Marketing Communication System and the Promotion Mix
Category: Marketing
The marketing communication system is the total communication pattern which goes from the company to its stakeholders (e.g. middlemen, customers, and the public), using the following Promotion Mix (tools):
Advertising Paid for without personal presentation and promotion
Sales Promotion Short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sales
Public Relation Building good relations (‘corporate image’) to the public
Personal Selling Oral presentation in a conversation with a potential purchaser for the purpose of making sales.
The company’s total marketing communication programme — its Promotion Mix — will be discussed later.
The Marketing Communication System
Steps in Developing Communication
In order to make the communication effective, the following 9 elements in the communication process from sender to receiver should be considered carefully.
The Communication Elements
Steps in Developing the Company’s Communication Programme
The communication elements are the key factors in good communication, and in order to make the communication as efficient as possible, the following considerations should be taken:
Identify the target audience. Should the target group be defined as the individuals, groups, special publics or the public in general? This decision is at the same time the basis for answering: o What to be said?
How, when and where should it be said, and o Who should say it?
Determine the response sought. How do the target group become purchasers? — in which sequence does the target group make buy-decisions?
Choose a message. The message should satisfy AIDA (get Attention, maintain Interest, arouse Desire, and obtain Action). In order to choose a message you have to solve there problems:
Contents of the message What to say?
Structuring the message How to say it logically?
Formatting the message How to say it symbolically?
Choose a media — which channel?
When, by means of ‘action parameters’, a company has decided what its product is going to «look like», it has also determined its profile.
There are various possibilities of getting in contact with the customers by means of different communication tools (parameters).
Personal contact. Personal contact is important in most companies. It is the most efficient sales form because it is direct. It is, however, costly and cannot be used if the customer group is too large. Personal contact may be:
Face-to-face (meetings, fairs) o Audience (demonstrations) o Phone
Mail, fax, or e-mail
Mass communication is a contact form where a large group of potential customers are told about a company’s products. Participation in national and international exhibitions is a common form of communication which has several advantages. It is possible to demonstrate products to a larger part of the target group, and it gives an opportunity to establish personal contacts with customers as well as potential suppliers, sub-suppliers and colleagues.
It is costly to participate in fairs. It therefore requires considerable and thorough preliminary work to get a sufficient yield from participating. It can be an advantage to participate in fairs together with one or more companies with products which supplement one’s own product programme. This will reduce the costs of the fair.
Impersonal contact. The impersonal contact is mainly in the form of advertising in various media and sending out brochures and other sales material. The effect is largest when advertising in magazines etc. which cover the target group best. A media index exists which lists the number of persons and the types reading the individual newspapers and magazines. Personal contact can be:
Advertisements. The price of advertising depends on the number of persons expected to see the media used (newspapers, magazines, directories, telephone directories, cinema, TV, radio, streamers, posters, etc.). When evaluating the price of advertising, it should be seen in relation to the expected effect of inserting the advertisement, such as number of responses to the advertisement or the number of products sold.
The advertisement should have a telling headline or an illustration to catch the reader’s attention. The message should be brief and to the point, and it is important that the reader can see what to do to get the product. Address and telephone number should therefore be included.
Brochures. A brochure describing the company and its products, in text and illustration, can support personal sales.
Sales letters. A comparatively inexpensive way of contacting potential customers is to send out sales letters, perhaps supplemented by a brochure or specimen. The purpose of a sales letter is to create a positive attitude to the product so that the customer orders the product or requests more information. When designing a sales letter, the following should be taken into consideration:
Address Correct name and address plus addressed to a named person Headline What is the purpose of the letter?
Contents What needs can be met by the product and what advantages does it give the customer?
Action What is the customer going to do now (await a call from the company,
wait for a visit, call the company, or return a reply form)?Sender Clear name and address of the contact person
PS: Repeat the offer and tell again what the customer is going to do
The customer’s waste basket is only about 20 seconds away!
Sales letters including a brochure or specimen can be sent as undressed mail or
direct mail. The postal service can deliver the undressed mail, for example sales material, in a
certain geographical area at a given time.
Direct mail. The direct marketing where the sales material is addressed to named customers or potential customers is called direct mail. Sales material can be sent out according to an address register which the company can make itself or buy from agencies.
Sales promotion. The goal of promotion is not only to inform the public about a product or service but to establish an image of the firm. Promotion can take many forms: everything from an advertisement in the local paper to the sponsorship of a community event. It should have continuity and create a strong consistent image in the mind of the consumer.
Sales promotion can use a wide variety of short-term incentive tools (e.g. coupons, premiums, contests, buying allowances designed to stimulate earlier and/or stronger market response)..
Publicity. Publicity is defined as ‘the activity of securing editorial space, as divorced from paid space, in all media read, viewed, or heard by a company’s customers or prospects, for the specific purpose of assisting in the meeting of sales goals’.
Publicity is part of a larger concept of public relation and is particularly useful to companies who have a good story to tell, but have too limited a budget to support large-scale advertising.
Selecting the message source. The message’s impact on the audience is also affected by how the audience views the sender. Messages delivered by highly credible sources are more persuasive (e.g. medicine where doctors tell about medicine products). Three factors make a source credible:
o Expertise Who have authority?
o Trustworthiness How objective/honest is the source?
o Likeability How attractive is the source?
Collect feedback. After sending the message, the communicator must measure its effect on the target audience in order to make correction and evaluate the efficiency. Ask the audience:
o Whether they remember the message?
o How many times they saw the message?
o What points they recall?
o How they felt about the message?
o Their attitudes toward the product/company.
The market chart is a good tool for feedback measurement.