Marketing communication mix

Marketing communication mix ABSTRACT: The whole work revolves around the subject of marketing communication mix. Considered to be derived from marketing mix. Communication mix consists of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, direct marketing and PR. For I-phones they use caples principle of advertisement. Advertising is effective but expensive Personal selling is expensive but is considered as cost-effective Sales promotion uses pull or push strategy. Direct marketing is common way used now days. To select right communication mix we should always use products life cycle to determine. Should keep a good eye on products sale to find the most effective way for advertisement Characteristic and role of each and every communication mix differ. LITERATURE REVIEW: I followed three different books and used AIDA, john caples principle and example of i-phone in my assignment. Most of the items I used were written by Philip kotler. I tried to use some facts and figures to prove my findings and as books being credible source I tried to use them rather than using internet sources. Mostly pictures are copied from internet only and all the items are referenced accordingly. Dr. kotler is considered one of the worlds leading authority on management and is considered pioneer writer in the field of international marketing and branding. MARKETING COMMUNICATION MIX: In this era of digital technology and competition, no one can survive without marketing; either its the product, brand or a service. The best definition of marketing was given by Al Ries and Trout â€Å"marketing is the performance of those activities which seek to accomplish organizations objective by anticipating customer or client needs and directing flow of need-satisfying goods and services from producer to customer or client.†(Source: Al Ries, Trout jack, 2006, marketing warfare, McGraw hill companies. Inc.) MARKETING MIX: Marketing alone couldnt be taken on account to anticipate and fulfill the customer needs. To just check the existence and evidence of presence of marketing communication mix we will look at 7 Ps of marketing. In 1960 Mccarthy came up with 4 Ps of marketing. The marketing mix according to some authors was already used as term before her in 1940s while later in 1980 booms and Bernard came up with 3 more Ps. The use of these 3 Ps is still debatable and is criticized by many people. (Sources: http://www.continuumlearning.com/Customer%20Services_7Ps%20of%20Services.pdf, http://www.netmba.com/marketing/mix/) MARKETING COMMUNICATION MIX AND IMPORTANCE: As from above we have seen that the marketing is not only about promoting your product but also depends other 6 factors but as we are talking about communication mix, it mostly relates to promotion. The communication is required between the customer and the business in order to increase the transactions or to maximize the daily sales of the business. It is important to mention here that the right communication mix is important to be chosen which suites the business needs and is the clearest way for the business to convey the message. Belch, E. and Belch A. describe Integrated Marketing Communications as â€Å"a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communication disciplines and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact†.(source: http://www.oppapers.com/essays/MarketingCommunicationsMix/13818.). In 1961 according to the same author Albert Frey was the first one to distinguish between communication tools and offering. Simply saying offerings are the service u offer used e.g. product, price and brand etc while tools you use such as place; promotion etc. so according to him which ever way you take you will use all your approaches for people. (Smith p r, Taylor Jonathan, 2004, 4th edition, marketing communications, Gutenberg press ltd, Malta) From all the discussion above we can conclude that the communication mix tools are as follows: The most common used promoting media used are:Internet, telesales, banners, broachers, radio, TV, telephone, newspaper etc. According to caple principle of promoting or advertising: Get attention Hold attention Create desire Make it believable Prove its a bargain Make it easy to buy Give reason to buy CASE STUDY: From my point of view, I-phone uses this kind of strategy for their sales. Most of the times we see the I-phone holding the whole last page of newspaper and showing what this product can do and the other ordinary phone might not be able to. The product before and after launch is advertised so many times to remind the customer of the phone that a lot of customers are attracted. As result many customers buy the product and we normally see the line in front of apple shops when the product is launched. They use sale promotion strategy for ending line of product. I.e. they used the sales promotion where they were finishing line of 2.5g (1st generation I-phone) where they reduced the price of phone, in order to boost the sale and finish the line of product when it was on declining stage. This helped company to get some potential customers. ADVERTISING: Advertising is said as very simple but expensive form of promotion. Advertising can be different depending on product or media used. For example on TV or it can also be in the form of internet advertisement. But this is considered most expensive because anyone who uses this have to either use large campaigns or use their lots of time in this kind of promotion. Advertising is the form of promotion is considered as non-personal promotional mix because the business doesnt know if their message is received by its customer or not, do people understand the product etc. CHARACTERESTIC OF ADVERTISMENT: According to Kotler characteristic of advertising are Public presentation: advertising is considered as highly public mode of communication and people consider this kind of promotion more because they consider that the offer they have been made through the media is standard. Pervasiveness: it is the medium of communication where a seller can repeat its message many times and this as a result help buyer to compare the sellers product with other competitors or substitute available. Amplified expensiveness: means that if company use little bit of different way or expensive way from its competitor, it might result in getting buyers attention. Impersonality: means that the customer or buyer is not as much motivated to buy the product or service as much as he is through a sales agent. As it is one way communication so the customer might wants to know about the product but cant because he cant speak to advertisement. The most common way of advertisement is TV, radio, newspaper, broachers and magazines etc.The advertisement is really beneficial in creating long term relationship between consumer, product and business. E.g. coca-cola uses all time red color for advertisement of their product and uses same advertisement many times a day to attract customer. PURPOSE OF ADVERTISMENT: The main purpose of advertisement is to get buyers attention, which creates interest and a desire rises in customer following the action (buying). According to the same website UK advertising expenditure in 2008 was  £18.6 billion. Not only that but also if we notice in our daily life routine we might go to some place and pay attention to the product for which we have seen advertisement recently. Sometime on local buses we see some poster and think that do we need the product or not and sometime even though we dont need it we might end up buying it. PERSONAL SELLING: It is considered to be one of most cost-effective kind of promotion. Some books also consider this as the most expensive one as well because of wage cost to the company, travelling cost and the company always have to offer the people with some kind of incentives to boost sales. Personal selling is considered effective because the business can feel the consumers requirement and can make up a package for consumer in order to fulfill their needs. The consumer can also look at the packages that suits best to their needs and can also tell the sales representative about their needs .e.g. British gas etc. Normally we see people from gas and electricity companies doing this kind of promotion. CHARACTERESTIC OF PERSONAL SELLING: According to Kotler(1997) the main characteristics are Personal confrontation: involves consumer and business representative where the need of consumer can be felt by the supplier. They can either come to some point of agreement or the business can offer some flexibility to consumer in order to gain or retrieve a customer. Cultivation: means that the business can adjust their offers according to customers need in order to maintain good relationship between business and customer. Sales representatives mostly use affectionate and friendly kind of approach towards their customers. Response: means that the buyers mostly respond to their seller and their response can be taken in account to increase sale. The response can be either good or bad depending on what customer feels about the product. ROLE: The main role of personal selling is mostly Acquire new potential customers and provide old customers the best service. Try to sale the product efficiently After sale provide them with best services Close the sale If resources or stock become less try to allocate other resources to make sure that customer remain in business with us. Though this kind of selling is decreasing due to presence of media like internet, TV and telephones. The costly method still used but only by some companies. Most of the companies have changed with changing world. SALES PROMOTION: It is normally used to boost the sale mostly at declining stage of the product. It offers the customer with either discounts or some kind of other special offers which results in customer attraction and as a result customer buys the product. Normally business uses coupon, special offers ands discounts etc. This kind of promotion is only good for short term and doesnt lead to long term relationship between business and customer. For example some companies use even ebay to do their promotions by using bid auctions like a company called EOL (end-o-line). Another is example is to supply customer with offers like by 1 and get 1 free etc. CHARACTERESTIC: According to Kotler three distinctive benefits and characteristics are Communication: mostly this kind of promotion gets the customers attention and provides customer with the information which may lead to transaction. Incentives: the business introduces some kind of concession, offers or vouchers to increase the sale temporarily. Invitation: the customers are usually forced to do the transaction soon by saying either till stocks last or till the date. This helps business to get more transactions in the limited time. ROLE: Sales promotion normally uses push, pull. These play an important role in any sales promotion. According to davedolak.com business uses push strategy to get the traders to stock their items and also give good offers, as a result, the trade people put more sales effort in order to maximize their profit. The product might be sold again to one of the wholesalers or end consumers. This is normally used in B2B relationship. The pull strategy is that the consumer is offered a good discount on buying product from the business. Sometime it is also used as a term that the business waits for the consumer to turn up and order the product and is produced, as they cant stock of the products life cycle. This is used for B2C relationship. Normally car suppliers and showrooms use this kind of strategy to promote sale to consumer and finish the old stock. PUBLIC RELATIONS: This kind of promotion is used by company to make their image better in public eyes. There is a different department for this kind of promotion. These departments mostly try to improve their companys goodwill in consumers eye. For example Durex the condom makers donated 50,000 condoms to NGOs in December on world aids day. The other thing they started was that they went to the social networking website â€Å"Facebook† and launched some games in order to increase awareness and sales. The company or business might do some charities or sponsor some kind of good cause. The companies might also use newsletter or news releases to improve PR. CHARACTERESTICS: According to Kortley(1997) role of PR is High credibility: most of the time people trust news or articles more than other like advertisement, personal selling or sales promotion. ABILITY: it is much easier to catch people who avoid personal selling. So the message is read by more people and this might result in more sales. DRAMATIZATION: it also has potential of setting company or product reputation at the level which company is not in real life. This can be the result of advertising as well. ROLES: In normal routine of life these people play an important role in image of a company as they are the one responsible for news releases and the charitable functions. The PR has to make sure that they do their work through the right channel so that it can be recognized by the people. E.g. they shouldnt help the cause of cutting trees as it might hurt many peoples feelings. They should try to reach those people who cannot be reached because they avoid personal selling etc. another thing that they should try to help campaigns with their product rather than money as it will improve the products sale and image. For example IBM provides non-profit companies with discounted price on purchase of their items. DIRECT MARKETING: This type of promotion is used by mails, telemarketing and catalog marketing. This is quite effective way of promotion because the response can be taken on account to increase sale or acquire new customers from other competitors. E.g. sometime we receive a call on our numbers offering different services or products (especially on landlines). Some other schools of thoughts also consider e-marketing as a part of this promotion type like e-mails for promotions or sales. (Kutler, 1997). CHARACTERESTICS: According to Kutler(1997), there are four types of direct marketing. Nonpublic: the letter or e-mail or telephone is for specific person who have subscribed to some offers. Customized: normally can be different for two different customers depending on their buying history. Up-to-date: offer can be prepared delivered quickly using e-marketing or telesales. Interactive: customer can be offered with much more different choices in this kind of promotion. ROLE: Normally companies use bombardment of e-mail to many customers and wait for their response. This way have been used a lot now days and is becoming less effective as people always consider them as junk e-mail. Another way of e-marketing is using social websites like facebook to introduce or advertise the product. E.g. durex used this kind of strategy and introduced some games on social networking website to increase the sale. Another way is cataloging, where the businesses send the people to drop the catalogue and the consumer can call and order the product. Last but not least now they use special television channels and phone calls to inspire and get some business from the potential customers. CRITICAL ANLYSIS: As from all the information we have seen the characteristic which are most probably advantages while in introduction of ever kind of promotion I have discussed some disadvantages as well to make sure that the business using any kind of this can know the harmful and useful points of their promotion and the role tells us the importance of the particular communication mix. IMPORTANCE: The importance of marketing communication mix can also be felt when we see that it is connected with the marketing mix. The research on this started from 1940. It flourished with the entrance of new media. Businesses always try to use communication mix to get the share and attention of market. Due to increased competition level we can use one of the tools to acquire new customers in the market. Right communication mix can be used by realizing right target customers. SELECTION OF RIGHT COMMUNICATON MIXES: As we discussed earlier about the I-phone, we will now see how the product should be advertised through out its life cycle to make it a success. PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE: First stage is pre introduction stage where we use very small amount on advertising and just to let people know that we are launching some new product. On 2nd stage i.e. introduction we use PR and advertisement. On3rd stage of growth we need heavy amount of money to be spent in order to make product successful in the market. At maturity level we use less advertising as a tool but now we use more and more sales promotion and PR. At the decline we use sales promotion but some company might use direct marketing as a tool as well to provide customers with good offers. The first and foremost thing for any campaign is that it should know who their target market is and what age group they are looking for. Then depending on their objective they can use one of the models to solve their problem. COMMUNICATION OBJECTIVE: Depending on market type the company or business should enter in, the business should decide their communication objective depending on their product and policies. Depending on your product, target market and business you can select the model and decide what should be the strategy from pre introduction stage till the decline stage. For example in case of an innovation free trial is important. Apple used this kind of strategy when they allowed people to take computers, pc or laptops to home and could use it over the weekend as trial and can buy it after they think the product is efficient enough for use. COMMUNICATION LANDSCAPE: According to Kotler (2008) businesses are moving towards the focused marketing rather than mass marketing. The businesses use the tool of advertisement and promotion in the places where they should and only focus on their target market and people rather than the old technique of sending their message to many people which may result as one of the do the transaction. People do not pay attention to ads and promotion of the product they might not be interested in, most of the time they try to skip the section of advertisements and breaks while watching TV. So it is important to have the right focus group now days to increase sale and transactions. Kotler and his fellow writers used word of broadcasting which is to play the advertisement for mass media thinking that it might result in transaction. The other word he used was narrowcast where only interested and potential customers are target. He used these terms in his â€Å"shifting marketing communication model†. According to them due to change in ICT and presence of internet people are motivated to use online sources to watch their favorite programs and skip the ads in between the breaks. Only few people might watch those. Although mass media like TV and radio is evergreen but is decreased because of presence of internet. An average person spends 5 times more time on internet than TV. Thats why companies now use their ads on internet and use social networking websites for publicity etc. e.g. companies like Cadbury uses the statement on their website â€Å"find us on facebook†.(source: kotley Philip, armstrong garry, wong veronica, saunders john, 2008, principles of marketing, fifth edition,pearson education ltd. ) CONCLUSION: All the companies or businesses have to spend in this field to make sure that they get the expected results from the product and the business. If the company fails to use right communication mix at the right time, their product will be a waste for them and might result in little sale. All 5 communication mix together can lead to a good business, as they all can be used depending on life cycle of the product. The communication objectives should be kept in mind for a successful business. Depending on the product the message should be designed appropriately to reach to the audience. RECOMMENDATIONS: Businesses should identify their needs first. Businesses should try to fix the budget for promotional and advertising purpose. Businesses should allocate resources in case of no resource available to keep the campaigns going. Business should also allocate fixed amount of money or products to PR as well. Sales promotion times should not be fixed on introduction time. The message should be designed professionally and to the perfection. For the products affordable method should be chosen. The business should try to use same logo or slogan for their products. PR should try to use news release and other form of media to improve reputation of the company. Checks on sale should be carried out by the business in order to find most effective communication mix for their company. REFRENCES: BOOKS: Al Ries, Trout jack, 2006, marketing warfare, McGraw hill companies. Inc. Smith p r, Taylor Jonathan, 2004, 4th edition, marketing communications, Gutenberg press ltd, Malta Kotler Philip, 1997, 9th edition, marketing management, prentice hall international inc. kotley Philip, armstrong garry, wong veronica, saunders john, 2008, principles of marketing, fifth edition,pearson education ltd. 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