Integrated Marketing Communications (14) – Flashcards

Any paid form of non personal communication about an organisation, good, service or idea by an identified sponsor.

Two-way flow of communication between a buyer and a seller, often in a face-to-face encounter, designed to influence a persons or groups purchase decision.

Form of communication management that seeks to influence the feelings, opinions or beliefs held by customers, potential customers, shareholders, suppliers, employees and others about a company and its products or services.

A short-term offer designed to arouse interest in buying a good or service.

Combination of one or more of the promotional elements - advertising, personal selling, public relations and sales promotion - a firm uses to communicate with consumers.

Process used to plan, develop, execute and evaluate co-ordinated, measureable, persuasive marketing communications programmes over time to targeted audiences.

• Inform consumer about new products. • Remind consumers about existing products. • Persuade consumers to choose a product over a competitor's. • Build relationships with consumers. • Assist the other elements of the marketing mix.

Company directs marketing communications at members of distribution channel. They hand communication to retailers. When is it appropriate?

Directing the promotional mix at ultimate consumers to encourage them to ask the retailer for the product

• Advertising - any paid form of mass communication by an identified sponsor. • Public relations - organisational activity that develops goodwill between an organisation and its public through mass communication. • Sales promotions - short-term incentives encouraging immediate sales through mass communication. • Personal selling - interpersonal communication between a representative and a potential customer. • Interactive marketing communications - marketing messages are sent directly to identified consumers.

• Interpersonal communication - direct communication between two or more people, sender identifying all individuals. • Mass communication - to large audiences, with sender not identifying individuals.

• Identify the target audience -Marketers need to learn as much about the target audience as possible and so they can structure appropriate messages and use appropriate communication channels. Marketers must decide on a push, pull or a combination of both strategies: o Push - company directs marketing communications at members of distribution channel. They hand communication to retailers. When is it appropriate? o Pull - company directs marketing communications at consumers. When is this appropriate? • Establish communications objectives - Should meet the SMART criteria. The main objective is for consumers to purchase a particular product or take a particular action. Communications can be aimed at any stages during the process. • Develop the IMC mix - combination of the major elements of marketer-controlled communications. Marketers must determine the appropriate marketing communication tools to achieve communication objectives. • Establish the budget. • Evaluate the IMC campaign - done to see whether communications objectives were achieved or whether corrective action is required.

• Creative decisions - revolve around creating the advertising message. • Media decisions - selection of media, media vehicles and media scheduling.

• Rational appeal - provide customers with information of product attributes and benefits to solve the consumer problem. • Emotional appeal - focus on psychological and social needs and hope positive feelings from the ad flow to the product. • Unique selling point (USP) - clear reason why one product has a distinct advantage. • Comparative advantage - directly or indirectly compares competing brands on attributes. • Demonstration - shows product in use to prove performance claims. • Testimonial - celebrity expert or stranger discusses the product's effectiveness. • Slice of life - shows people in normal settings. • Fear appeal - highlights negative consequences of not using the product. • Sex appeal - use sexual imagery to get customer attention. • Humourous appeal - effective way to create positive associations with the brand. • Slogans and jingles - link the brand to a simple but memorable linguistic device.

• One-sided - positive attributes of the product or reasons to buy it are presented. • Two-sided - both positive and negative information is provided.

• Reach - percentage of target market exposed to message • Frequency - number of times a target person is exposed to the message.

• Gross rating points (GRPs) - used to compare cost effectiveness of different media vehicles: average reach *frequency. • Cost per thousand (CPM) - used to compare relative cost effectiveness of different media vehicles.

Media schedule specifies the exact media to use and when and how often the message should appear. - Continuous schedule - steady stream of advertising throughout the year. - Flighting - Pulsing schedule - varies the amount of advertising based on product demand.

• Proactive public relations - seeks to create awareness of an organisation or its brands. • Reactive public relations - involves dealing with negative publicity. Having a crisis management plan is crucial.

• Introducing new products to the market. • Introducing new products to consumers. • Calling attention to an organisation's involvement in the community.

• Press releases and media relations. • Corporate websites - used to post testimonials, archive press releases and respond quickly to important events. • Corporate communications - company newsletters and reports about company objectives and successes. • Lobbying - information packs provided to government officials. • Consumer education.

Reducing price: • Price deals - the price is reduced for all consumers who purchase the product during the sale period. • Coupons and rebates - rebates require proof of purchase. This allows companies to obtain consumer information. • Bonus packs - providing more of the same product for the same price. Adding value: • Loyalty programmes - offer a discount or free product for multiple purchases. • Premiums - extra items offered free or discounted with purchase of a particular product. • Sweepstakes and contests - add excitement and can be themed. May also generate buzz. • Sampling - reduces perceived risk and may encourage brand switching. • Point of purchase (POP) promotions - communicate with consumers in-store.

Reducing price: • Trade allowance - discount to channel members on the volume of the product ordered, for stocking new products, providing in-store support or purchasing additional volume during a specified time period. May encourage forward buying (buying large quantities during discount period and not buying until another discount period). Increasing visibility: • Trade shows - events where companies show products, give samples, distribute product literature and develop business contacts. • Incentive programmes - bonus paid by manufacturer to salesperson or channel for selling the product (push money). • Promotional products - free branded items to channel members to build brand awareness and visibility.

• Transactional selling - focuses on making immediate sales with little effort to develop customer relationships. • Relationship selling - involves securing, developing and maintaining relationships with profitable customers.

The process of seeking out potential customers, analysing their needs, determining how product attributes might provide benefits and then communicating that information. The seven steps are: 1. Prospecting and qualifying - identifying and developing a list of potential customers based on criteria like potential volume, location and financial ability. 2. Pre-approach - developing information about potential customers and planning the sales approach. 3. Approach - salespeople try to learn about the customer's needs, create a good impression and build rapport. 4. Sales presentation - salespeople directly communicate the value proposition to the customer. 5. Handling objections - salespeople are provided with the opportunity to provide more information and gain insight into potential barriers to sale. 6. Closing the sale - salespeople actually ask the customer to buy the product. 7. Follow-up - allows confirmation of satisfactory products and a bridge to the next purchase and develop customer relationships.

Includes recruiting, training compensating, supervising and evaluating sales personnel, and structuring the industrial sales force like: • Territorial - salespeople representing geographic areas. • Product - salespeople representing certain products. • Customer - salespeople representing particular groups of customers. • Combination

Low cost, quick and efficient way to reach and service customers. Direct marketing tools include: • Catalogues - collection of products for sale with photos and product descriptions. Offer the convenience of in-home shopping and access to specialised goods around the world. • Direct mail - personalised marketing communications concerning a specific product or service sent via post. Can be seen as junk mail and its effectiveness depends of the marketing message and the quality of the address and personal information database. • Telemarketing - direct selling conducted over the phone. • Direct-response advertising - marketing that seeks direct response. Marketers get identified feedback.

• Corporate websites - can reinforce branding, advertising, sales promotion and public relations messages, and for a range of customer service functions. Provide information about product range and corporate details, provide answers to basic questions and generate excitement about the brand. • Online advertising: o Banners - can be still, have video or audio, self-contained or hyper-linked. o Affiliate marketing - advertisers pay for ads to be places on affiliate sites given their target audience, product, message or objective. o Search engine and online directory listings - companies wanting higher visibility pay for sponsored links. • Email - used to send marketing messages about new products, sales promotion activities and to build relationships. It is a form of permission marketing. • Social media - Have phenomenal reach and are available at little or no cost and can be updated easily. Marketing communications can also go viral this way.

• Type of product • Target audience • Overall communication objectives • Available budget

• Introduction stage - objective is to inform customers, build awareness and encourage trial of a new product. Advertising and sales promotion are appropriate, supplemented with public relations and interactive tools. • Growth stage - communications stress product benefits, persuading consumers the product is superior to competitors and encourage brand loyalty. Advertising and interactive marketing communications are appropriate, supplemented with sales promotion. • Maturity stage - persuasive and reminder advertising is coupled with sales promotion to encourage brand switching. • Decline stage - budgets are decreased so low levels of sales promotion are appropriate.

• Top-down budgeting - allocation of budget based on total amount to be devoted to marketing communications: o Percentage of sales method - based on a certain percentage of the previous year's or estimates for the current years sales. Method is simple and provides certainty. If forecasted sales don't materialize, the company has overspent and vice versa. o Competitive-parity method - organisation matches what competitors are spending. • Bottom-up budgeting - allocation of the budget based on communications objectives and allocating enough money to accomplish them. o Objective-task method - organisation defines communication objectives and then tries to calculate the marketing communication efforts needed to meet the objectives. o Guerilla marketing - use of creative, low cost marketing efforts.

Research conducted on consumers' responses to advertising messages they seen or heard. Unaided and aided recall measures are collecting before the campaign and compared to post-campaign figures. • Unaided recall - asks respondents whether they recall seeing an advertisement for a particular product during a specified period, without naming the brand. • Aided recall - uses clues to prompt answers from people about advertisements they might have seen. • Attitudinal measures - probes a consumer's beliefs or feelings about a product before and after being exposed to messages for it.