Integrated Marketing Communication for HSBC

This document discusses the integrated marketing communication strategies used by HSBC to enhance organizational revenue. It provides an overview of the organization, current communication objectives, critical evaluation of objectives and channels of communication. It also includes recommendations for improving the marketing communication plan.

INTEGRATED
MARKETING
COMMUNICATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
ACTIVITY A..............................................................................................................................................3
Overview of organization........................................................................................................................3
Current Communications objectives........................................................................................................3
Critical evaluation of objectives..............................................................................................................4
Channels of communications...................................................................................................................4
Critical evaluation of the channels...........................................................................................................5
Critical Evaluation of marketing communications plan in order to enhance the organizational revenue. 6
Appropriate recommendations...............................................................................................................11
ACTIVITY 2.............................................................................................................................................12
IMC situational analysis........................................................................................................................12
Target market and SMART communication objectives.........................................................................13
Critical evaluation of various marketing channels and achievement of SMART communication
objectives...............................................................................................................................................14
Selected market channels add value and maximize organizational resources........................................14
Design and develop appropriate content to meet channel selected and SMART communication
objectives...............................................................................................................................................15
Estimated budget required for IMC plan...............................................................................................15
Monitoring and control mechanism.......................................................................................................16
CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................16
REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Integrated marketing communication ensures that the messages are been communicated
to the respective customers of the business in an effective manner with the help of various
channels in order to attract the right customers towards the business(Martin and Goodrich, 2018).
Present study is based on the company HSBC that is banking industry established in the year
1865 by Sir Thomas Sutherland and is having its headquarter at 8 Canada Square, Canary Wharf,
London. Report will include an overview of the organization and about their current
communications objectives. Further report will include critical evaluation of these objectives and
highlighting the chosen channels of communications. Report will also include overall marketing
communication plan that can enhance business revenue in order to enhance business objectives.
Report will conduct IMC situational analysis and will analyze the SMART objectives of the
business on bases of the target market. Further report will critically evaluate different marketing
channels for the new product in order to achieve the SMART business objectives. Report will
evaluate an estimated budget that can help the business to achieve IMC plan.
ACTIVITY A
Overview of organization
HSBC Holdings plc
HSBC is a British investment bank and financial service provider operating all over the
globe. This is world’s seventh largest bank by 2018. It is founded by Sir Thomas Sutherland. It is
established on 3 March in the year 1865. The headquarters of firm is located in 8 Canada Square
in London. It offers services such as retail banking, Investment banking, corporate banking,
wealth management, mortgage loan and insurance providers. It is organized among four groups
namely, Commercial, Global, Retail, Investment banking and Wealth Management. The firm is
listed on London Stock Exchange and Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Current Communications objectives
Communication Objectives of HSBC is as follows -
 To connect with customers on personal basis in order to know their queries and problems.
 To increase the sales of products by doing promotional activities.

 To cover large market share through communicating with customers.
 To showcase organizational information in local media.
Critical evaluation of objectives
Objectives give the ability to monitor firm and how much progress it is making. It is
helpful for evaluation process. If the company doesn't set its objectives prior they get fails about
what they want to achieve. There will be no purpose of HSBC if there are no objectives
established.
By doing advertisement social media channels the company is able to attract large
number of audience. Online portals are helpful for doing communication with customers
(Blakeman, 2018). HSBC gets to know about customer’s quires and problems through these
channels. By asking about regular feedbacks the HSBC is able do innovation their products.
Through this customers will purchase products of HSBC which also helps to cover large market
share. Thus, this will help to increase the sales of the HSBC products and services. Hence, HSBC
profitability gets increased.
Channels of communications
Marketing communication is a mode through which the company can connect with its
customers. It helps to increase the sales of the company products. Different channels of
communication are as follows -
Advertising - It is the form of marketing communication in which the HSBC holdings do paid
promotion of their products and services. HSBC holdings take help of various advertising
sponsors for doing promotion of their financial products. They are willingly wished to promote
their services and products among the large number of customers (Bruhn and Schnebelen, 2017).
The bank does advertisement of their products with the help of mass communication. They
display their advertisement on television and also put the display advertisement on hoardings and
banners in the middle of the city. Thus, through this large number of audience get attracted
towards their services and products. HSBC holdings also take help of print media. They give
their advertisement in magazines, newsletters and newspapers. This is the best way to connect
with audience and communicate with them on indirect basis. The company can target potential
customers in very short span through advertising.

Personal selling - In this communication mode the marketing person or company's
representative do face to face conversation with the customers. The communication is done in
direct form. Representative or agent tries to convince people and consumers to purchase the
products of the company (Finne and Grönroos, 2017). In personal selling the representative of
HSBC holdings use various marketing tactics through which customers feels interested to
purchase the products of the company. It can also be termed as door to door selling. The sales
promotional techniques in HSBC holdings include offering pamphlets to customers to aware
them about the products and services. Personal selling helps to ensure immediate sales of the
products
Sales Promotion - It refers to various communication activities by offering incentives to the
clients and customers. . In this various incentives are offered such as discounts, vouchers etc to
the customers so that client gets attracted easily towards the products and services of the firm.
This process encourages customers to make purchase. By doing sales promotion of HSBC
products and services, they are able to increase their sales frequently as customers have tendency
they attract easily towards offers and discounting sales.
Digital Marketing - It is trending nowadays, customers are highly active on online portals and
on social media channels. Thus, it is the best tactics for doing communication and increasing
sales of HSBC holdings products. Digital marketing includes social media marketing, Digital
PR, and search engine marketing (Juska, 2017). Social media marketing can be done through
Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. HSBC holdings can easily connect with customers and
communicate with them through these channels. It includes search engine optimization when
people search for particular product online, HSBC products will also display in between to the
customers. Thus, through this potential audience and customers can attract towards the products
of company.
Critical evaluation of the channels
Advertisement helps to reach large number of audience in very less time period. By doing
advertisement with celebrities, the HSBC reputation and brand value also gets increased among
the customers mind. While giving advertisement of HSBC holdings, they lack the provision of
receiving the customer’s feedback. They are unable to do improvement in their existing products.

Customer’s feedbacks are helpful for doing promotion of the products. It is less persuasive for
the audience than the personal selling of products and services. This is generally expensive.
Personal selling results can easily be measured like how many clients or customers get
convinced to purchase the products and services of the company. It ensures the sales of the
products on immediate basis. Face to face conversation puts long lasting impression on
customers mind. Personal selling is only useful for attracting specific audience and customers it
doesn't suit for large number of audience. For long term gains this tactics is not suitable.
Sales promotion helps to attract large number of customers at one time or to the validity
of promotional offers. This tactics attract the customers mind to make purchase of products
frequently but on the other hand it is not suitable for retaining customers in long run as these
promotional activities are done for very short period of time.
Digital marketing helps to attract large number of audience as social media active users
have been increased. Thus, the potential customers can attract through this channels (Světlík,
2017). Digital marketing is also cost effective. On the other hand digital marketing is not safe for
the company as it has security and privacy issues also not safe for making payments.
Critical Evaluation of marketing communications plan in order to enhance the organizational
revenue
Smart plan is being made to achieve the marketing communication objectives of HSBC -
Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Time bound
To enhance
personal
connectivity with
customers
The connectivity
is increased or
not it is being
measured by
asking regularly
feedbacks from
customers
through online
portal of the
It is achieved by
interacting with
customers on
personal basis
(Ferdous, 2019).
In this personal
selling tactics is
being used to
connect with the
By increasing
connectivity with
the customers
HSBC holdings
plc is able to
resolve the
problems of the
customers and
further able to
It requires
minimum of
three months.

HSBC holdings
plc.
customers on
direct basis. One
to one interaction
will help to
resolve their
queries and
problems.
Another measure
will be use is
chat bots, by this
the customers
can easily
connect with
company from
online mode.
make
improvements in
their products.
Through this
customer
satisfaction in the
company gets
increased.
To increase sales
of products
It is measure
through checking
reports of
company sales. If
there is increased
in sales than it
proof that HSBC
get succeed to
achieve its
objective.
For increasing
the sales of
HSBC products,
the company will
choose social
media platforms
as there is large
population is
active on this
channels
(Castilho, 2019).
Thus, the
company is able
to increase its
sales by giving
advertisements
It is relevant
from a
company's
perspective. Any
firm wants to
increase its sales
in order to earn
higher
profitability.
Thus, through
giving
advertisement on
social media
channels HSBC
is able to earn
higher margin of
It requires six
months.

on social media
platform. This
includes
advertisement on
Facrbook,
YouTube and
Instagram.
profits.
To enhance
market share
Market share is
increased or not
it is measured by
gathering
customer data. If
the number of
customer traffic
is high then
market share has
increased.
To enhance the
Market share
HSBC holdings
plc will give
their
advertisement
with the help of
mass
communication
media. By giving
advertisement on
television, radio
and digital
posters the firm
is able to gather
large number of
audience.
By increasing the
market share, the
HSBC holdings
plc is able to
improve their
brand value in
the market. The
company's
reputation in
customers mind
will also gets
increased.
It will require six
months in total.
To showcase the
company's
information in
local media
HSBC needs to
share and publish
their company
information in
local media.
Through this the
Company's
information is
showcase
through using
print media. The
company gives
This is important
from the view
point of
stakeholders as
they invest their
money in HSBC
The company
showcases their
information
within six
months.

stakeholders gets
aware about their
investments and
it is also right of
them to know
about the
company's
position. It is
measured
through
identifying the
shares of the
HSBC on
London Stock
Exchange.
financial reports
in newspapers
and magazines
through which
company's
stakeholders get
to know about
HSBC holdings
position. The
company also
shares their
financial reports
on online
websites.
holdings.
Customer’s
awareness about
company's
position will also
get increased.

Figure 1 Marketing communication Mix (Source: Marketing Communication Mix, 2019)
Critical evaluation of marketing communication plan to increase organizational revenue:
 Advertising - Advertising is a form of marketing communication that is used to
encourage a customer to purchase company’s products (Manoli and Hodgkinson, 2019).
It is often most prominent element of the communication plan. It includes all the
directions and business messages a business pays to deliver its products to the target
audience. It enables the HSBC Holdings Company to reach a large number of customers,
to build a goodwill, and to increase profit of the company.
 Sales promotion - These are short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a
product. These are very similar to advertising, but sales promotion involves offering a
discounted price to a consumer or other techniques which attracts them. The reason for
this is used by HSBC Holdings company is to increase revenue and attract new and
potential customers or clearing out the excess inventory.

 Personal selling - person selling is a behavior and attitude of company's sales team
towards its customers; this is for making sales and building more customer relationships.
This can often used by HBSC Holdings Company in times of the company when it wants
to sell higher end products as it requires more efforts by companies to convince the
customers to buy their product.
 Direct Marketing - Direct marketing is communication plan that targets individual
consumers to obtain a response and to build long lasting customer relationships
(Marketing Communication Mix, 2019). This marketing also includes parts of sales
promotion and personal selling. Some examples of direct marketing which can be used by
HSBC Holdings are online or print surveys, mail-order clubs and infomercials.
 Public Relations - This is a concept of building a good image by obtaining a huge
favorable publicity and handing off unfavorable rumors and events. There is also a
downside of public relations as a companies such as HSBC Holdings cannot control the
message, it can influence them but media can put a negative spin on the story whereas not
in advertising.
Appropriate recommendations
Recommendations for the HSBC holdings -
1. The HSBC Holdings company can use techniques like advertising as the these companies need
a global reach all over the world and thus advertisement is the way to reach in the every corner
of the world. Also advertising is the most suitable option to interact with the customers indirectly
as it is the best indirect way to communicate with customers.
2 The company can also use platforms like social advertising are the most beneficial for the
developing business units as almost all the population is using social sites and hence the
communication will be on a wide range. The social advertising is most popular advertising way
to reach a huge number of consumers and thereby helps the company to make those consumers
their permanent customers.
3. The can also use sales promotion as there is various techniques to promote the product on a
large scale. The company can use sales promotion techniques such as free gifts, quality gifts,

zero interest rates, discount, etc (Ali. and Allan, 2017). These help the business man to grow
their business on a wide scale by providing various concessions either qualitative or quantitative.
ACTIVITY 2
IMC situational analysis
Integrated marketing communication plan is an approach that helps the business to
achieve its marketing campaign objectives with the help of an effective promotional method.
This also brings coordination between different communication channels so that an important
message with respect to products and services is been delivered clearly and within a short period
of time. IMC plan brings an effective management of communication mix with respect to the
target market. It also brings new opportunity for the advertisements and ensures that the
messages are been delivered to the customers effectively. Following are the steps in IMC
situational analysis:-
 Know your target audience:- The first step towards IMC plan is to know understand the
general audience and segment them into different groups on basis of different
characteristics that they have. This helps HSBC to understand who their actual customers
interested in their products and services(Henninger, Alevizou and Oates, 2017).
 Develop a Situational analysis:- The next step for the respective plan is to conduct a
SWOT analysis in order to evaluate the respective internal strengths and weaknesses, and
also external opportunity and threats. This helps HSBC to identify the respective
strengths and weaknesses that may affect the brand and accordingly business can have an
effective marketing communication strategy for the business.
 Determining marketing communication objectives:- The next step is to accomplish with
IMC strategy that is the business objective needs to be measurable as it leads to effective
campaign.
 Determining your budget:- Business is required to have a clear and realistic idea about
the plan as it directly leads to development of right tactics. HSBC is required to have an
overall budget in order to have a clear idea about the expenses while implementing the
communication plan.

 Strategies and tactics:- The next step in IMC process is to develop an effective strategy
that can help the business to achieve its required objectives. It is basically execution of
the strategies that business has decided for bringing an effective integrated marketing
campaign.
 Evaluation and measurement:- With the implementation of the strategy, it is also
important for the business to measure effectiveness of IMC strategy. It is very important
for HSBC to have clear understanding where the money is going and whether it is
resulting to an effective performance of the business by integrated marketing
campaign(Lembrych-Furtak, 2017).
Target market and SMART communication objectives
In order to achieve the business profitability the communication objectives at HSBC is
required to be SMART enough. SMART objectives means:-
 Specific:- The objectives are required to be define in such a way that it highlights the
outcomes and different activities. In case of HSBC the target market is to full fill the
needs and preferences of urban and sub-urban area customers. The smart objective of
HSBC within the target market is to increase brand awareness in the urban and sub-urban
areas from 10% to 15% with the help of social media, newspapers, advertisements etc.
 Measurable:- It is very important that the objective are measurable and also include an
indicator of progress. Another objective is to increase business sales by 10% as compared
with last year by introducing Artificial intelligence at HSBC(Bjerke and Renger, 2017).
 Attainable:- The objectives needs to realistic so that the business is able to achieve the
same in given time frame and with the help of available resources. Another objective is to
convert 40% of the leads to customers within 30 working days of initial contact by
having effective communication with the help of email marketing, SMS or telephonic
mode.
 Relevant:- The objectives are required to match with the overall goal of the business. The
SMART objective for HSBC is to follow up its customers within the 48 hours of sales
call by having communication with the telephonic mode.
 Time bound:- There have to be a time frame within which the desired changes need to be
achieved.

Critical evaluation of various marketing channels and achievement of SMART communication
objectives
Basically there are four marketing channels with the help of which business can achieve
its SMART communication objectives. The marketing channels are as following:-
 Social media marketing:- With the help of social media platform it is easy for HSBC to
have brand awareness among the customers so that they reach out the business to take
effective services in hand. The social media platforms offers community building
opportunity for the business and HSBS is able to achieve its SMART objective of
increasing brand awareness from 10% to 15% (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017).
 Direct selling:- HSBC can have retail distributions that is banks with the help of which
they can have direct communication with the customers. Not only this, customers can
reach out the banks easily and can have different service benefits. This marketing
channel helps the business to have an effective relationship with its customers and the
brand awareness among the customer gets increased. This results in increase in business
sales
 Selling through intermediaries:- There are intermediaries with the help of which
business can sales its products and services such as agents, different retain distribution
channels, with the help of third parties that provide easy payment methods to its
customers. There are different intermediaries that help to bring effective communication
between HSBC and its potential customers. With the help of Artificial intelligence these
intermediaries can bring effective communication and business will be able to achieve its
desirable objectives.
 Email Marketing:- It is the easiest way to get connected with millions of the customers
at the same period of time and make them aware about the latest product and services
that HSBC is providing. This helps the business achieve its SMART objective of
increasing business leads up to 40%(Sahni, Wheeler and Chintagunta, 2018).
Selected market channels add value and maximize organizational resources
The selected market channels help the business to maximize organizational resources and
add value to the business. With the help of social media platform, business is able to influence
the customer’s behaviour to take service from the bank and increase the visibility of HSBC in

market. With this the demand of service provided by HSBC gets increase consequently. Not only
this, it allow the customers to give their feedbacks with the help of which business can bring
change in its respective services that satisfy the actual demand of the customer. This also helps
the business to have loyal customers in hand. On the other hand, direct selling also helps in
maximizing business resources as it leads to long lasting customer relationships and low cost
business. There are different retail channels of HSBC that provide direct service to its customers
and have an effective relationship with them. This increases the loyalty of customers towards the
firm and creates value of business in market. Another marketing channel is E-mail marketing
that build list of customers that business needs to get communicated with. This helps in brand
exposure and business can have a constant touch with its customers.
Design and develop appropriate content to meet channel selected and SMART communication
objectives
For developing an appropriate content in order to meet marketing channels business I
required to follow the respective steps:-
 Situational Analysis:- Business is required to analyze the market situation and
accordingly use the social media platforms to get communicated with its customers in
order to achieve its business objectives. For the same, HSBC can put effective content in
front of the customers with the help of different social media channels such as Facebook,
Instagram etc.
 Channel objectives:- Business is required to map its objectives of marketing channels
with an engagement cycle that is the create loyal traffic of customers with respect to
product and service offerings(Hollensen and Opresnik, 2019).
 Content plan:- It is important for the business to have a content plan with the help of
which business can build effective community of its loyal customers. With the help of
email marketing program, an effective community building action can be taken by the
business.
Estimated budget required for IMC plan
It is very important for the business to have an effective marketing budget and plan in
order to achieve its business objectives more effectively. First of all the business is required to
set is a respective goal and accordingly set a budget that can help the business to achieve the

goals and objectives. With an effective budget business is able to understand which plan they
have to initiate and accordingly channels and platforms are been decided. The key to a successful
marketing campaign is to test and experiment whether the respective budget will be achieve an
effective IMC plan(Bechtel and et.al., 2017).
Elements Allocated Budget
Direct marketing $500
Digital marketing $500
Advertising $1,250
Sales promotion $2250
Public relation $500
Total $5000
Monitoring and control mechanism
Finally, business is required to monitor the integrated marketing communication plan so
that with the change in market conditions and demand of the customers, different changes can be
brought to the business. HSBC is required to have control on their communication channels and
have an effective strategy to attract the right customers towards the business. Business can also
take feedback from its customers and accordingly changes can be brought to the integrated
marketing communication.
CONCLUSION
From the above study it is been concluded that the HSBC is working effectively to have
an integrated marketing communication plan and with the help of different channels of
communications, business is able to achieve its different objectives. Report also concluded that
the different communications plan enhance the revenue of the business in order to meet business
objectives. Report further concluded that the HSBC is conducting the IMC situational analysis in
an effective manner with the help of SMART communication objectives. These SMART
objectives are helping the business to add value to its business and maximize the organizational
resources. Report also concluded that HSBC is having an effective budget for the IMC plan and
it is able to have monitor and have control over different mechanism.

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Online
Marketing Communication Mix, 2019. [Online]. Available through :<
http://marcomissues.blogspot.com/2014/05/marketing-communication-mix.html>