Marketing Communication: Strategies and Channels

This document provides an overview of marketing communication and its various components such as advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, and personal selling. It discusses the importance of effective communication objectives and the selection of marketing channels. The document also includes insights into creating a marketing communication plan.

MARKETING

Contents
Marketing communication....................................................................................................................2
Advertising.........................................................................................................................................2
Direct marketing................................................................................................................................3
Sales promotion.................................................................................................................................3
Personal selling..................................................................................................................................4
Design communication objectives association with organisation situation...............5
Reason of choosing the marketing channels.........................................................................................7
Marketing communications plan...........................................................................................................9
Evaluation of marketing communication plan.....................................................................................12
References...........................................................................................................................................14
MARKETING: 1

Marketing communication
Marketing communication is a basic and complex part of organisation`s marketing efforts.
Marketing communication is described as all the messages and media that the company
deploy to communicate in the market. This includes advertising, branding, packaging, Public
relations, sponsorships, sales and direct marketing. The main goal of marketing
communication is to reach the potential audience that affect the behaviour by persuading,
reminding, and informing. As a marketing manager, it is important for the company to make
effective marketing communication plan that rely on push or pull strategy. Sound
management decisions have to be made for three areas of marketing mix that is product,
service and the idea itself. Only the best promotional strategies cannot overcome the poor
product quality, unsuitable high prices, and ineffective retail distribution (Mars, 2013).
Advertising
Advertisements can be effective if companies use advertisements to sell the products and
services. While designing the advertisement, it ensures that it has a high impact, memorable,
and provocative image. The picture should reflect the brand value and relevant to target the
audience. Although this promotional activity is paid but effective advertisements emerge
through newspaper, magazines, TV, and wading through online websites. Moreover,
company should realise that once advertisements are reviewed as potential for the business, it
will attract the potential customers. The use of images in the advertisements have
differentiated the products from the other similar products that have same characteristics
because way of presenting can differentiate the product. Moreover, it helps to maintain brand
equity, which is intangible and have resulted in a favourable image and consumer attachment
for the brand, company and the trademark. This led to greater sales volume, high margin, and
greater competitive advantage. Whereas, on the other hand, cost can be a greater
disadvantage for the advertisements. For example- while calculating the cost, average cost for
MARKETING: 2

a minute spot on the network television have been increasing since last 30 years. Moreover,
the cost of producing it for a network television is also high and expensive. Credibility and
clutter are other more disadvantages as consumers have started doubting on advertisement
messages and have resented the advertisers against their attempts to persuade. Clutter
encourages the consumers to avoid the advertisement messages, which lead to YouTube, and
digital video recorders but consumers often skip these commercial ads (Schmelz, 2015).
Direct marketing
Direct marketing is the method of communicating it directly with the target audience that
encouraged the response by mail, telephone or any electronic means. It is important because
of three main reasons. First is the number of 2/3rd households has increased drastically.
Approximately, six out of every ten women in US works outside home, which further reduces
the time for family shopping trips (UN women, 2012). Moreover, shoppers also rely on credit
cards for the payment of goods and services, which enables the showrooms to give them
templates and advices during these cashless transactions. At last, technological advances for
computer and telecommunication that allow the consumers to purchase the products from
their homes through telephone, computer, and television. This instance of America shows
that these three reasons have changed the purchasing habits of American`s consumers that
ultimately led to growing of direct marketing. Therefore, direct marketing also has its own
drawbacks same as advertising. Sometimes regular advertisements annoys consumers, which
further creates resistance for the persuasive nature of advertising. This method is blamed for
less sales oriented and more relationship oriented. Consumers get irritated because of
unlimited messages that is similar to advertising chaos (Harrison, and Hair, 2017).
Sales promotion
These direct inducements can offer extra incentives that will enhance and accelerate the
movement of product to consumers. Consumer promotion such as rebate, coupons,
premiums, price packs, purchase incentives, low-cost financing deals, and sampling that can
MARKETING: 3

encourage repurchasing and inducement through product trail. Consumer promotions include
incentive that can lead to establishment of retail stores and requesting additional information.
Trade promotion undertakes slotting allowance, slots for featuring the brand through retail
advertising, merchandising allowances, pay for performance allowances, incentives to
salesperson and other techniques that can encourage the retailers to promote the brand. Two
major perspectives found among the marketers is that sales promotion is supplement to
advertising that further binds advertising with the personal selling. Sales promotion is a minor
player in the marketing communication program. Another perception regarding sales
promotion and advertising has different functions with respect to objectives and strategies.
For instance- many companies spent seventy-five percent of its promotional dollars for sales
promotion and only remaining twenty-five percent for advertising. Although, it is difficult to
balance and its main purpose is to spur action. It sets up to deal by developing a effective
brand image and chose to deal with brand reputation and creating market share. On the other
hand, too much heavy reliance on sales promotions resulted into “deal-prone” customers with
little brand loyalty and price sensitivity (Schmelz, 2015).
Personal selling
It indicates personal contact with the customers with an aim to introduce the product and
convince them to buy for the product value. The objective of personal selling differs from
company to company that depends on the nature and size of the organisation. It is seen that
sometimes both sales and non-sales executives realise that there is a need to place more
emphasize on managing sales and personal selling for the organisation rather than any other
promotional mix element. Moreover, organisation launch training sessions, which show
employees that how they act as salespeople for the enterprise and how will be able to improve
the interpersonal skills with customers, clients and prospects. On the same side, it is one of
the most effective way of inducing and attracting sales due to interpersonal communication
MARKETING: 4

between salesperson and the prospects. On the other hand, it is very much time consuming
and expensive as it is almost impossible to convince each customer personally. This method
points out persons that they prospect for the customers, examine situation, determine that
how the company could satisfy the needs and wants of the customers. This leads to
coordination among the employees that classifies salesperson into three groups that are
creative selling, missionary sales repetition, and order taking. Creative selling jobs need skills
and preparation. Order takers take over after the initial order is undertaken. They handle
repeat purchases and modify rebuys. After having a critical overview of various effective
marketing communication mediums and studying them, marketing manager can adopt
advertising with the integrated feature of online platforms. Marketing manager can adopt to
undertake a combination of different mediums such as fifty percent advertisements through
online platforms and media, twenty percent of promotional budget through personal selling
and remaining through sales promotion (incentives and rebates) (Janssen, Voort, and
Wahyudi, 2010).
When undertaking the organisational situation, it is creating and developing a revolutionary
new product or service in the company. However, marketing manager should strive to find
most appropriate methods of promoting it to their target audience and it will have to form an
effective communication plan. This plan is the roadmap for getting the message delivered to
the audience and it acts as an essential tool to ensure that organisation should send a clear
picture of message with the measurable results. Marketing manager has to undertake various
analysis (Leonidou, Christodoulides, Kyrgidou, and Palihawadana, 2017).
Design communication objectives association with organisation
situation
Communication plan ensures success of programme planning efforts by engaging the
stakeholders. While designing the communication plan, it has to undertake certain steps to
MARKETING: 5

create the communication plan (Skarmeas, Zeriti, and Baltas, 2016). The steps are
establishing objectives that is to be achieved from the communication plan, define the key
audiences, identify the key messages, carry out a construction plan of tactical outreach plan,
description of plans that are developed to convey the messages and specifying a particular
timeline and ultimately communicating the research results, and consider the communication
with the audience (Harding and Schenkel, 2017). Organisation is in a situation to launch a
new product and it is designing its communication plan that can serve both them as well as
the customers. When deciding to achieve the communication objectives, aim of product
development can create a product, which can meet a necessity, resolve, and fix problem,
make the task easier, address a particular need and even it might improve someone’s life. The
very first step to develop a successful communication plan that can establish a set of refined,
clear, and measurable goals. The main objective of communication plan is to plan and engage
important stakeholder’s participation, design and execute as per market research study. Goals
should be clear, concise, straightforward, and solution-oriented. Make sure that every strategy
and goal is linked with the indicators and it need to measure and make sure that the goals are
pragmatic and clear rather than vague or overwhelming. The main aim of the new product
development process is to attract the potential customers (Levy, and Gvili, 2015).
Another step is to define the key audience, once the goals are set as per the communication
plan, strategies, potential audience, and communication tactics designed to meet the goals.
Tactics are marketing channels chosen such as combination of sales promotion,
advertisements, and personal selling. If these tactics are suggested and could not achieve
ultimately map of the predefined goals and finds that it need to consider the worth that the
time and effort will take to implement it (Sharma, 2016). The key audience for a new product
can be on the basis of age groups or on the basis of geographical areas. It is important to
know which audience will be influenced and how effectively communication outreach is
MARKETING: 6

designed to deliver important messages to the target audience (Cummins, Peltier, and Dixon,
2016). Once the communication goals are accomplished and audiences have tried to reach to
the target market and become competitive. The next step is to find the way of reaching to the
target audience and seek information. For example- if one has the difficulty in reaching to a
particular place, the difficult situation can be reaching Mayor. Some of the activities rely on
regular scheduled activities that also promotes faith-based gatering for the word-of- mouth
(Waisbord, 2018). Finding out the main key messages will lead to this communication plan to
think beyond any other different way. This stage figures out issues of the key audience and
design and implement the market research study. For example- a message can be concise,
compelling, and strong enough to respond audience. Company starts undertaking good
media relations and makes tactical outreach plan such as developing the media list, media
training for the spoke people, setting the editorial board meetings and undertaking
community forums and that ultimately can lead to developing of media options (Falkheimer
et al., 2017).
Reason of choosing the marketing channels
The justification regarding the selection and integration of communications channels chosen
depends on the effective employment of combination of three effective marketing
communication channel (Luxton, Reid, and Mavondo, 2015). A company needs to identify
the several effective communication channel, tools, methods, and techniques. Marketing
manager should be able enough to distinguish between interpersonal and community-oriented
channels, which can use the existing social networks including media channels (radio and
TV) (Killian, and McManus, 2015). To achieve the above objective, a communication plan
has already been prepared to deploy the resources effectively to each communication
channel. Marketing manager decides to undertake a particular promotional budget that
includes a combination of fifty percent expenditure based on advertisement especially when
MARKETING: 7

concerned with online platform, twenty percent on personal selling and remaining through
incentives and rebates. The company is using a combination of direct and indirect
communication channels such as advertisements, sales promotion, and personal selling
(Expert Commentator, 2017). Selecting only one type of communication channel can lead to
inadequate or no interaction with the potential customers. Opting only direct communication
channel can lead to limited approach and only a small fraction of people will be able to know
above the potential product even after incurring huge amount. When opting to employ and
deploy expenditure only on indirect communication channel, which will not include any
personal interaction, this will require a very effective and emotional touching advertisement
video (UN women, 2012). Even after this, it is not important that it will lead to reach each
person personally. This set of communication plan with the integration of marketing channels
established to achieve this strategy should access communication resources for example-
media production skills and availability of certain material from national and international
campaigns till the set time lines, indicators, milestones in the action plans. Moreover, this
integration of communication plan and marketing channel will help to translate the strategy in
simple and specified guidance for the company`s activities (Sudlow et al., 2015).
MARKETING: 8

(Source: Business, 2018)
Marketing communications plan
Although, according to proper and systematic plan, a company has to undertake a desired
marketing communications plan to achieve marketing objectives through channels (Killian,
and McManus, 2015). It needs to take certain steps-
Situational Analysis
Marketing communication objectives
Marketing communication strategies
Marketing communication Mix
Scheduling and budgeting
Implementing, monitoring and control
MARKETING: 9

Marketing plan
Firstly, organisation has to identify what new product, they are launching and why. The
organisation will conduct a market research, which would determine the target market. Then,
manager will strive to find out the competitors and analyse them that they do not provide all
the same characteristics of the product. Manager set production and marketing goals
accordingly. Outline the marketing strategies such as targeting a particular age group and
creating the advertisement video accordingly. Most importantly, a manager need to identify a
set budget for all the promotional activities and ultimately control to find the deviation.
Marketing manager will undertake to perform the situational analysis to evaluate. It is
important for the company to gather and examine the relevant information of the company.
Apart from this, to conduct a communication audit, the staff needs to do brainstorming with
the communication staff, conducting the surveys, and communicate to all other departments
of the company (AU, 2017).
After examining all the related information, the manager need to define the overall
communication objectives. What are the results that are needed to be achieved? What results
are to be achieved? What the marketing manager is actually aiming and want to accomplish
to implement the communication plan? The objectives are to define each element of SMART
(Specific, Measurable, Achievable, realistic, and time-focused) (Nagle, and Müller, 2017).
It is important for the company to figure out the key audience to know to whom to deliver the
messages. The manager should conduct a survey to know the preferences of the people
around and list them out the key audiences of the particular that is undertaken to be produced.
This target market may also include members/non-members, related associations, educators,
media representatives, local government officials, and clients (Wroblewski, 2018). Certain
examples of communication strategies can be developing the key messages, prioritising the
MARKETING: 10

key audience, identifying the appropriate customers, conduct ongoing blogger outreach,
develop best practises through social media platform and expanding the market reach that
could engage maximum people. Associated examples of integrating the marketing campaigns
with the potential customers can be Always #LikeAGirl. Most feminine care brand targeted
the next generation of customers. Moreover, the company has to undertake an opportunity to
support the girls who are teenagers or transition from puberty to young women. Girls come
across this phase and feel awkward and unconfident. The Always Creative team was figured
out during the derogatory phrase “like a girl” and developed the campaign to manipulate the
phrase of empowerment (NCVO, 2018).
(Source: LinkedIn Corporation, 2019)
Apart from this, marketing manager should identify the media channels that plans to deliver
the messages to key recipients through several media channels. This would lead to find most
MARKETING: 11

effective media channel, which would be enough to deliver the same messages to the target
audience (Coombs, 2015).
Evaluation of result always remained an important activity because it is important to
understand the effectiveness of each elements of marketing objectives. For example- the
evaluation can be done through Annual reports, progress reports, reports from all the other
departments, and also the monthly reports (Kenny, and Dyson, 2016).
Evaluation of marketing communication plan
When evaluating a marketing communication plan in relation to the communication strategy
and channel choice. Selection of channels and communication plan processes have two
different things where one is theoretical and practical experiences. As it is not very practical
to employ only one marketing channel to induce the people to purchase the product. At least,
a new product needs a strong base of promotional activities including advertisements,
personal selling, and direct marketing. Apart from this, Word of mouth method of marketing
is most effective these days, which is certainly not involved in the budget of promotional
activities. Some impractical communication techniques increase the sales for some time by
handling the tactics and building a new brand (Taiminen, and Karjaluoto, 2015). When
evaluating, each step of communication plan which leads to find, serve, and target the
potential customers, it is important for the marketing manager to evaluate each possible
alternative of marketing channel integrated with the communication plan. Marketing
communication plan of combining certain marketing channels such as sales promotion,
advertising, and personal selling can be useful as it is the combination of both direct and
indirect communication system. Marketing manager has a particular promotional budget that
consists of expenditure on sales promotion, advertising and personal selling. Communication
plan here contributes to define the target audience, identify them and strives to make and
MARKETING: 12

create them in such a way that advertisement on the television can become influencing. On
the other hand, sales promotion attracts the customers due to rebates, discounts, and coupons
imposed on new product manufactured. For example- when promoting a luxurious and youth
oriented car, a company make its advertisement video in such a way that in the spacious
island, the car is able to run as fast as possible and they are able to experience the natural
beauty. Whereas, personal selling shall demand test-driving at own risk and sales promotion
intimate and attract the willing youth to purchase the product at low price especially in
occasions. Communication plan form outsourcing tactics such as how online platform will be
used to achieve and attract the potential customers. For example- Facebook ads can be
designed in such a way that it does not consumes much time and conveys a strong message in
a very less time. It fulfils three broad types of marketing campaign objectives such as
fulfilling of awareness objective, consideration objective, and conversion objective.
Consideration is achieved as huge traffic on the website, encouragement of installation of
application in the mobile phones, and encouraging people to communicate with personal
interaction through Facebook messenger. Communication strategy is a tool that help the
organisation to align the business objective with the marketing plan, which ultimately focus
on reaching the predetermined results. Choice of marketing channel depends on the structure
and aim of business plan indulged for its operation.
MARKETING: 13

References
AU, (2017) Integrated marketing communications. Available
on:https://online.aurora.edu/integrated-marketing-communications-examples/ [Accessed on
06/01/18]
Business, (2018) Marketing Planning (Overview). Available on:
https://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/marketing-planning-overview [Accessed on
06/01/18]
Coombs, W.T., (2015) The value of communication during a crisis: Insights from strategic
communication research. Business Horizons, 58(2), pp.141-148.
Cummins, S., Peltier, J.W. and Dixon, A., (2016) Omni-channel research framework in the
context of personal selling and sales management: a review and research extensions. Journal
of Research in Interactive Marketing, 10(1), pp.2-16.
Expert Commentator, (2017) Marketing communications planning using the PASTA model.
Available on: https://www.smartinsights.com/managing-digital-marketing/planning-
budgeting/marketing-cdommunications-planning-using-pasta-model/ [Accessed on 06/01/18]
Falkheimer, J., Heide, M., Nothhaft, H., von Platen, S., Simonsson, C. and Andersson, R.,
(2017) Is Strategic Communication too important to be left to Communication
Professionals?: Managers’ and coworkers’ attitudes towards strategic communication and
communication professionals. Public Relations Review, 43(1), pp.91-101.
Harding, L.M. and Schenkel, M.T., (2017) Brand advertising in an access–ownership world:
How marketing channels impact message persuasiveness. Journal of Marketing
Channels, 24(1-2), pp.51-72.
MARKETING: 14

Harrison, D.E. and Hair, J.F., (2017) The Use of Technology in Direct-Selling Marketing
Channels: Digital Avenues for Dynamic Growth. Journal of Marketing Channels, 24(1-2),
pp.39-50.
Janssen, M., van der Voort, H. and Wahyudi, A., (2010) Factors influencing big data
decision-making quality. Journal of Business Research, 70, pp.338-345.
Kenny, B. and Dyson, K., (2016) Marketing in small businesses. US: Routledge.
Killian, G. and McManus, K., (2015) A marketing communications approach for the digital
era: Managerial guidelines for social media integration. Business Horizons, 58(5), pp.539-
549.
LinkedIn Corporation, (2019) IMC Planning Process. Available on:
https://www.slideshare.net/gyaanmasti/imc-plan-i [Accessed on 07/01/2019]
Leonidou, L.C., Christodoulides, P., Kyrgidou, L.P. and Palihawadana, D., (2017) Internal
drivers and performance consequences of small firm green business strategy: The moderating
role of external forces. Journal of Business Ethics, 140(3), pp.585-606.
Levy, S. and Gvili, Y., (2015) How Credible is E-Word of Mouth Across Digital-Marketing
Channels?: The Roles of Social Capital, Information Richness, and Interactivity. Journal of
Advertising Research, 55(1), pp.95-109.
Luxton, S., Reid, M. and Mavondo, F., (2015) Integrated marketing communication
capability and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), pp.37-46.
Mars, (2013) What is marketing communication (MarCom)?.Available on:
https://www.marsdd.com/mars-library/what-is-marketing-communication-marcom/
[Accessed on 06/01/18]
MARKETING: 15

Nagle, T.T. and Müller, G., (2017) The strategy and tactics of pricing: A guide to growing
more profitably. US : Routledge.
NCVO, (2018) Developing a communication strategy. Available on:
https://knowhow.ncvo.org.uk/campaigns/communications/communications-strategy
[Accessed on 06/01/18]
Schmelz, D.R., (2015) Personal Selling and Sales Management Abstracts. Journal of
Personal Selling & Sales Management, 35(4), pp.346-357.
Sharma, A., (2016) What personal selling and sales management recommendations from
developed markets are relevant in emerging markets? Journal of Personal Selling & Sales
Management, 36(2), pp.89-104.
Skarmeas, D., Zeriti, A. and Baltas, G., (2016) Relationship value: Drivers and outcomes in
international marketing channels. Journal of international marketing, 24(1), pp.22-40.
Sudlow, C., Gallacher, J., Allen, N., Beral, V., Burton, P., Danesh, J., Downey, P., Elliott, P.,
Green, J., Landray, M. and Liu, B., (2015) UK biobank: an open access resource for
identifying the causes of a wide range of complex diseases of middle and old age. PLoS
medicine, 12(3).
Taiminen, H.M. and Karjaluoto, H., (2015) The usage of digital marketing channels in
SMEs. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 22(4), pp.633-651.
UN women, (2012) Key steps in designing a communication strategy. Available on:
http://www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/1235-key-steps-in-designing-a-communications-
strategy.html?next=1236 [Accessed on 06/01/18]
Waisbord, S., (2018) Family tree of theories, methodologies, and strategies in development
communication. Handbook of Communication for Development and Social Change, pp.1-40.
MARKETING: 16

Wroblewski, M. T. (2018) The Qualities of a Good Advertisement. Available on:
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/qualities-good-advertisement-26099.html [Accessed on
06/01/18]
MARKETING: 17