Marketing Communication Tools and Strategies

This assignment provides a comprehensive overview of marketing communication tools and strategies. It includes various sources that discuss the effectiveness of advertising, social media marketing, and other marketing communications. The sources also touch on topics such as experiential marketing, global brand equity, and integrated marketing communication decision-making frameworks.

Marketing communication

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ASSESSMENT TASK....................................................................................................................1
a) Analysis of range of products provided by the company as well as features, characteristics,
effectiveness, theories and tools of marketing communication..............................................1
b) Strategic marketing plan to market the product.................................................................6
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Marketing communication is basically carried out with the objective of persuading the
customers to come and buy the products by adopting various measures to convey the message
about the products or services provided by the company. Bentley motors is one of the major
company in engineering manufacturing distribution and operates on a global level. The company
was founded around 100 years ago that is in the year 1919. Bentley has come up with Bentley
4*4 which became one of the best cars in its entire journey. This report will include analysis of
range of products provided by the company as well as critical evaluation of features,
characteristics and effectiveness of marketing communication. Furthermore, marketing theories
as well as marketing communication plan would also be discussed in detail.
ASSESSMENT TASK
a) Analysis of range of products provided by the company as well as features, characteristics,
effectiveness, theories and tools of marketing communication
Analysis of range of products as well as specific product and the target market
As far as range of products of the organization is concerned; Bentley motors is known for
providing wide range of cars depending upon the taste and preferences of the
customers(Heerwagen and Schneider, 2018). The company provides cars which provides a fresh
look towards the world.
 Analysis of range of products offered by the company are as follows:
Bentley 4 1/2 litre : this car was basically based on rolling chassis and was later on
replaced by Bentley 3 litre; which was comparatively more powerful but the negative side is that
the car became no more competitive after certain period of time.
Bentley speed six : this car was introduced in 1928 and soon became very famous with
respect to racing. The car was very powerful and speedy but unfortunately after few years the
sales of the car diminished because of a wall street crash.
Bentley R type : this car was a second series after the post-war Bentley auto mobiles.
This car has standard body as well as large-boot version. This has negative impacts because of
the shifting of the car is less precise because of additional linkages (Jiang and Ma, 2018).
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Bentley turbo R : this car was manufactured and supplied in the market for around 14
years that is between 1985-1999. the car was known for its high-performance but negative
impact was that it had limitations in its tyres.
Bentley Arnage : this car was introduced in the market in 1998. The car was of luxury
class and is entirely based on new-designs. On the other hand, the running cost of the car was
very high; which became one of the drawbacks of the car and it negatively impacted the
company (Edwards, 2018).
Continental flying spur : this car was of different class and consisted of four-door car.
This car is known for the comfort it provides to its customers. The negative side of this car
model was that design of the car was not very amazing.
Continental GT : this car is running in the market since 2003(Maxcy and Silberston,
2017). The car has achieved economies of scale by undertaking mass production. the major cons
and issues of this car was that price tags and taxes on the car were very high which in turn has
made the car very expensive. Thus, this made to bring many negative impacts for the company.
Mulsanne : it is a luxury car and has won several awards. The pros and cons of this car
are that it is safe as well as performance is epic. The negative elements of this car is that the cost
of the car is very high. Not only the cost, but also the car lacks innovative technology, which
lead to brought many negative impacts.
 Specific product is Bentley 4*4 of Bentley Bentayga
Bentley Bentayga (Bentley 4*4) – this car is an ultra luxury car with a front engine, five
door and all wheel drive. Bentayga soon came to be claimed as SUV. The car has top class speed
but at the same time the price of the car is very high. Bentayga came up with model V8 in 2018
as Bentley 4*4. the car grabbed the attention of people from all over the world because of its
power, speed, sportiness, luxury and usability.
Furthermore, design of the car was amazing as well as the car provided utmost comfort.
The twin- turbo will move the car in 4.4 seconds to all the way up to 180 mph( Sharp, 2017).
Similarly, like every coin has two sides, there are disadvantages attached with advantages. These
disadvantages are small infotainment screen, absurdly expensive options as well as the car has no
diesel engines.
 Target market
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The target market of Bentley 4*4 is ultra-luxury segment that is people of high society.
They usually target people with high income because only they can afford the car because of
high price charged by the company.
Evaluation of characteristics, features and effectiveness of the marketing communication tool
used by Bentley
 Characteristics and features of marketing communication tools
There are four major characteristics and features of marketing communication tools and these
are:
Communication potential : this tool of marketing communication is concerned with
delivery of personal message to the audience in order to have a interaction(Zook and Smith,
2016). For example; television advertising is an effective visual marketing communication tool
which helps in persuading the customers to come and buy our product. On the other hand, sales
promotion is also used in order to call the customers so that they can take action.
Credibility : this is one of the most important marketing communication tools as it helps
in determining how the target audience perceive the communication tool. For example: score of
public relations is high as compared to advertising.
Cost : it is concerned with determining the budget for the purpose of using a specific
communication tool. Furthermore, depending upon the communication budget; communication
tool would be selected(Valos and et.al., 2017).
Control : it may be defined as the ability of the company to reach its target audience as
well as ability of the company to adapt to the changing environment. It is concerned with
understanding the message same as intended by the transmitter.
Marketing communication tools and their effectiveness
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 Public Relations: The company can make use of public relation activities though news,
public appearances, events, press release, etc. These activities helps business organisation
to have communication with public and customers as well. Public relation activities helps
in promoting products and services effectively and efficiently. Organisation can present
the brand and products in best light through the public appearances and build effective
relationship (Edwards, 2018).
 Direct Marketing: This tool enables company for communicating directly to the end
customers. Different tools that can be used by company for direct selling includes text
messages, catalogues, emails, promotional letters or brochures. The effectiveness of
direct selling is that company can directly reach to its end customers and build effective
relationship with them (The marketing communication mix, 2019). Direct selling enables
company to increase brand loyalty.
 Personal Selling: This is considered as the one of the effective communication tool that
helps in integrating marketing communications. This tool takes place when marketer or
the sales representatives focus on selling the products and services to clients. The benefits
of personal selling is that it goes long way for strengthening the effective relationship
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Illustration 1: marketing communication tool
Source: (The marketing communication mix, 2019)

between the company and target customers (Integrated Marketing Communication Tools,
2019).
 Sales Promotion: Products and services of company can be advertised or promoted
through various sales promotion techniques or tools. It includes membership coupons,
discount coupons, incentives, loyalty clubs or cards, lucrative schemes, specially
designed packages or deals, attractive packaging for loyal customers and many more.
Company can also make use of sale promotion tool through newspaper inserts, banners at
particular places, danglers, wobbler, glorifiers, etc. The effectiveness of sales promotion
technique is that it leads to inform and attract customers effectively. Effective
relationship can be built with loyal and potential customers through sales promotion tool.
 Advertising : This is one of the most efficient tool of marketing communication(De
Mooij, 2018). It has various benefits such as it has wide reach which helps the company
in reaching large number of customers at the same time. Apart from that, Bentley even
uses advertising to increase its sales as well as profits of its Bentley 4*4. Furthermore,
advertising play a major role in increasing the brand awareness; which is very essential in
order to attract new customers. Even it of vital importance in terms of measuring the
effectiveness of advertising through various aspects. The main purpose of advertising and
promotional technique is to inform customers about the products and services of
company and also to increase the awareness of brand in their minds. Company aims at
convincing the potential and target customers through advertising techniques. Advertising
helps in enhancing the company's image and also points out and develops need for
products. It can also help to demonstrate new customers for some established products of
company or even announce new program or products through using techniques or
methods of advertising. Thus, advertising and promotional techniques implemented by
company leads to bring great results and impacts in form of increased brand awareness,
increased productivity and profitability.
Marketing communication tool are very effective as it does not only provides short term
benefits to the company but also provide long-term benefits. Short term benefits such as increase
in sales. They play a major role in boosting up the sales of the company which is very essential
for every organization in order to achieve its objectives effectively and efficiently(Eisend and
Tarrahi, 2016). While on the other hand, it also provide long-term benefits such as brand
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shifting. These advertisements tool play a major role from diverting customers purchasing the
cars of other brands. Furthermore, other effectiveness is that it helps in gaining the competitive
advantages over the rivalry firms as well as stock piling.
Moreover, other effectivenesses are they play a huge role in validating the results of their
effort which is very essential in order to run the business smoothly towards the attainment of
objectives(Vanwesenbeeck and et.al., 2017). Apart from that, they help in setting smarter
objectives as well as better strategies which plays a vital role in maintaining and growing the
operations of the company. Furthermore, in case any mid-course occurs; they play a effective
role in bringing adjustments and corrections as well as it helps in adapting to the changing
environment.
Even it is a very convenient mode of marketing communication tool as well as it helps in
promoting the brand using latest technology which in turn helps in bringing innovation. They
specially focus on advertising their car on mobile devices; that is using the digital platform as
their market communication tool in order to communicate to the public regarding their brand so
as to achieve the objectives effectively and efficiently(McAlister and et.al., 2016).
b) Strategic marketing plan to market the product
Strategic marketing planning is an ongoing process with help of which Bentley 4x4
creates a marketing plan and different strategies to market their products in the market and target
market (Batra and Keller, 2016). Whether it be a business plan, a marketing plan or a strategic
plan or a communication plan it all requires a step by step systematic development of the plan
including all the steps. There are various types of plans made within the communication and
marketing part. The business activities within an organisation starts with making of the business
plan along with the marketing plan and followed by a communication plan.
The business plan sets out the main and overall objectives of the organisation. These are
followed by the marketing plan which outlines the marketing strategies and goals to achieve like
gaining market share, distribution channel, etc. At last comes the communication plan which
consist of the ways in which communication is done with various different types of stakeholders,
employees, target market etc.
Bentley motors is a British company which is famous for the production of its premium
and luxurious cars. It is a subsidiary of the Volkswagen which delivers car in almost all parts of
the world by establishing a franchising network (De Mooij, 2018).
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Communication is process through which the message is transferred from the sender to
the receiver in the same manner as intended by the sender. Communication consists of a series of
steps which needs to be fulfilled in order to have an effective and efficient communication. There
are some elements which the company has to follow for proper flow of communication. These
element are as follows-
 Sender- it is the person who intends to send the message to the another person. It is the
inception point of the message. It can be between the manager with his subordinate, a
marketer with the customer etc.
 Message- it refers to any feeling, suggestion, idea, guideline or order which is intended to
be communicated with the receiver (Seele and Lock, 2015). For example, the features of
the Bentley can be communicated with the customers.
 Encoding- it refers to the process of converting the idea of message into words, actions,
symbols. For example the message is connected with the words and actions.
 Media- it is the medium or the route through which the encoded message is transferred to
the receiver. It can be through various forms like face- to- face communication, radio, e-
mails, television etc. For example manager may inform about the products to the target
and potential customers.
 Decoding- it is the process of the translation of the encoded message back into the
language which is understandable by the receiver.
 Receiver- it is the person for whom the message is initiated. He is the end person for
whom the message was sent. It is the responsibility of the receiver to understand the
message in the same way as intended by the sender.
 Feedback- it is the response that the receiver gives to the sender after understanding of
the message in the same manner as intended by the sender.
A communication channel is a type of medium through which the message is transferred
from one person to another. These are a type of information flow through which information is
transferred within the organisation and with other outside companies also (Lantos, 2015). For
effective communication the channel used must be very efficient to maintain the flow of the
information. There are many different types of communication channels used by an organisation.
These are as follows-
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 Formal communication channel- this type of channel consists a chain of command
through which only the message or information flows. It flows from top level to the lower
level in a hierarchical order. Through this channel the information delivered includes
aims, objectives, goals, policies and procedures followed, rules and regulations applicable
etc.
 Informal channel of communication- this type of channel does not includes any chain
of command or any hierarchical order for the transfer of the message. This channel exist
because of the reason that the strict hierarchical web of communication cannot perform
the functions efficiently and effectively (De Mooij, 2018).
 Unofficial channels of communication- it is also referred to as grapevine because it is
through the grapevine that rumours circulate in the organisation. An example of
unofficial communication channel is social gathering among the employees.
Marketing communication plan
A marketing communication plan or a marcom plan is a plan with which help the
company communicates the marketing message to its targets customers and markets. The plan
formally defines who should be given specific information and when to provide that information
and through which communication channel the information must be delivered the target
customer.
The marketing plan is as follows-
Executive summary- the marketing plan will outline the vision, mission and the objectives of
the company. Also it will discuss the marketing audit and the SOSTAC model used by the
Bentley 4x4. Also it will highlight the segmenting, targeting and the positioning of the
organisation (Smilansky, 2017). Also it will discuss the financial aspect with the help of the
budget. And at last it will do monitoring and controlling part.
Vision- To become the world's most successful, fascinating and sustainable car manufacturer and
world's most successful luxury car maker.
Mission- Bentley's ethos is luxury performance, the company manufactures high performance
and individual luxury cars. Also Bentley believed that it should be a fast, a good and best in its
class cars.
Objectives- the objective of Bentley is to increase the number of the vehicles sold must should
be increased by 20,000 units by 2020.
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Core values- it makes clear through its freshly designed website that it holds certain values
throughout the company which guide the brand towards its goals.
SOSTAC model
There are a number of models which can be used to plan the marketing communications.
The idea behind using any model is to set the goals and to implement the ways to achieve them
effectively. For this the model used by the Bentley is the SOSTAC model. This model is a
marketing model propounded in the year 1990 by P.R. Smith. It contains a general marketing
strategy which can be applied in different commercial situations. This model offers reasonable
and logical order for handling the plans and to use it to critically evaluate the process of
marketing and communication. SOSTAC is an acronym which stands for the six fundamental
facets of the marketing which are Situational analysis, Objective, Strategy, Tactics, Action
and Control.
Now let us understand each component of SOSTAC in detail-
 Situational analysis- the first and foremost thing to be done is the assessment of the
company's internal and external environment with aim of understanding the strengths,
weaknesses, customers, competitors and environment. For assessing the situation
generally the SWOT analysis is done. It outlines the strengths which includes internal
capabilities, positive situations, and factors that helps the company in achieving the pre
determined goals and objectives. Weaknesses includes the negative factors and internal
limitations which hampers and stops the organisation to perform to its fullest capacity.
Opportunities refers to the positive trends present in the external environment of the
organisation which the company can use to win over the competitors (Lipschultz, 2014).
Lastly comes the threats which are the unfavourable external environmental factors
which act as a challenge for improving the performance of the company. The reason
behind Bentley doing the situation analysis is to analyse the external and the internal
environment of the organisation and its impact on the performance of the company and
its growth.
 Objectives- it refers to set some achievable and sensible objectives. There are a variety
and large number of objectives that are to be fulfilled by the organisation and the
employees. There can be a variety of objectives like marketing objective, business
objectives, objectives for growth, etc. The objective of the Bentley is to be the most
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successful, fascinating and sustainable car manufacturer and world's most successful
luxury car maker. It has an aggressive market and sets a good customer acquisition
targets and objectives which are necessary for the survival of the company. Setting
targets and objectives helps the enterprise to focus on the mission and the vision of the
business and to expand it. After doing the situational analysis the business understood
that existing vehicle users need to upgrade to newer models later so vehicle after sales
service is very important to retain the sales and customer loyalty in existing markets.
Also the objectives set must be SMART that Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic
and Time bound.
 Strategy- it refers to the way or the medium through which the organisation tries to
achieve and attain the business pre determined goals and objectives of the business
organisation. Strategies need to be made simple and flexible so that the objectives can be
achieved easily an on time (French and Gordon, 2015). Bentley do the segmenting of the
market with the use of demographic and psycho graphic segmentation because vehicles
are not acquirable for every one in the society and also the company does not do mass
manufacturing but develops product according to the requirement of the customers
(Dinardo and Dinardo Jr, MONKEETECH, 2015). Thus it caters to a different segment of
the population who tends to associate their personality with the performance, design, the
image of the car in the society. Also Bentley has made a strategy of Online customer
value which provides the consumer with a helpline number where they can give their
feedback about the car and their experiences. Also they can report any problem or
grievance if they are having regarding the product on that number.
 Tactics- these are the activities which are performed to support the strategies made
above. These are not the replacement of the strategy rather they are activities which
support the strategies. It includes techniques of promotion and communication used by
the company to promote the product to achieve the strategic objectives. The
communication pattern of the Bentley is not one directional but it uses a communication
mix wisely and cleverly to reach out to the different user segments using different media
technology (Camilleri, 2018). The use of the communication method needs to be in sync
with the customer requirement. The company also has an active participation on the
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social networking sites for advertising, promoting and highlighting its car models and
encouraging the customers to visit and discuss about their desired product.
 Action- these refers to an act that one consciously performs to achieve a pre determined
objective or the goals. This is the stage where the actual work is done that is every
strategy and every tactic is applied here to achieve the pre defined and pre determined
objective and goals. The results of an action can be both positive and negative. The
attainment of the objective depends on the accurateness and truthfulness of doing the
action. The Bentley also has some positive and negative impacts of the actions and the
strategies used by it. It has reduced 25% of carbon footprint and also focuses on the areas
like less use of water, efficient and optimal use of the raw materials and the energy used
in manufacturing the cars (Rábová, 2015). Also it has a corporate environmental
compliance team made which ensures the proper and efficient regulation of the EU
emission trading scheme.
 Control- it is a stage wherein the company keeps a check on what the company has and
how it has performed. It makes different models and methods to measure and monitor the
performance of the business. It is very important to know that hoe the company has
performed and how much it has to improve itself to meet the competition.
CONCLUSION
Marketing communication refers to those techniques which the company or a business
uses to convey the massages containing the promotion of their products and the services. The
report outlined the analysis of range of wide range of products provided by the company as well
as it also included the critical evaluation of features, characteristics and effectiveness of
marketing communication. Furthermore, it discussed the different types of marketing theories as
well as marketing communication plan in detail.
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Camilleri, M.A., 2018. Integrated marketing communications. In Travel marketing, tourism
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Valos, M.J. and et.al., 2017. Integrating social media within an integrated marketing
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Online
Integrated Marketing Communication Tools. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.managementstudyguide.com/managing-integrated-marketing-
communication.htm>
The marketing communication mix. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-management/management/business-studies/
retail-marketing/content-section-3.4>
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