digital version of word-of-mouth marketing: videos, ads and other marketing content that is so infectious that customers will seek it out or pass it along to friends. Blogs are online journals where people and companies post their thoughts and other content, usually related to narrowly defined topics. Social Media and Mobile Marketing Social Media Marketing Advantages Targeted and personal, interactive, immediate and timely, real-time marketing, cost effective and engagement and social sharing capabilities. Social Media Marketing Challenges User controlled, brands need to earn the right to be there, even a seemingly harmless social media campaign can backfire. Mobile Marketing Mobile marketing delivers messages, promotions and other content to on-the-go consumers through mobile phones, smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. For consumers, a smartphone or tablet can be a handy shopping companion. As a result, mobile advertising spending is surging.