What is Integrated Marketing Communications

IMC is a strategic business process used to plan, develop, execute and evaluate coordinated, measurable, persuasive brand communication programs with consumers, customers, prospects employees and other relevant external and internal audiences.

Traditional Approach to Marketing

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is an approach to brand communications where the different modes work together to create a seamless experience for the customer and are presented with a similar tone and style that reinforces the brand’s core message. Its goal is to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations direct marketing, online communications and social media work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation, which maximizes their cost effectiveness.

IMC is becoming more significant in marketing practice because of the reduced cost effectiveness of mass media and media fragmentation. As consumers spend more time online and on mobile devices all exposures of the brand need to tie together so they are more likely to be remembered.

Promotion : What Why and How

Definition:

The function of informing, persuading, and influencing the consumer’s purchase decision.

Goals of Promotion:

—Inform: this is what we offer (especially new, car financing)

—Persuade: we are better (Kia & Honda) (similar to competition)

—Remind: have them already (well established with loyal base; JC Penny)

AIDA: Attention?

—Attention-> Interest-> Desire ->ACTION!!!

—It gets harder as you go….

—Attention (e.g., sign-flippers, clowns)

—Headline (New York Post; only part read)

—Visuals (sex)

—Layout

—Colors

—Size (Times Square)

—Electronic: sound; music; animation

—Gross images (this nasty eyeball gets your attention!)

AIDA: Interest?

—Keep Interest – difficult in “our ADD world”

—Tactics:

—Drama/story (Dos Equiss )

—Cartoons (M&Ms)

—Dialog (it’s a Diet Coke Thing;

—Wusssssup?)

Doritos Commercial:What tactics do they attempt  to hold your interest?

AIDA: Desire?

—Arouse desire

—Tactics:

—USP: Unique selling proposition (Gillette razor; clear deodorant, clear soda)

—Provide a rationale (“I’m worth it”)

—Address “you” with their needs/problems

(“Do you want to make more $?”;

        “Have you been injured in an accident?”)

Federal Express: When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.

AIDA: Action?

—Action – if consumers’ desire, hope action is natural (and realistic for them):

—Ask consumers to do something (log on to…; call..)

—Imperative: “Drink Coke,”  “Fly the Friendly Skies”

—Facilitate: 1-800 or web

—Direct competitive: supplies are limited!!

Promotional Mix:Advertising

DEFINITION:

 Any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas or products in the "prime media": i.e. television, newspapers, magazines, billboard posters, radio, cinema etc. Advertising is intended to persuade and to inform. The two basic aspects of advertising are the message (what you want your communication to say) and the medium (how you get your message across).

OBJECTIVES:

•   To promote
•   To remind
•   To support
•   To compete
•   To persuade

CHANNELS:

1.   Outdoor
2.   Business directories
3.   Magazines / newspapers
4.   TV / cinema
5.   Radio
6.   Newsagent windows

CATEGORIES:

1.  Above the line advertising is advertising placed in TV, radio, newspaper and cinema.
2.   Below the line advertising is based around advertising via direct mail, sponsorship and sales promotion.

WORKING:

Advertising is an element of promotion that affects other marketing variables.

It is designed to give the customer a view of the product that the marketing department has set out. It also creates an image through the advertising of the price. For example, a high price gives the impression of a quality product, and a low price the opposite. People associate a lot of their opinions on a product by way of the price.

Goods available in certain shops result in a certain impression. This is all part of developing the brand image and creating customer loyalty.

Packaging is central to the advertising strategy, as people's impression of a product can be solely based on packaging. As such, it is a central part of the marketing mix. This conveys a lot of the image of a brand that a company wants to project.

Changes in the pace that a product is marketed are also part of how advertising affects marketing. New products, updated versions of a product and a variation will all have an effect on the way a customer perceives a product. If a new product is introduced then immediately it can be interpreted in a certain way; if a product remains unchanged for years it can also have a certain influence on how a product is viewed. Either stagnancy can prove that a product has been consistent in its quality or that the brand can not come up with an innovative new solution.

Advertising is used as part of a marketing strategy in order to raise awareness and create interest in the brand or product you are trying to sell. While advertising is a single part of the Marketing mix it can be an important one and using the right techniques, not only in the production of the actual advert but also the placement of it is crucial.

Sometimes word of mouth may be even more important and this is a strategy that has been used for a while to create a buzz around products. This can be created by the product’s uniqueness itself or the advertising message can be quirky enough to get people talking even if the product isn't so exciting. Association with other brands such as a TV show or sports event can also bring in a new audience but this advertising needs to fit in with the marketing strategy.

There have been many techniques and trends within advertising and different agencies will have their own new ideas to add to the mix. Fundamentally though, advertising will only be one part of a marketing strategy, which will also have to take in research, public relations exercises, distribution and supply chain as well as pricing and sales strategies to deal with retailers.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES:

	Advantages	Disadvantages
Advertising	·         Good for building awareness ·         Effective at reaching a wide audience ·         Repetition of main brand and product positioning helps build customer trust	·         Impersonal - cannot answer all a customer's questions ·         Not good at getting customers to make a final purchasing decision

Promotional Mix:Personal Selling

Personal selling is oral communication with potential buyers of a product with the intention of making a sale. The personal selling may focus initially on developing a relationship with the potential buyer, but will always ultimately end with an attempt to "close the sale"

Personal selling is one of the oldest forms of promotion. It involves the use of a sales force to support a push strategy (encouraging intermediaries to buy the product) or a pull strategy (where the role of the sales force may be limited to supporting retailers and providing after-sales service).

What are the main roles of the sales force?

Kotler describes six main activities of a sales force:
(1) Prospecting - trying to find new customers

(2) Communicating - with existing and potential customers about the product range

(3) Selling - contact with the customer, answering questions and trying to close the sale

(4) Servicing - providing support and service to the customer in the period up to delivery and also post-sale

(5) Information gathering - obtaining information about the market to feedback into the marketing planning process

(6) Allocating - in times of product shortage, the sales force may have the power to decide how available stocks are allocated
                                            

 The advantages of using personal selling as a means of promotion

• Personal selling is a face-to-face activity; customers therefore obtain a relatively high degree of personal attention

• The sales message can be customised to meet the needs of the customer

• The two-way nature of the sales process allows the sales team to respond directly and promptly to customer questions and concerns

• Personal selling is a good way of getting across large amounts of technical or other complex product information

• The face-to-face sales meeting gives the sales force chance to demonstrate the product

• Frequent meetings between sales force and customer provide an opportunity to build good long-term relationships

Given that there are many advantages to personal selling, why do more businesses not maintain a direct sales force?

Main disadvantages of using personal selling

The main disadvantage of personal selling is the cost of employing a sales force. Sales people are expensive. In addition to the basic pay package, a business needs to provide incentives to achieve sales (typically this is based on commission and/or bonus arrangements) and the equipment to make sales calls (car, travel and subsistence costs, mobile phone etc).

In addition, a sales person can only call on one customer at a time. This is not a cost-effective way of reaching a large audience.

Promotional Mix:Sales Promotion

Sales promotion describes promotional methods using special short-term techniques to persuade members of a target market to respond or undertake certain activity. As a reward, marketers offer something of value to those responding generally in the form of lower cost of ownership for a purchased product (e.g., lower purchase price, money back) or the inclusion of additional value-added material (e.g., something more for the same price).

Ways of sales promotion

Sales promotions are often confused with advertising. For instance, a television advertisement mentioning a contest awarding winners with a free trip to a Caribbean island may give the contest the appearance of advertising. While the delivery of the marketer’s message through television media is certainly labeled as advertising, what is contained in the message, namely the contest, is considered a sales promotion. The factors that distinguish between the two promotional approaches are:

1. whether the promotion involves a short-term value proposition (e.g., the contest is only offered for a limited period of time), and
2. the customer must perform some activity in order to be eligible to receive the value proposition (e.g., customer must enter contest).
   The inclusion of a timing constraint and an activity requirement are hallmarks of sales promotion.

Sales promotions are used by a wide range of organizations in both the consumer and business markets, though the frequency and spending levels are much greater for consumer products marketers. One estimate by the Promotion Marketing Association suggests that in the US alone spending on sales promotion exceeds that of advertising.

Public relations

Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an individual or an organization and the public. Public relations provides an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment. The aim of public relations by a company often is to persuade the public, investors, partners, employees, and other stakeholders to maintain a certain point of view about it, its leadership, products, or of political decisions. Common activities include speaking at conferences, winning industry awards, working with the press, and employee communication

Essential functions of public relations include research, planning, communication, dialogue and evaluation.

Specific public relations disciplines include:

• Financial public relations – providing information mainly to business reporters
• Consumer/lifestyle public relations – gaining publicity for a particular product or service, rather than using advertising
• Crisis public relations – responding to negative accusations or information
• Industrial relations – providing information to trade bodies
• Government relations – engaging government departments to influence policymaking

Other public relations activities include:

• Publicity events, pseudo-events, photo ops or publicity stunts
• Speeches to constituent groups and professional organizations; receptions; seminars, and other events; personal appearances
• Talk show circuit: a public relations spokesperson, or the client, "does the circuit" by being interviewed on television and radio talk shows with audiences that the client wishes to reach
• Books and other writings
• Collateral literature, both offline and online
• Direct communication (carrying messages directly to audiences, rather than via the mass media) with, for example, printed or email newsletters
• Blogs
• Social media and Social networking services

???Try answering these questions based on your learning from the above blog???

Q:-Different aspects of promotional mix?how sales promotion is different from advertising?

Q:-In the present scenario compare the relevance of Public Relations?Compare the

 importance of advertising and public relations for a firm with a proper justification 

Q:-What is the main role of sales force?the advantage of using personal selling as means of promotion?