Discuss the Various promotional elements in Marketing Communication?

For any communications campaign to succeed, the firm must deliver the right message to the right audience through the right media, with the ultimate goal of profiting from long-term customer relationships rather than just short-term transactions. Reaching the right audience is becoming more difficult, however, as the media environment grows more complicated. No single channel is necessarily better than another channel; the goal of IMC is to use them in conjunction so that the sum exceeds the total of the individual channels. However, advances in technology have led to a variety of new and traditional media options for consumers, all of which vie for consumers’ attention. Print media have also grown and become more specialized. This proliferation of media has led many firms to shift their promotional dollars from advertising to direct marketing, website development, product placements, and other forms of promotion in search of the best way to deliver messages to their target audiences.

We now examine the individual elements of IMC and the way each contributes to a successful IMC campaign. The elements can be viewed on two axes: passive and interactive (from the consumer’s perspective) and offline and online. Some elements (e.g., advertising, sales promotion, public relations, personal selling) are discussed in far more detail in subsequent chapters, so we discuss them only briefly here. Instead, we focus primarily on direct marketing (e-mail, mobile marketing, direct mail, telemarketing) and online marketing (websites, blogs, social media). Note that as the marketer’s repertoire of IMC elements has expanded, so too have the ways in which marketers can communicate with their customers. So, for instance, direct marketing appears in all four boxes. Firms have expanded their use of these traditional media (e.g., advertising, public relations, and sales promotions) from pure offline to a combination of offline and online.

Advertising: Perhaps the most visible of the IMC components,advertising entails the placement of announcements and persuasive messages in time or space purchased in any of the mass media by business firms, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and individuals who seek to inform and/or persuade members of a particular target market or audience about their products, services, organizations, or ideas.  Mass advertising can entice consumers into a conversation with marketers, though it does not necessarily require much action by consumers, which places it on the passive end of the spectrum. Traditionally, advertising has been passive and offline (e.g., ads on TV, magazines, and newspapers). However, recently there has been a growth in online advertising. However, advertising must break through the clutter of other messages to reach its intended audience.

Public relations is the organizational function that manages the firm’s communications to achieve a variety of objectives, including building and maintaining a positive image, handling or heading off unfavorable stories or events, and maintaining positive relationships with the media. Like advertising, this tactic is relatively passive, in that customers do not have to take any action to receive it.

Sales promotions are special incentives or excitement-building programs that encourage the purchase of a product or service, such as coupons, rebates, contests, free samples, and point-of-purchase displays. Marketers typically design these incentives for use in conjunction with other advertising or personal selling programs. Many sales promotions, like free samples or point-of-purchase displays, are designed to build short-term sales, though others, like contests and sweepstakes, have become integral components of firms’ CRM programs as means to build customer loyalty. 

Personal selling is the two-way flow of communication between a buyer and a seller that is designed to influence the buyer’s purchase decision. Personal selling can take place in various settings: face-to-face, video teleconferencing, on the telephone, or over the Internet. Although consumers don’t often interact with professional sales people, personal selling represents an important component of many IMC programs, especially in business-to-business (B2B) settings.

The cost of communicating directly with a potential customer is quite high compared with other forms of promotion, but it is simply the best and most efficient way to sell certain products and services. Customers can buy many products and services without the help of a salesperson, but salespeople simplify the buying process by providing information and services that save customers time and effort. In many cases, sales representatives add significant value, which makes the added expense of employing them worthwhile. 

In the meantime, technology will continue to improve, and other new means of communicating with consumers will be added to the IMC channel mix. Therefore, for now, let’s look at how the components of IMC fit together with marketing metrics to achieve the organization’s strategic objectives.

The component of IMC that has received the greatest increase in aggregate spending recently is direct marketing or marketing that communicates directly with target

customers to generate a response or transaction. Direct marketing contains a variety of traditional and new forms of marketing communication initiatives. Traditional direct marketing includes mail and catalogs sent through the mail; direct marketing also includes e-mail and mobile marketing.

Internet-based technologies have had a profound effect on direct marketing initiatives. E-mail, for instance, can be directed to a specific consumer. Firms use e-mail to inform customers of new merchandise and special promotions, confirm the receipt of an order, and indicate when an order has been shipped. Currently available technologies also mean handheld devices can function as a payment medium: Just tap your cell phone, and the transaction occurs in much the same way it occurs with a credit card.

The increased use of customer databases has enabled marketers to identify and track consumers over time and across purchase situations, which has contributed to the rapid growth of direct marketing. Marketers have been able to build these databases, thanks to consumers’ increased use of credit and debit cards, store-specific credit and loyalty cards, and online shopping, all of which require the buyer to give the seller personal information that becomes part of its database. Because firms understand customers’ purchases better when they possess such information, they can more easily focus their direct marketing efforts appropriately.

Direct marketing retailers try to carefully target their customers so they will be more receptive to their messages. Omaha Steaks, for example, sends e-mail coupons for items that customers have purchased previously, mails slick pictures of gourmet steaks and meal packages to addresses that have received orders in the past, and calls customers personally during likely gift-giving occasions, such as the holidays, to offer to repeat a previous gift order. These different forms of direct marketing demonstrate how this IMC format can vary on both the interactivity and online/offline dimensions of the matrix.

Mobile marketing is marketing through wireless handheld devices, such as cellular telephones. Smartphones have become far more than tools to place calls; they offer a kind of mobile computer with the ability to obtain sports scores, weather, music, videos, and text messages, as well as purchase merchandise. Many consumers conceive of their handheld devices as a way to stay in touch with friends, making them largely resistant to the idea of receiving marketing messages on them. Marketing success rests on integrating marketing communications with fun, useful apps that are consistent with these consumer attitudes toward mobile devices. In response, firms are steadily improving customers’ potential experience with their mobile interface.

We now examine in greater depth several electronic media vehicles we mentioned previously: websites, blogs, and social media.

Firms are increasing their emphasis on communicating with customers through their websites. They use their websites to build their brand image and educate customers about their products or services and where they can be purchased. Retailers and some manufacturers sell merchandise directly to consumers over the Internet.Many firms operate websites devoted to community building. These sites offer an opportunity for customers with similar interests to learn about products and services that support their hobbies and share information with others. Visitors to these websites can also post questions seeking information and/or comments about issues, products, and services. Many firms, especially retailers, encourage customers to post reviews of products they have bought or used and even have visitors to their websites rate the quality of the reviews. Research has shown that these online product reviews increase customer loyalty and provide a competitive advantage for sites that offer them.

A blob or weblog contains periodic posts on a common Web page. A well-received blog can communicate trends and special events, create positive word of mouth, connect customers by forming a community, allow the company to respond directly to customers’ comments, and develop a long-term relationship with the company. By its very nature, a blog is supposed to be transparent and contain authors’ honest observations, which can help customers determine their trust and loyalty levels.

Social media is media content distributed through social interactions. Three major online facilitators of social media are YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. In online social media, consumers review, communicate about, and aggregate information about products, prices, and promotions. This type of social media also allows users to interact among themselves (e.g., form a community). These online communities enable users to provide other like-minded consumers (i.e., members of their community) and marketers their thoughts and evaluations about a firm’s products or services. Thus, social media help facilitate the consumer decision process by encouraging need recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase, and post purchase reviews.

Marketers can use social media to engage their customers in a proactive dialogue with other customers. When a company provides content in a social media website, people often begin sharing and commenting on it. The retailer then must monitor the feedback and respond if necessary—especially if the commentary is negative. When a firm finds an unhappy customer, it should recognize the event as a prime customer service opportunity, engage the consumer, and attempt to remedy the situation. By proactively engaging with its customers, a company can build a stronger brand and customer relationships. Furthermore, companies can develop their brand through social media that depict the company in a certain way, adding a human element that otherwise might not exist.

Facebook: This social media platform with more than 400 million active users gives companies a forum to interact with fans. Companies have access to the same features that regular users do, including a “wall” where they can post company updates, photos, and videos or participate in a discussion board. 

YouTube: On this video-sharing social media platform users upload, share, and view videos. This medium gives companies a chance to express themselves in a different way than they have before. Companies can broadcast their own channel, that is, a YouTube site that contains content relevant only to the company’s own products.

Twitter: This micro blogging site is also a platform to facilitate social media. Twitter provides another option for companies and their customers to communicate using social media. Twitter is actively used by both small and large companies. Small companies with limited marketing budgets love the response they can induce by sending a promotional message immediately.