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Designingand 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 .