Integrated Marketing Communication Plan for iPas

This report presents the integrated marketing communication plan for iPas, a real estate consultative service provider based in Melbourne. It includes objectives in terms of target market, message, and recommendations for traditional and digital marketing tools such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and LinkedIn.

Executive summary
The main aim of this report is to present the integrated marketing communication
plan for iPas. This report demonstrated that the objectives of iPas in terms of target
market are to provide the property solution in Melbourne. It is founded that iPas
targeted both investors and home buyers. Furthermore, it is illustrated that television
and radio channel is used by iPas in terms of promoting its products and services.
But, currently it is not working effectively hence there are some strategies that could
be used to improve this channel such as customized opportunity to deliver message
only to the three targeted regions through the popular local radio stations like ‘ABC
Radio’, ‘PBS 106.7FM’ and ‘SBS’. Furthermore, this report illustrated that newspaper
and magazines is used by iPas but currently, it focuses on some strategies to
improve this channel.
It is found that LinkedIn is used by iPas as a social media tool for promoting the
products and services. But, there are some innovative ideas that could be
considered to improve it such as participating on LinkedIn Pulse and LinkedIn
groups, top keywords and keeping track related to industry news. It can be evaluated
that iPas website is used as another social media tool that could be improved by
evaluating and updating content, updating home page as well as, adding more calls
to actions. It is found that there are some evaluations measures that are used for
measuring the performance of iPas such as break-even analysis, management by
objectives, management information system, and self-control. In the last, it presents
the student reflection related to this research.
OBJECTIVES IN TERMS OF TARGET MARKET

For any business to thrive it is quintessential to be industrious at ground level, but
even more crucial is the planning for your moves and setting goals and objectives.
Jim Rohn, a famous business philosopher once said that appropriately planned
goals are like magnets and they pull you towards themselves (Mattern 2013).
Further, it is indisputable that having well-drafted and realisable targets help keep
the employees motivated and focused on achieving them.
iPas is an independent real estate consultative service provider based out of
Melbourne providing property related solutions in Melbourne, Geelong and the
Mornington Peninsula. Using target customer segmentation strategy greatly benefits
when setting the goals and objectives for any business and deliver a competitive
superiority(Proctor 2000). iPas’s target clients include home buyers and investors.
Home buyers are either first home buyers or the one’s looking to upgrade or
downsize the dwellings they already living in. Investors are the ones that are mainly
looking to make profits by buying a property and selling on a premium.
Markets around the world including real estate are enduring a turbulent period right
now. With major uncertainties regarding the future direction of the market and crises
large loom over the world economy, the real estate market is also feeling the heat of
it. As a result, money going into the property trade of late with speculative motives
has dried up. In recent years Australia has also seen its incoming immigrants’
numbers go up considerably, which has resulted in more first home buyers in the
market. Hence, more emphasis would be laid upon customers looking to buy homes
and especially first home buyers.
The most potent way of finding potential buyers is via dependable mortgage brokers.
Generating leads through reputed mortgage brokers will assure that if you are able
to find the appropriate property for a potential buyer as per their requirements the

deal would go through without much hassles. It will also help iPas become a
dependable name among mortgage brokers and sellers. Young home buyers
between the age of 30-40 years form a major share of the customer base and are
also short on knowhow of the industry and hence generally seek advice before
exploring the options available both in terms of property to buy and the mortgage
provider and hence would be the prime target for the company. It is important to
understand the trends in the market and provide sound advice to the customers on
the bases of your knowledge together with careful examination of their needs. This
would be done by training the employees on how to read the psychology of the
customer and giving solutions accordingly.
Buying behaviour plays a vital role in defining customer’s taste when purchasing a
property and emphasis would be given on understanding and delivering the services
accordingly to the target segment. This will help build an identity for the company
and spread their goodwill. Which is going to be a prime objective for iPas over the
next year.
MESSAGE
Smart usage of marketing message is a common tool employed by companies to
advertise their products and services and lure clientele in order to achieve targets.
iPas stress heavily upon providing well researched advise to its customers. This is
done by thorough study of the economy, market conditions and sentiments prevailing
in the property market at any given time. Access to the latest data along with correct
analysis and explanation of the same to the potential home buyers for their profit is
what the company rely upon. The company understands the buyer’s/investor’s
critical need for the investment to grow with time and hence provide advise

accordingly. This again is attributed to the thorough research conducted by skilled
agents of the company which assure the property advised by them appreciates in
value. Further, it is most important for the company to understand the needs of the
buyers and guide them well for what they look for.
Buying a house is the single largest investment done by most customers in their
lifetime, hence they come with a lot of concerns and fears about making a final
decision. Qualified agents at iPas make sure such concerns are all taken care of and
help the client towards a confident final choice. iPas meticulously suggest regarding
the correct market evaluation of a property keeping in mind factors such as property
location, orientation, and its approach to facilities including shopping centres, public
and road transport, parks and gardens, schools and other leisure facilities. The
company also advise regarding the marketability of a property with scope for profit in
case of a future sale.
iPas acts as an advisor to the seller to maximise the sale price and manage the
entire selling process. The company help the vendor select the right estate agency
and get all the processes involved in the sale done immaculately and on time. iPas is
proud of the quality service it has already provided to its numerous clients and
remain dedicated to keep improving its performance in future as well (ipas-2. 2019).
Recommendation
iPas basically provide services to property buyers and sellers. Although, it can add to
its services by giving advice to rental dwelling seekers. The number of temporary

residents such as overseas students and single working men and women in and
around Melbourne has gone up considerably over the last couple of years. All such
people could be potential customers for the company when looking for a new rental
accommodation. Further, being a new company in the market, promotion plays a
significant role for it capture more and more clients. At present any information
regarding iPas is available only on its own website or LinkedIn. The content on the
company website need refinement and professional advice should be sought to
make it more attractive and informative to generate more traffic on the website.
Company should also make use of other social media platforms such as Facebook,
YouTube, twitter etc to spread awareness and create a presence for itself in the
market.
Television & Radio
Television and radio have been the most popular marketing tool to target the
audience for every product and service. It is referred as a traditional media which
focused on delivering news to the mass population. The advantage of using
television to deliver the message is that it reaches a broader audience than the ones
originally set out to target and influences a large amount of general public (Lawlor,
2018).
In a survey in Ohio, United States, residents were contacted through telephone to
question about the impact of a television advert that they remember for a real estate
business. Respondents claimed that the advertising of companies like ‘Century 21’,
‘Coldwell Banker’ and ‘Howard Hanna’ have the best adverts that were influential
and easy to recall (Gulas, Larsen and Coleman, 2009).

Therefore, currently IPAS does not market itself through Television as it is a small
growing business which only targets home buyers, mortgage brokers and investors
in regions like Melbourne, Geelong and Mornington Peninsula, for which marketing
through TV adverts would be expensive and time consuming. Similarly, direct
competitors who are also small businesses providing property advices, does not
advertise themselves on television.
On the contrary, indirect competitors like ‘LJ Hooker’, ‘Century 21’ and ‘Ray White’
are the top rated, giant real estate companies with impressive marketing techniques
telecasting attractive advertisements on television (Canstar Blue, 2019). LJ Hooker
launched a raunchy advert on television which gained heavy attention (Peters and
Bartholomew, 2019). While, Century 21 aired its latest campaign called ‘Don’t settle
for average’ focusing on delivering the clients with extraordinary experiences
(Century 21, 2019). Alternatively, Ray White recently launched its brand campaign
called ‘Welcome to the Australian Dream’ which focused on everything great that
Australia has to offer like The Great Barrier Reef, Great Ocean Road and the Great
Depression (AdNews, 2018).
In addition, radio has also been a prominent source of marketing through decades to
deliver the message to customers. Unlike television, radio could be used as a
marketing tool to attract the local audiences at a regional level. Hence, IPAS has
also negligible existence on radio stations as well.
Recommendations:
 By looking at the facts, it would not be a suitable option for IPAS to advertise
on television as the company is still small and growing, who is mainly
targeting regions like Melbourne, Geelong and Mornington Peninsula,
therefore it will not be a feasible choice for IPAS as tv adverts can be highly

expensive and suitable for only broader audience like the whole Australian
population.
 However, radio can be a better marketing tool for IPAS as it provides a better
and customized opportunity to deliver message only to the three targeted
regions through the popular local radio stations like ‘ABC Radio’, ‘PBS
106.7FM’ and ‘SBS’ (Yelp, 2019). IPAS could communicate about the
importance of professional property advice before the actual purchase of
houses and how the company can provide candid financial advices to the
purchaser as well as the seller.
Newspaper and Magazines
Another traditional marketing media that existed before the rise of internet are the
newspapers and magazines. In the recent trend, internet has taken the market up by
storm which results in lower effectiveness of traditional media over time.

By the statistics above, we can clearly see the drastic downfall of the time spent on
the traditional media and the growing effectiveness of digital media from 2011
throughout now Therefore, newspapers have drastically lost 80% of their revenue
while magazines have scrunched down by 67% in revenue (Array Digital, 2019).
As the readers switched to online news source, newspaper circulation has rapidly
declined over the past years which has made advertising spaces less attractive for
media buying agencies who advertise through newspapers as it is reaching fewer
customers which was initially the greatest source of revenue for the newspaper
publishing industries (IBIS World, 2019). Due to digitalisation, newspapers have
been replaced by mobiles, tablets and laptops as the news can now be accessed
online which was previously only available through printed newspapers.
Similarly, magazine industry has dropped by 20% of its 2015 rate and reports an
estimated loss of $19 billion globally. The biggest decline for magazines is for
popular culture and entertainment magazines because social media has now

become the medium to access the information. Alternatively, according to the
Magazine Media Factbook of 2018-19, science and technology periodicals have
seen an increment in growth (Fabian, 2019).
Hence, IPAS does not advertise itself in newspapers and magazines, but it has its
own newsletters which is sent to 30% of the brokers, home buyers and investors via
the email newsletter. The only form of traditional media that IPAS uses is the
newsletter it sends to its potential customers and brokers through newsletters about
the latest information and insights of the company and what it offers.
According to Roy Morgan’s reports, direct mail is a powerful way to reach customers
where catalogues could be shared as catalogue readership has remained steady
during the changing digital trends. Therefore, most Australians read through the
mailed catalogues and 6 out of 10 Australians have bought from those catalogues.
Catalogues have also been successful in creating positive word of mouth when
shared between friends and family.
Recommendations:
 Directly reaching the potential customers through sending catalogues in mail
has been observed to be successful way of marketing by IPAS which should
be continued in a better and extensive way. As only 30% of the home buyers,
investors and brokers receive the catalogues, IPAS could focus on collecting
data from potential customers who visit the website or contact the company
which in turn could be used to send attractive newsletters and catalogues
through mail.
 Company could print its personalised magazines that could be sent to
potential customers through collection of sensitive customer data by
enhancing its data mining systems (Your Investment Property, 2019).

Social media/digital marketing tool (A)
LinkedIn
Current use of LinkedIn
It is largest professional network of world on internet that has more than 400 million
members in approximately 200 nations and, territories. Hence, iPas has created the
account on LinkedIn for expanding the solution beyond networking platform and
hiring for involving the robust page on company. It is a highly targeted advertising
solution and, publishing platform for company. iPas is using LinkedIn for arriving at
audience with the mindset of business (McCabe, 2017).
iPas has developed a profile on LinkedIn which demonstrates the products, blog
posts, employee networks, status updates and, upcoming events. It is similar with
Facebook or Twitter where, a user on LinkedIn follows profile or learning more
regarding the company. Company posts the job openings on LinkedIn and, search
participants, creating it a good venue to recruit the talent. It also motivates
workforces for participating on LinkedIn. It is effective professional venue for
workforces to both endorsing the brand and their own individual brands (Cawsey and
Rowley, 2016).
iPas leverages the business network for employees by asking them for sharing the
post of company and join and, participating in a feasible group. It creates more
presence on LinkedIn through leveraging social network. iPas has created the
company profile page in which users search this company and clicks on logo for
accessing the information about it. Due to free LinkedIn services, iPas has more
focused on this marketing strategy as it is small business. It also primarily

emphasizes on profile page of LinkedIn for sharing messages as it helps to create
images about its brand (Wang and Kim, 2017).
On the page of LinkedIn, iPas shares the posts about its products and services
because, posting on the LinkedIn is key method for developing more followers
without paid advertising. These posts are comprised of images, links, text, non-
native videoand, slide decks. iPas has considered LinkedIn as it helps to create
professional network, content mix and tone. It is assessed that due to most
professional users on LinkedIn, iPas posts more about its products and services for
creating the awareness among large number of customers. LinkedIn pulse is latest
offering through LinkedIn that is also used by iPas for supporting the users to create
brand image by making personal relationship (Elena, 2016).
Recommendations
iPas can motivate the workforces for participating on LinkedIn Pulse and LinkedIn
groups for developing their network and, creating awareness about brand. It can
develop the group for consumers and, advocates brand or an industry group for the
professionals in same spaces.
It can treat and, optimise the LinkedIn page for SEO along with, it can involve top
keywords in company description and specialities for demonstrating the real effect
on search outcomes. It can use LinkedIn pulse for keeping track related to industry
news and, engaging with the key influencers (Pisano, Lepore, and Lamboglia, 2017).
Social media/digital marketing tool (B)
iPas website
Current use of iPas website
iPas website could perform well in modern browsers is quite challenging and
something it has rather a lot of experience in. Furthermore, working the internet

explorer is not highly used hence web developers of iPas ensure that websites work
well in Firefox,Microsoft Edge,Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera. iPas provides
more information on its company websites to attract the customer towards their
products and services. But, websites of iPas is not attractive because there is lack of
images related to property and not more information to connect with social networks
(King, et. al., 2016).
Source: Ipas.net.au, 2019
Recommendations
1. Evaluate/Update Your Content
iPas should understand the initial thing to enhance the website is to ensure all
content is up to date. It is just basics and it has not been done for a while. iPas
should focus on every page on website and read over content. It can make editing
on website as it goes. It can skip to update each blog post,and when anything is out
of data and irrelevant then it can delete that content. Through this, company can
always get best data on website (Reillier and Reillier, 2017).

2. Update Your Home Page
An effective way for updating the website of iPas is to transform the images and,
content on home page. Home page has slide to demonstrate or hero image at top
and look for new images. Logo could be changed and there are new sections that
could be added by iPas since it has added new products and services at company. It
can get current content and transform things up a bit. Home page should state the
clear role of iPas. Since, when a website visitor arrives at page, iPas needs to give
them who, what, where, when and, why so they have ended up in right place.
Without this, company would have higher bounce rate because they move on to next
outcome in list and this moves of websites can down the rankings (Zhang, Zhu, and
Ye, 2016).
The home page has required enough text. In current times, a short paragraph of 400
words will not perform it. iPas should also think regarding shooting for at least 3
times that quantity of content. It can also ensure that it is original content that is not
found anywhere else on websites not even the content through other parts of
websites. iPas can also hire the copywriter when a company has need to and it could
be significant for business (Ruostela, et. al., 2015).
3. Add More Calls to Action
For obtaining more conversion, iPas must ask people for taking action. This website
does not do well enough. It can assume that people would focus on contact us
page,but they never ask. It can get more when it asks, and it is just a fact (Reillier and
Reillier, 2017).
Metrics and propose additional evaluation measures
Break-Even Analysis

The break-even point is a point of no losses and no profits. For illustration when iPas
sells 500 houses then it would break even. It indicates that any sale below this point
would cause the losses and sell above this point would earn profits. Break-even
assessment could be performed as a control device. It would be supportive of
addressing the performance of the company. Hence, iPas can consider collection for
enhancing its performance in the future. It could be considered as simple control
techniques (Chu, 2016).
Management by Objectives (MBO)
It helps in planning and controlling of iPas. It should fulfill the below needs:
1. Objectives for people are jointly fixed through superior and, subordinate.
2. Periodic evaluation with regular feedback for assessing the performance of an
individual.
3. On attainment of objectives, rewards could be provided to individuals (Obeidat,
Rawashdeh, and Al-Lozi, 2016).
Management Information System (MIS)
For controlling an organization, iPas can adequately manage the requirement with
feasible data. There is a need for data regarding the internal working of the company
and, about external atmospheres. MIS gathers the information, processed it and,
facilitates it to managers. Furthermore, MIS could be manual or computerized. With
the application of MIS, managers of iPas can allocate the authority to subordinate
within losing to control (Tapiero, 2018).
Self-Control
Self-control could be practiced by iPas through self-directed control. In addition to
this, an individual can provide the freedom to set his own targets, assesses their own
performance and, taking the corrective measures as and while required. Self-control

could be particularly essential for top-level managers since they do not like external
control. The subordinates of iPas should be motivated for practicing self-control
since it is good for superior for controlling each and everything (Wynarczyk, et. al.,
2016).
Student Reflection
Shivani Gupta
This has been a great opportunity to learn from my teammates and complete the
task together. I have highly enjoyed brainstorming with Nihal and Yasmeen on the
group discussions that we had for this assignment.
Insight 1: The biggest challenge in our assignment was how to compile all our
separate research in a single document which could be accessible by everyone with
ease, nonetheless, Google docs helped to overcome this obstacle.
Insight 2: The way in which Adam- IPAS representative presented an in-depth
presentation made us have a clear view of the company which was required to have
enough knowledge to organize a good format for the project.
Nihal Sanjay Khokale
It was a good learning experience working as a group for this assignment with
Yasmeen and Shivani. Since I belong from a finance background, this project has
been extremely interesting and knowledgeable for me. I had done a thorough
analysis on the whole company and its working environment which has helped me
enhance my knowledge of how financial institutions and real estate business works.

Insight 1: Extensive research on social media tools led to a deep understanding on
valuing these tools like LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook etc. and the significant role
played by them for any company. However, working as a group made it easier to
choose the best social media tool for IPAS.
Insight 2: Identification of the target audience is highly crucial as relevant content
has to be placed across various platforms. However, research on this part of the
assignment made me understand that the key element in finance is the
understanding of the financial market conditions.
Yasmeen Dhillon
I have really enjoyed the time spent with Shivani and Nihal for this project. Working
as a group together has not only saved our time, but also gave us the opportunity to
get more creative and diverse with our ideas which would not have been possible by
working alone.
Insight 1: I did not have any knowledge about the google docs earlier, but Shivani
introduced it to me and the three of us could work on the same document in real
time.
Insight 2: I do already have a considerable work experience but working on this
assignment together was a good means of refreshment of my memory for all the
concepts I have practically used in my work life. I am very happy to be a part of this
unit as its extensive research has taught me meaningful insights.

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