chapter 14: integrated marketing communications strategy (promotion)

Chapter 14: Engaging Consumers and Communicating Customer Value (Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy)

integrated marketing communications (IMC)

carefully coordinating the company’s many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling brand and company message

promotion/marketing communications mix; (6)

The specific blend of promotion tools that the company uses to persuasively communicate customer value and build customer relationships; advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, direct marketing, digital marketing

advertising

Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor; reach masses of geographically dispersed buyers at a low cost per exposure, and it enables the seller to repeat an impersonal message many times

sales promotion

Short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or a service; discounts/coupons invite and reward quick response

personal selling

Personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of engaging customers, making sales, and building customer relationships; the most effective tool at certain stages of the buy- ing process, particularly in building up buyers’ preferences, convictions, and actions; however, ineffective for large-scale promotion

public relations (PR)

Building good relations with the company’s various publics by obtaining favorable publicity, building a good corporate image, and creating favorable events, stories, and other marketing content; can also reach many prospects who avoid salespeople and advertisements—the message gets to buyers as “news and events” rather than as a sales-directed communication; dramatizes the company/product

digital and direct marketing

Engaging directly with carefully targeted individual consumers and customer communities to both obtain an immediate response and build lasting customer relationships; traditional direct mail, catalogs, and telephone marketing to newer online, mobile, and social media; usually directed to a specific customer or customer community; immediate and personalized

trends affecting the marketing communications model

digitization, fragmentation of mass markets, empowering of consumers through availability of information

content marketing

creating, inspiring, and sharing brand messages and conversations with and among consumers across a fluid mix of paid, owned, earned, and shared channels; brands want to be “storytellers”

owned media

promotional channels owned and controlled by the company, including company websites, corporate blogs, owned social media pages, proprietary brand communities, sales forces, and events

earned media

PR media channels, such as television, newspapers, blogs, online video sites, and other media not directly paid for or controlled by the marketer but that include the content because of viewer, reader, or user interest

shared media

media shared by consumers with other consumers, such as social media, blogs, mobile media, and viral channels as well as traditional word of mouth

paid media

promotional channels paid for by the marketer, including traditional media (such as TV, radio, print, or outdoor) and on- line and digital media (paid search ads, web and social media display ads, mobile ads, or email marketing)

integrated marketing communications (IMC)

Carefully integrating and coordinating the company’s many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the organization and its products; coordinating the promotion mix

marketing communication process

The sender encodes thought into a symbolic message and distributes it through media. The receiver decodes symbols to derive meaning and then responds to it through feedback. Unplanned noise in the communication process may distort the message and cause the receiver to decode it in a different way than the sender intended.

how to develop effective promotion/marketing communication

identify target audience, determine communication objectives, design and structure a message, select the message source (personal or non-personal), collect feedback

personal communication channels

Channels through which two or more people communicate directly with each other, including face-to-face, on the phone, via mail or email, or even through an internet “chat.”

word-of-mouth influence

The impact of the personal words and recommendations of trusted friends, family, associates, and other consumers on buying behavior.

buzz marketing

Cultivating opinion leaders and getting them to spread information about a product or a service to others in their communities.

nonpersonal communication channels

Media that carry messages without personal contact or feedback, including major media, atmospheres, and events.

methods of determining promotion budget

affordable, percentage-of-sales method, competitive parity, objective-and-task

affordable method

Setting the promotion budget at the level management thinks the company can afford.

percentage-of-sales method

Setting the promotion budget at a certain percentage of current or forecasted
sales or as a percentage of the unit sales price.

competitive parity method

Setting the promotion budget to match competitors’ outlays.

objective and task method

most effective way of determining promotion budget; bottom-up approach that requires (1) defining specific promotion objectives, (2) determining the tasks needed to achieve these objectives, and (3) estimating the costs of performing these tasks. The sum of these costs is the proposed promotion budget.

promotion mix strategies

push, pull

push strategy

A promotion strategy that calls for using the sales force and trade promotion to push the product through channels; The producer promotes the product to channel members who in turn promote it to final consumers.

pull strategy

A promotion strategy that calls for spending a lot on consumer advertising, promotion, and other content to induce final consumers to engage with and buy the product, creating a demand vacuum that “pulls” the product through the channel.

types of objectives for IMC

marketing, communications

marketing objectives for IMC

Sales, Market share, profits, ROI; not always appropriate for promotional objectives

communications objectives for IMC

Awareness, interest, trial, advocacy, loyalty

benefits to CEOs serving as spokespeople

adds credibility, gives personal touch, saves money

risks to CEOs serving as spokespeople

often motivated by ego, not logic; overshadows the company; CEO could leave the company

one-sided vs two-sided IMC messages

most marketers use one-sided messages to be clearer; two-sided message are best when targeting an audience that holds an opposing view and is more educated

types of IMC appeals

comparative, fear, humor