Effective Marketing Communications

Businesses use a wide range of communications tools and channels to promote the
company and its offerings. Making sure that you clearly say what you want to say to
the right audience in an effort to make them do what you want them to do is the
ultimate essence of all marketing communications. However, this is not as easy as it
sounds to be.

This white paper presents some of the best practices followed by the world’s best
business houses in their marketing communications. By adapting them to your
scenario, you, too, can make your marketing communications more effective and
achieve better ROI on marketing investments.

Focus on Outcomes, Not Outputs

Marketers need to have a clear idea of what they are trying to achieve with their
marketing investments. Marketing metrics such as cost per click, cost per thousand
views, ad coverage, ad frequency, ad awareness and brand awareness are useful, but
only to some extent. They are useful only when what they measure is directly linked
to revenue growth and profitability. On the other hand, metrics such as intention to
buy, brand penetration, repeat volume, retention rate and loyalty can be easily linked
to sales growth, revenues and profitability and are more useful.

Focusing on outcomes requires you to rethink your marketing communications

approach. Your communications should focus on those opportunities which can
further entice your target audience to buy your offerings or your existing customers to
buy more. Weave your marketing strategy around your USP to outsmart the
competition.

Once you have a clear idea of where to focus, it’s time to clarify your marketing
investment objectives. Whom are you targeting? New customers or existing ones? Are
you promoting new offerings or to new customers? What is the objective of the
marketing program – to increase sales or to promote brand awareness? How does this
particular program fit with the organization’s overall strategic marketing objectives?

Calculate the risks and rewards involved in the exercise. What is the probable return
on this marketing investment? Is the investment worth the returns? What is the cost of
not promoting? Answers to these questions would give you a clear idea of your
outcomes.

Focus on Customers, Not Consumers

Too many organizations spend too much on marketing communications that aim to
acquire new customers. Their marketing investments seek to grab the attention of
‘consumers’ in an effort to convert them into ‘customers’. While this is a sound
principle, taking this too far to the point of ignoring the needs of existing customers
can be counterproductive for the company.

There is more to be milked from the existing customers than spending a

disproportionate amount of marketing investments on consumers. Make sure that your
marketing communications balance both the growth drivers (getting more from
existing customers and acquiring new customers). Focus on enhancing the customer
experience and customer satisfaction. This is more profitable in the long run than
spending lavishly to acquire newer customers.

Integrate Your Marketing Communications

Among all the marketing channels available to marketers such as advertising, new
media, direct promotions, events, PR, sponsorships, focusing too much on a single
channel can throttle down potential payback from other channels. Treat your
marketing communications channels as you would treat an investment portfolio. Be
prepared to switch to a different channel if the existing one isn’t worth the investment.

Make sure that your communications across all channels are integrated and deliver a
consistent brand experience. Since your customers are likely to interact with your
brand across many platforms, an integrated marketing communications program
would project a consistent brand message.

Various departments in your company might be trapped in silo mentality and tend to
aggressively pursue only the channels in which they are competent. In addition, lack
of common metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of integrated marketing
communications can further complicate the issue. Make sure that your campaign is not
stuck in the inter-departmental rivalry. While evaluating the performance of each
individual channel in the mix can be tricky, do not pardon a poorly performing
channel even if all others are delivering excellent ROI.

Differentiate Something About Your Offering. Anything.

Doing what others are doing is poor marketing. Differentiation is the holy grail of all
marketing communications. Taking the line of least resistance or seeking the refuge of
tried and tested methods would only add to the commoditization of your offerings. If
your target audience can’t find any difference between your brand and those of
competition, you will not be able to secure any competitive advantage.

Identify a positive aspect of your product that outscores competition and build your
marketing communications around it. Be it using humor or making a touching
connection with the product or using a celebrity or raising an emotional reaction, do
something - anything - to differentiate your brand experience.
Do Not Try to Grab Their Attention. Instead Give Them an Experience.

Yes, you heard it right. Give them an experience they can relish – all within 30
seconds of commercial slot. With the increasing ability of consumers to shut out most
of the advertising, trying to grab their attention will only make them run away faster
from you.

Instead, try to engage them with an experience or emotion or a touchy statement,

which they can enjoy. Touch them outside traditional advertisement channels.
Concerts, event promotions, in-the-flesh appearances, sporting events, live
demonstrations, free contests and offerings – see what fits to your offering and engage
them. But then make sure that whatever the experience you are giving them; connect it
with your marketing objectives.

Focus on Valuable Few Brands.

Since marketing budgets happen to be limited, it is more prudent to focus on few

valuable brands that are likely to confer long term competitive advantage or generate
highest proportion of sales or deliver attractive ROI.

If your organization has just too many brands to count, then perhaps building a brand
halo around your organization might be an intelligent idea than working on all brands
individually. Mobile handset manufacturers like Nokia and carmakers like Mercedes
Benz do the same.

Establish a Rigorous Measurement Culture

As said earlier, marketing department people focus too much on processes instead of
results and tend to quote metrics that measure the output. You need to communicate
with corporate boards and other departments of the organization in the best language
they can understand – results.

Benchmarking your marketing activities with the best in the industry – in terms of
outcomes, not outputs – is another way to make marketing more measurable. Using
appropriate metrics right from marketing budget allocations to marketing activities
and finally their results is necessary to produce more realistic outcome-based insights
that resonate well with the senior management.

Conclusion

Effective marketing communications are a result of having crystal clear understanding

of your marketing objectives, knowing who your target audiences are, delivering a
differentiated value proposition through integrated communications and using the
right metrics to measure the effectiveness of marketing investments.