Marketing Communications Notes

Marketing Communications

Promotion as a Marketing Mix Element

  • Promotion is one of the four P's of the marketing mix.
  • It encompasses all communications that inform and persuade buyers about a product or service.
  • A promotional strategy involves the optimal use of promotional elements to achieve a specific response from the target audience.
  • The main goal is to convince buyers that a company's products offer a competitive advantage through unique features and benefits.

Elements of the Promotional Mix

Advertising
  • Definition: Any form of impersonal, paid mass communication.
  • Reach: Allows marketers to reach large audiences.
  • Cost: High overall cost, but low cost per person due to mass appeal.
  • Control: Marketers have complete control over the message.
  • Credibility: Lower credibility because it is recognized as paid communication controlled by marketers.
  • Example: A commercial during a prime-time TV show.
Public Relations
  • Definition: Communicating with customers, suppliers, employees, and the community to create favorable publicity.
  • Payment: Not paid communication, but involves expenses in running the operation.
  • Methods: Exposure through media relations, press releases, and other means.
  • Control: Marketers have less control over the final message, as media outlets can reword the information.
  • Credibility: Higher credibility because consumers are more likely to trust respectable media outlets.
  • Example: A review in The New York Times for a new car brand.
Sales Promotions
  • Definition: Activities other than advertising and public relations that promote sales.
  • Objective: Induce trial for new products, increase sales, or reduce extra inventory.
  • Orientation: Typically short-term.
  • Examples: Coupons, rebates, discounts, sweepstakes.
Personal Selling
  • Definition: In-person selling.
  • Effectiveness: Particularly effective for high-value items or in business markets.
  • Usage: Companies may use advertising for initial customer awareness, followed by personal selling in later purchase stages.
  • Benefits: Allows salespeople to emphasize the value of their offerings and negotiate deals.
  • Cost: Expensive, but justifiable for large transactions.
Social Media
  • Recent addition to the promotional mix.
  • Shift of Control: Control has shifted from marketers to consumers.
  • Consumer Role: Consumers are no longer passive recipients; they can control information and create content.
  • Information Speed: Information moves quickly and is amplified if it resonates with social media participants.
  • Success: Marketers who participate in and facilitate conversation are more likely to succeed than those who dictate content.
  • Platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn.

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

  • Definition: Aligning all elements of the promotional mix for optimal results.
  • Goal: Impress upon customers the value of the products.

Promotional Goals

  • Vary depending on the stage of the product life cycle.
Informing
  • Stage: Early stages of the product life cycle.
  • Objective: Create awareness, especially for new brands.
  • Focus: Sometimes even on creating primary demand for the product category.
Persuading
  • Stage: Late introduction, growth, and early maturity stages.
  • Objective: Persuade the market to buy the company's products.
  • Focus: Emphasize the superiority of products over competitors.
Reminding
  • Stage: Later stages of the product life cycle.
  • Objective: Remind consumers in creative ways and stay top-of-mind.
Connecting
  • Objective: Create ongoing relationships with customers.
  • Tactics: Make the offering an integral part of buyers' lives.
  • Social Media: Social media is particularly adept at achieving this goal.

*A single promotional campaign may aim to achieve multiple objectives like connecting with customers while reminding them about the brand.

AIDA Framework

  • A framework that guides the communication strategy, consisting of four steps:

    • Awareness
    • Interest
    • Desire
    • Action
Awareness
  • Goal: Gain the attention of the target market.
  • Importance: Creativity is important due to the high volume of commercial messages.
Interest
  • Goal: Create an interest in the product.
  • Requirement: The message must be appealing.
Desire
  • Goal: Create a desire to buy the product.
  • Requirement: The message must be convincing to create consumer preference.
Action
  • Goal: Prompt consumers to purchase the product.
  • Requirement: A clear call to action.

A successful promotion should move consumers through all stages to purchase, even if it requires multiple exposures.

Factors Affecting Promotional Mix

Nature of the Product
  • Consumer Products: Mass-produced with little customization; mass media advertising works well.
  • Business Products: Require customization; personal selling is more suitable.
Stages of the Product Life Cycle
  • Early Stages: Advertising and public relations to build awareness, sales promotion to induce trial, and personal selling for distribution.
  • Growth Stage: Advertising and public relations emphasize differential advantage, sales promotion efforts reduced.
  • Maturity Stage: Persuasive and reminder advertising continue, and sales promotion increases sales.
  • Decline Stage: Advertising is curtailed, but personal selling continues at the retail level.

The objective of each promotional element changes at each stage of the product life cycle.

Type and Stage of Buying Decision
  • Simple Decisions: Routine purchases of low-priced items where reminder advertising and sales promotions can be effective.
  • High Involvement Products: Non-routine purchases where consumers seek assistance and personal selling is helpful.
  • Shopping Goods: Personal selling can be very helpful.
Business Markets
  • Advertising: Cheaper and used in early stages to create awareness.
  • Personal Selling: More effective in later stages to convince buyers and close the deal.

Push and Pull Strategies

Push Strategy
  • Objective: Force the product through the channel.
  • Method: Incentives (e.g., trade discounts) to encourage channel members to carry and promote the product.
  • Tools: Personal selling and trade and sales promotions.
Pull Strategy

  • Objective: Appeal to end consumers directly to create demand.

  • Impact: Consumers ask retailers for the product, pulling it through the channel.

  • Tool: Advertising is a very effective pull strategy.

    Most companies typically adopt a mix of push and pull strategies.