Modern marketing calls for more than developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it accessible to target customers. Companies must also communicate with present and potential stakeholders, and with the general public.
The marketing communications mix consists of six major modes of communication:
- advertising
- sales promotion
- public-relations and publicity
- events and experiences
- direct marketing
- and personal selling
The communications process consists of nine elements:
- sender
- receiver
- message
- media
- encoding
- decoding
- response
- feedback
- and noise
To get their messages through, marketers must encode their messages in a way that takes into account how the target audience usually decode the message. They must also transmit the message through efficient media that reach the target audience and develop feedback channels to monitor response to the message. Consumer response to a communication can be often modeled in terms of a response hierarchy and "learned -- feel -- do" sequence.
Developing effective communications involves eight steps:
- identify the target INS
- determine the communications objectives
- design the communications
- select the communications channels
- establish the total communications budget
- decide on the communications mix
- measure the communications results
- manage the integrated marketing communications process
In identifying the target audience, the marketer needs to close any gap that exists between current public perception in the image sought. Communications objectives may involve category need, brand awareness, brand attitude, or brand purchase intention.
Formulating the communication requires solving three problems:
- message strategy -- what to say
- creative strategy -- how to say it
- message source -- who should say it
Communications channels may be:
- personal -- advocate, expert, and social channels
- nonpersonal -- media, atmospheres, and events
The objective and task method of setting the promotion budget, which calls upon marketers to develop their budgets by defining specific objectives, is the most desirable.
In deciding on the marketing communications mix, marketers must examine the distinct advantages and cost of each communication tool and the company's market rank. They must also consider the type of product market in which they are selling, how ready customers are to make a purchase, and the product stage in the product lifecycle. Measuring the effectiveness of the marketing communications mix involves asking members of the target odd he and its whether they recognize or recall the communication, how many times a solid, what points they recall, how they felt about the communication, and their previous and current attitudes toward the product and the company.
Managing and coordinating the entire communications process calls for integrated marketing communications (IMC) marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan and a bodyweight sister teaching roles of a variety of communications disciplines and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact to the seamless integration of discrete messages.
