Marketing communications

Definition:-
Marketing communications are the messages and related media which are used to
communicate with in a market to customer.
Marketing communications can be defined as the strategy used by a company to reach their
target market through various modes of communication.
Marketing communications is the "promotion" part of the "marketing mix" or one of the "four
Ps": price, place, promotion, and product.
Marketing communication includes advertising, direct marketing, branding, e- marketing,
printed materials, PR activities, sales presentations, sponsorships, and more.











Marketing communication objectives
Marketing communication has following objectives. As follows:
1. Increase Awareness
Increased brand awareness is typically the first for a new company. When it initially enters
the market, it has to make people know about company and its products or services. This
might include broadcast commercials or print ads that represent the image of company and
constant repetition of your brand name, slogans and jingles. The whole objective is to become
known and memorable. Established companies often use it for maintaining top position in the
mind of customer, which means customers, should think first for them while purchasing any
product.
2. Change Attitudes
Sometimes, misconceptions or negative publicity develop in the market about company,
products or services. Advertising is a way to correct them directly.
3. Influence Purchase intention
A key communication objective is to motivate customers to buy. This is normally done
through persuasive advertising, Sports drink commercials showing athletes competing,
getting hot and sweaty and then taking a drink afterward is a common approach to drive
purchase intent. The ads normally include benefits of the drink related to taste or nutrients.
The various ways to influence purchase intension are as follows:-
Provide a money-back guarantee
Competitive pricing
Low interest rates
Easy return policy
A buy one get one free
Show how the product or service will save the purchaser time

4. Stimulate Trial Purchase
Two separate but closely related communication objectives are to motivate trial use and drive
repeat purchases. Free trials or product samples are common techniques to persuade
customers to try company offering product for the first time. The goal is to take away the risk
and get the customer to experience other brand. Once the customer gets them on the first
purchase, then marketers have to figure out how to convert that into a follow-up purchase.
Discounts on the next purchase or frequency programs are ways to turn one-time users into
repeat buyers and, ultimately, loyal customers.
5. Drive Brand Switching
Another objective closely tied to stimulating trial use is driving brand switching. This is a
specific objective of getting customers who buy competing products to switch to our brand.
Tide detergent is normally pitted against "other leading brands" in comparative ads intended
to motivate brand switching.
6. Encourage Action from Your Target Audience (Remind)
While encouraging the target audience is quite similar to persuading them to make a
purchase. It is certainly true that using a buy one, get one FREE offer is encouragement,
however, if we only advertise using one communication channel and only for a brief period,
for example a one week period, you will certainly see a drop off in interest and purchases. As
we know, out of sight, out of mind.
7. SHORTENING THE SALES CYCLE

Shortening the sales cycle means supporting sales and channel partners in their work or
efforts to identify engage and deliver a customer. In various products, the sales cycle
involves considerable amounts of customer education in the early stages of the process.
Marketing communications must focus on creating, and delivering relevant information to the
buyer throughout the buying process in order to shortening the sales cycle.


Definition for integrated marketing communication(IMC)
The first definition for integrated marketing communication came from the American
Association of Advertising Agencies (also 4A's) in 1989, defining IMC as:-
"An approach/ process to achieve the objectives of a marketing campaign/ program through a
well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to support each
other.
A marketing concept that is designed to make all elements of marketing communication such
as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing, etc, work together as a
unified(combined) force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.
Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) IMC is the coordination and integration of all
marketing communication tools, avenues, and sources within a company into a seamless
program that maximizes the impact on consumers and other end users at a minimal cost
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) can be defined as a blend (mix together) of
various promotional & communications tools and techniques to maximize profit.
IMC is an act of combining or unified various elements of marketing communication in order
to develop unity & consistency in message. .
Integrated marketing communications is an approach used by organizations to coordinate
their marketing efforts across multiple communication channels.
Integrated Marketing Communications, or IMC means integrating all the promotional tools,
so that they work together in harmony to develop greater impact on the targeted customer.
IMC is used practically to recover one medium's weakness by the strength of another
medium's and thus create greater impact.
Reasons for the growth of IMC
Decreasing message impact and credibility: The growing number of commercial
messaging made it increasingly more difficult for a single message to have a
significant effect.
Decreasing costs of databases: The cost of storing and retrieving names, addresses
and information from databases significantly reduced. This reduction allowed
marketers to reach consumers more effectively.
Increasing client expertise: Clients of marketing and public relations firms became
more educated regarding advertising policies, procedures and tactics. Clients began to
realize that television advertising was not the only way to reach consumers.
Increasing mergers and acquisitions of agencies: Many top public relations firms
and advertising agencies became partners or partnered with other communication
firms. These mergers allowed for more creativity, and the expansion of
communication from only advertising, to other disciplines such as event planning and
promotion.
Increasing global marketing: There was a rapid entry in advertising competition
from foreign countries. Companies quickly realized that even if they did not conduct
business outside their own country, they were now competing in global marketing.
Increasing media and audience fragmentation: With the increase of newspapers,
media outlets, such as magazines and television stations, from 1980 to 1990.
Additionally, companies could use new technologies and computers to target
specialized audiences.
Increasing number of overall products: Manufacturers flooded retailers with a
plethora of new products, many of which were identical to products that already
existed. Therefore, a unique marketing and branding approach was crucial to attract
customer attention and increase sales.

Results
In the traditional approach to marketing communications, businesses and their agencies plan
separate campaigns for advertising, press relations, direct marketing and sales promotions.
Integrated campaigns use the same communication tools to reinforce each other and improve
marketing effectiveness. In an integrated campaign, you can use advertising to raise
awareness of a product and generate leads for the sales force. By communicating the same
information in press releases and feature articles, you reinforce the messages in the
advertising. You can then use direct mail or email to follow up inquiries from the advertising
or press campaigns and provide prospects with more information. To help convert those
prospects to customers, you can use telemarketing to sell directly or make appointments for
the sales team.
Creative Consistency
In an integrated campaign, the different tools feature the same creative treatment. By
repeating the headlines, key phrases and images in each communication, you ensure that
prospects and customers receive consistent messages each time they see one of the elements
of the campaign. Creative consistency helps reinforce the basic campaign themes by
increasing the number of times prospects see or hear the same message.
Related Reading: Brand Strategy & Integrated Marketing Communication
Cost Savings
Creative consistency in your integrated campaigns can also save you money. By using the
same images and adapting the same copy for different media, you reduce copy-writing,
design and photography costs. If you work with external communications suppliers, you may
be able to reduce agency fees by working with a single firm that offers integrated
communications services, rather than separate specialist agencies.
Customer Preference
An integrated campaign helps you provide customers with information in the format they
prefer. Consumers and business customers can specify if they want to receive product
information via email, direct mail, text message or telephone. Integration ensures they receive
the same information in all communications. You can also meet the needs of customers who
search the Internet for product information by integrating your website design and content
with other communications

Model and stages[edit]
Similar to the definition of IMC, models of the IMC approach vary according to the source
cited. Frequently, models stress the importance of blending various marketing tools to
maximize the customer experience and value. IMC models also often emphasize the lack of a
specific hierarchy of importance in the IMC stages: all components of the model play an
equally important role and a company may or may not choose to immediately implement any
or all of the integration strategies.
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Level 1: Tactical Coordination and Marketing Communications Initial IMC focus is on
the tactical coordination of diverse marketing such as advertising, promotion, direct response,
public relations, and special events. This level focuses on delivering one sight, one sound
via marketing communication.
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Level 2: Redefining the Scope of Marketing Communication The organization begins to
examine communications from the customers point of view. Marketing communication
begins to give consideration to all sources of brand and company contact a customer has with
the product or service. Management broadens the scope of communication activities to
encompass and coordinate internal marketing employees, suppliers, and other business
partners and align with the existing external communication programs.
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Level 3: Application of Information Technology An organizations application of
empirical data using information technology to provide a basis identity, value, and monitor
the impact of integrated internal and external communication programs to key customer
segments over time.
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Level 4: Financial and Strategic Integration The emphasis shifts to using the skills and
data generated in the earlier stages to drive corporate strategic planning using customer
information and insights. Organizations re-evaluate their financial information
infrastructure.
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Importance of integrated marketing communications[edit]
Integration has become an essential concept in marketing because technological advances
have changed how business stakeholders interact. Marketing theory that was established
during the disciplines formative years has been overtaken by the complexities of real-time,
multimodal, multi directional communication.
[10]

A few examples help illustrate the growing importance of integration:
Search marketing: When someone is considering buying a product or service they will often
conduct an online search. What they find, on Google and other search engines, as well as
information from news sites, review sites, directories, videos and place-based searches, are
presented together, so like it or not, there is a level of integration. The online experience will
affect their attitudes towards a brand and their behavior. Marketers therefore need to concern
themselves with making sure their brand is found ahead of competitors' and then ensuring
their audience has a positive and helpful experience.
Accessibility and convenience: Consumers expect information and services that relate to a
brand to be conveniently accessible via its website. For instance when a consumer visits
Virgin.com they are able to book a flight, manage their money, top up their mobile phone
plan or find up-to-date news about the company.
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Aggregation of information and services: The traditional demarcation between a company,
its suppliers and customers has become confused. For instance the Apple iTunes app store
aggregates software and information from app makers, along with reviews provided by
consumers.
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Product promotion, delivery, service and information from many different
sources are seamlessly presented together.
Social media: Traditionally businesses were largely in control of their brand
communications. Now brand communications are multidirectional as consumers can easily
share, comment and create content. Brands can use this to their advantage by creating
appealing content. For instance Unilevers campaign for Dove, The Dove Real Beauty
Sketches went viral with over 54 million views on YouTube.
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Growth of mobile: The growing penetration of smartphones with fast internet connectivity
means that marketers need to take into consideration integration between the online
experience and place-based experiences. For instance when a consumer downloads the Target
app they are able to receive coupons to their mobile phone and redeem them at the checkout
by presenting the coupon barcode to the cashier.
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Notes[edit]
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