Marketing Communications

Course Objectives:

1. Appreciate the variety of marketing communication tools, and how they work together to accomplish communication objectives.

2. Understand the nature, importance, and features of integrated marketing communications.

3. Describe the concept of brand equity enhancement and the role of marketing communications in facilitating this objective.

4. Comprehend the factors that determine how different marketing communications elements are effectively combined.

5. Discuss the primary decision spheres involved in managing the marketing communication process.

6. Know the major activities involved in formulating advertising strategy.

7. Recognize the role of sales promotion, appreciate the reasons why this form of marketing communications has experienced rapid growth, and know the tasks that it can and cannot accomplish.

8. Evaluate the nature and function of public relations.

9. Appreciate sponsorship marketing and the practices of event marketing and cause-related marketing.

10. Understand the role, importance and growth of point-of-purchase communications.

Marketing has moved from marketing acquisition (winning new customers) through customer retention (keeping customers for life) towards customer deselection (dumping unprofitable customers while selectively seeking and keeping the more profitable ones). This is sometimes called adverse selection. It is obvious the fact that certain customers are not loyal to the brand, exploiting any sales promotion and move on to the next supplier as and when the next special offer appears. These customers cost a lot for very little return; in fact most of them are unprofitable. Estimates suggest that new customers can be five times more expensive than pre-existing customers; or in different words, selling to existing customers can be five times more profitable than winning new customers.

Some customers prefer your brand or product because they like it, others want a stable relationship with one supplier, others spend more, pay more quickly, require less service.

Marketing is changing very fast. Apart from changing their services, they focus on rebranding which reflect the marketplace changes. (e.g.: Elita moved towards Don Cafe).

Before looking at the marketing communications mix, we should consider very briefly the term marketing. A simple dictionary defines marketing as: the business of moving goods from the producer to the consumer. Goods can be taken to mean both goods and services. The Chartered Institute of Marketing in the UK defines marketing as: The management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably.

Real marketing success depends on repeat business, but from a business’ point of view, the concept of lifetime value has to lose part of its basic meaning, because customers do not buy a single can of beer, or a single car, or mobile phone, in a lifetime. They buy thousands of cans of beer, dozens of cars and dozens of mobile phones during their lifetime. But the marketing challenge lies in attracting and retaining profitable customers efficiently. That is why we can talk about the term lifetime customers, who is built on strong relationships and require marketing skills (we can talk about confident BMW customers, Nokia mobile phone customers, Heineken beer consumers, Milka chocolate buyers, etc).

Another set of relationship skills is also emerging in the form of marketing marriages. Marketing marriages such as:

- joint promotions;

- shared databases;

- shared distribution networks;

- strategic alliances

All offer new opportunities for existing markets but also offer new routes into global markets previously inaccessible because of the organization’s limited resources.

The Marketing Mix

It is essentially a conceptual framework which helps to structure the approach to each marketing challenge. There are many different approaches to the marketing mix: the 4 Ps, the 5 Ps, and even the 7 Ps. The 7 Ps are:

- Product

- Price

- Place

- Promotion

- People

- Physical evidence

- Process.

It is worth remembering that all of the marketing mix communicates. A poor-quality product or service generally says more to the user than any amount of advertising. Price communicates, e.g. high price sends a different message to low price, and price is used by many buyers as an indicator of quality.

The place of purchase also communicates, e.g. an item purchased in Harrods has a different perceived value to an item purchased from a street stall. The fifth P, people, or staff, communicate, in fact create a good or a bad experience through the quality of service delivered at any particular time. Physical evidence communicates as demonstrated by the physical presence, style, location and decoration. Process, the final P also communicates. If McDonald’s process was slow, sloppy or dirty, it would send out negative messages to their customers and sales would suffer.

Integrating the communications mix – initial steps

Each element of the communications mix should integrate with other tools of the communications mix so that a unified message is consistently reinforced. Some major advertising campaigns are supported by PR activity, and many advertisements have press launches not for the product, but for the advertisement itself.