Marketing and Communication Strategy for Metro Bank, London

This report presents a marketing and communication plan for Metro Bank, aiming to grow personal banking services among university students in southeast London by February 2019. The plan identifies the target market as university students and proposes a public relations-focused promotional strategy. The promotional mix includes advertising, public relations, sales promotion, direct marketing, and personal selling, with a specific emphasis on events, university newsletters, and social media marketing to enhance public relations. The communication message highlights the benefits of Metro Bank's personal banking services tailored for students. The AIDA model (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action) is applied to outline the customer journey. The report concludes with recommendations for effective communication to achieve the set goals and includes references to relevant marketing literature.

Marketing and communication
Metro bank

Marketing and Communication 1
Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Target market...................................................................................................................................2
Promotional mix theory...................................................................................................................2
Promotion strategy proposed...........................................................................................................3
Channel outline................................................................................................................................3
Communication message.................................................................................................................3
AIDA...............................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................4
References........................................................................................................................................5

Marketing and Communication 2
Introduction
Communication is a crucial part of any business. Effective communication can help brands in
reaching out to their target customers in the most effective manner (Armstrong, Kotler, Harker &
Brennan, 2015). The goal of this communication plan is to grow personal banking services
offered by Metro Bank by targeting university students in the south east of London by February
2019. This report throws light on various strategies that can be adopted by Metro bank in order to
reach out to their targeted customers, communication message that can be instituted as well as
the process through which the aforesaid goal can be achieved.
Target market
Target market of any organization refers to the set of customers whose needs the organization
aims to fulfill (Kiel, 2014). For the success of any business, it is imperative to define a specific
target market. The targeted customers of the bank includes university students who need to avail
personal banking services of Metro bank. Therefore the communication plan aims to reach out to
these students. Through the plan, Metro Bank aims at increasing the number of personal banking
accounts under the name of university students located in the south east of London. The growth
is aimed at 5% by February 2019.
Promotional mix theory
Promotional mix of an organization refers to the promotional strategies adopted by the firm in
order to reach out to their customers (Kitchen & Burgmann, 2015). Metro bank’s promotional
mix would include the following:
1. Advertising: This entails television ads, billboards and hoarding, social media ads as well
as newsletter ads.
2. Public relations: releasing articles in the university newsletters and participating in
university events.
3. Sales promotion: offering higher deposit rates and lower minimum balance accounts to
customers.
4. Direct marketing: Cold calling or email marketing to each student.

Marketing and Communication 3
5. Personal selling: Meeting students face to face and enhancing their knowledge on the
subject.
Promotion strategy proposed
The promotion strategy proposed to Metro bank would be public relations. In order to reach out
to university students, Metro bank must focus on improving their public relations with the
students. This includes setting the right positioning in the minds of students and marketing their
presence to their targeted customers.
Major advantages of public relations include improved reputation, wide reach and cost
effectiveness of the strategy. On the other hand, disadvantage of the strategy is the inability to
control results, lack of guaranteed results and difficulty in evaluation of the strategy.
Channel outline
Metro Bank can take the following steps in order to maintain effective public relations with their
customers:
1. Events: Event marketing is an effective way of reaching out to a large audience under a
single roof (Tafesse, 2016). Participating in university events by being a sponsor or
buying a slot.
2. University newsletter: Buying ad slots in the university newsletters and publishing their
details.
3. Social media marketing: Social media marketing refers to the marketing a product on
service through social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter (Tuten &
Solomon, 2017). Metro Bank can use these platforms to set the right positioning and
establishing effective public relations.
Communication message
Key messages of a communication plan include all the important points that Metro Bank wishes
its target audience to know. Communication message would include details of personal banking
services offered by Metro bank and advantages of availing these services specifically for
university students. The message would include precise details of the personal banking services

Marketing and Communication 4
provided by the bank and how these services differ from those offered by similar banks. It is
important to reflect upon the service’s strengths and competitive advantages in the
communication message depicted to all the customers.
AIDA
The AIDA model essentially reflects upon the process by which an effect is created by any
advertisement (Patti, Hartley & Baack, 2017). AIDA process for Metro Bank is as below:
Awareness: Through public relations, this step focuses on generating awareness about Metro
Bank to the university students.
Interest: Metro bank must ensure that the quality of advertisements and event promotion should
be such that it creates an interest among students.
Desire: After understanding further details of the personal banking services, students must have
a desire to avail the service.
Action: Lastly, at this stage the students must be applying for the personal banking services
offered by Metro Bank.
Conclusion
Communication plays a vital role in bridging the gap between an organization and its customers.
Effective communication leads to enhanced sales and improved goodwill of the business. Metro
bank is recommended to focus on building effective public relations with customers in order to
achieve the desired goal.

Marketing and Communication 5
References
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Kiel, I.H., 2014. Entrepreneurial marketing.
Kitchen, P.J. and Burgmann, I., 2015. Integrated marketing communication: Making it work at a
strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy, 36(4), pp.34-39.
Patti, C.H., Hartley, S.W. and Baack, D.W., 2017. Improving integrated marketing
communications practices: A comparison of objectives and results. Journal of Marketing
communications, 23(4), pp.351-370.
Tafesse, W., 2016. Conceptualization of brand experience in an event marketing
context. Journal of Promotion Management, 22(1), pp.34-48.
Tuten, T.L. and Solomon, M.R., 2017. Social media marketing. Sage.