The Marketing Communications Mix - Case Study Example

Contents Contents Introduction 2 Analysis of Virginia Tourism Corporation 4 Advertising 6 Personal Selling 8 Sales Promotion 9 Public Relations 11 Conclusion 11 Works Cited 12 Introduction "The Marketing Communications Mix is the specific mix of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations a company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing objectives."(Dolak). Marketing communication Mix therefore is a combination of various strategic tools which give rise to the overall communication mix of the organization. This communication mix include advertising, personal selling, sales promotion as well as public relations. Through forming a balanced combination of all these items, organizations attempt to deliver their communication mix which helps them to achieve their strategic advantages over the competition. This case study is about the Virginia Tourism Corporation which is considered as a creative and dynamic organisation taking the advantage of historical relevance and beauty of the Virginia state. The corporation is also considered as one of the most important organisations in Virginia State and has been continuously involved into the various important innovative techniques of doing business which has capitalized the way tourism business has been done in the country. Due to its romantic appeal, Virginia has remained a hot spot for the tourists and it is because of this reason that Virginia Corporation is engaged into delivering tourism services to the many tourists coming from around the world to visit the aesthetic beauty of the region. As discussed above that the marketing mix is a combination of various marketing tools of strategic nature which when combined produce the results which attempt to support the organisational goals and objectives. Marketing communication techniques are basically the tools which are used by the organisation's different departments i.e. marketing, product development etc to decide upon the various important parameters. For a service oriented organisation, it is very critical that the various elements of marketing communication mix fit together to achieve the maximum results. It is because of this reason that services are perishable in nature and the impact which a physical product could have on the mindset of the customer may not be achieved through offering a service therefore service oriented organisations have to travel extra mile to reach and delight their customers and deliver value to them through combination of excellent marketing communication techniques. For this purpose, organisations therefore need to be more proactive as well as innovative in their approach to deliver value to the customers. This is achieved through the use of various tools available such as pricing through innovative means, initiating promotional activities which ensure that more and more customers come to use your services, broadening the base of channels used to generate the sales as well as engaging into effective public relation efforts so that all elements when combined deliver value to the organisation's stakeholders as well as the customers. This work will attempt to study and analyse the marketing communication techniques adopted by the organization as its effort to better place itself strategically against the competition and deliver value to both its customers as well as stakeholders besides ensuring that the organisation hold highest ethical values and social responsibility while working in an strongly service oriented industry. Analysis of Virginia Tourism Corporation The case study provided for preparing the analysis of the various marketing communication techniques relate to the Virginia Tourism Corporation. Virginia due to its natural beauty as well as historical context is considered as one of the most popular tourist spots in the country. It is very important to discuss here some of the basic characteristics of the Virginia state before discussing the various marketing communication techniques adopted by the VTC. Before discussing what is required for the case study, it is very important that we present an analysis of the Virginia state because tourism industry largely is driven by the State's natural beauty as well as historical context. This is also important because of the fact that it can provide a good indication of the external environment within which the organisation work and how the external environment may have on the organisation's marketing communication mix strategies. Virginia as discussed above is considered as one of the hot spots for tourists. The State is considered as accessible as it is located within radius of the 60% population of the US and 30% of the Canadian Population. Due to its location, the organisations working in this area enjoy different competitive advantages which organisations in some other states of the country may not enjoy in normal circumstances. The presence of the low cost airliners in the State suggests that the tourists can find themselves at ease while travelling to Virginia because of the cheaper transportation mechanism present in the State. This is one of the most important facts which will have a great importance while discussing the pricing strategies of VTC. As for as the competitive landscape of the stat is concerned, it is important to mention here the fact that the state is ranked among top 10 US states in terms of tourism attraction. However, it is also pertinent to mention that marketing budget of the state is low as compared to other states despite its high standing in terms of tourism. It is also of great importance that the historical trends of advertising and marketing budget in the state is decreasing over the period of time therefore this fact alone can have a significance influence over the way marketing communication mix is designed and implemented within the organisation to achieve the strategic objectives of the firm. It is also very critical to mention here the fact that the role of Virginia Tourism Corporation is to improve the image of the state as a tourist spot therefore it is very critical for our analysis because the core beliefs and values of the organisation play critical role in shaping the overall strategies of the organisation and marketing mix being one of the most important tool is also used keeping in view the overall objective of the organisation. Further, organisation also need to be proactive in their approach while dealing with the issues of marketing mix because it can effectively decide the strategic fate of the organisation. In delivering services, there are two important components which can ensure the successfully delivery of the service. First the people hired by the organisation and second the process involved in delivering such services. It is very important that the service oriented organisations have well trained staff that has the capability to deliver the promised services at a declared level of quality. Since services are perishable in nature therefore their delivery largely depends upon how the persons involved in the whole process of delivering the service behave and act. VTC has planned to train the individuals involved in the hospitality services so that on one hand not only their overall skill level can be improved but also their ability to deliver the service at the declared quality standards is achieved. Further the process is also very important within the tourism industry because the conventional means of delivering the service may not work effectively for this kind of industry and it is because of this reason that the firms often tend to emphasize on the process elements, such as billings, payments, customer management, of the overall marketing mix is properly managed and taken care off. Further, it is also very important that the service organisations working in tourism industry need to build successful networks not only with their core customers but with other allied associates such as providers of various critical services to the customers during their stay in the particular area of visit. Thus the overall aim of the orgnaisation should be to concentrate on creating an environment for their customers where they feel delighted while wandering the area of the visit and they must have adequate access to the various important and critical products and services and VTC seems to have planned to achieve a degree of success in this regard by creating a state wide network with other stakeholders to improve upon the overall visitation experience of the travelers. The following sections of the essay will discuss and critically analyse the marketing mix communication techniques being employed by Virginia Tourism Corporation. Advertising Advertising is a very unique and distinguished way of marketing your products, services and your organisation because many of the times you need to pay to the advertising agencies. Considering the contextual position of the Virginia as an state which is being regarded as a romantic place with lot of history behind it suggest that the Unique selling proposition of the state should be its Romanism and all the marketing communication mix strategies should have been ideally directed towards exploiting that image and VTC has been successful in implementing the marketing strategies which help exploit that image of the state by initiating programs such as Live Passionately. It is because of this reason that the advertising efforts of the company are recognized industry wise. Studies have suggested that the permanent sales get affected through the temporary marketing action such as short term advertising, promotional activities etc (Slotegraff) therefore the strategic direction of the advertising strategies of the firm is mostly towards achieving the long term results for the state. It is also because of this reason that the VTC focus on exploiting and improving the image of state through position it in such a way that on overall it improves the image of the state as a place which has lot to offer for people who like to come there for vacations, have office meetings etc. It is also very critical to mention here that the fact that the firm has a well defined target market to which it intends to advertise. For an effective advertising it is very important that the proper segmentation of the customers should be done as proper segmentation has the implications for the overall competitiveness of the firm. (Galeotti and Moraga-Gonzlez). Thus having successfully catering the basic ingredients of a good advertising compaign, VTC launched its various promotional activities such as Live Passionately and it was properly advertised on the television, radio, print, billboards as well as online marketing. It is also very important to mention here the fact that company has been able to use the different combinations of colors into its advertising schemes suggesting that the advertising has been targeted well to the desired audience. Since the emphasis has been on presenting the image of Virginia as as an State good enough for the young lovers therefore the use of colors as well as targetting females as the targeted lot of customers. A good advertising campaign demands that it supports the overall purpose of the whole marketing effort of the company. In doing so, the identification of the customer segment is very critical because identifying a clear group of customers help organisations to decide on the advertising vehicles to be used to deliver the intended message which the firm is willing to communicate to customers and it seems that VTC has been able to communicate its message through an effective advertising delivery mechanism. Personal Selling In a service oriented organisation which is working into a tourism industry, personal selling may be a difficult task and the organisations may to go beyond their capabilities to achieve the same level of success as they may have achieved through other conventional methods of the selling the services to their customers. Personal setting, within the context of B2B marketing can be effective however for a service oriented organisation this can prove very costly as it due to diversified nature of the consumers, it becomes hard to identify them and cross sell them to personal selling. (Fyall and Garrod). However, VTC seemed to have designed methods to deliver the services through personal selling. It is very important to mention here the fact that the organisation have decided to convince travelers to travel to Virginia. This convincing may be considered as one of the steps towards initiating personal selling as a method of achieving the objective of the firms. It is also very critical to understand that personal selling within the context of the tourism industry may largely depend upon developing the networks (Fyall and Garrod) and VTC seem to have develop and collaborate state wide marketing programs as well as training the hospitality workers. Online marketing in service sector may be considered as one of the innovative ways of personal selling and VTC seems to have perfectly utilizing this tool with the overall aim of increasing the visitation to Virginia by 20%. This increase in visitation is exclusively being achieved through the use of online marketing. Further, the firm has also planned to initiate a viral marketing which can serve as one of the most powerful tools for personal selling however it is still very unclear as to how VTC intends to divert the traffic towards its planned site and how viral marketing campaign will be designed and used to achieve the personal selling objectives of the firm. Sales Promotion Within the context of tourism industry, it is often being argued that the physical environment of the tourism should be good enough to make it realize for the customers that they are experiencing something tangible. Since tourism is mostly related with the intangible aspects of marketing mix therefore to create an environment which has the physical relevance has very critical implications for the sales promotion activities initiated by the firm. VTC's advertising department has an objective of participating in cooperative advertising programs and offer 10% more cost effective and attractive coops with other incentives suggest that the sales promotional activities of the firm are bi-directional in nature. Since VTC's chief aim is to project the image of Virginia as a preferred destination for tourism therefore it has to collaborate not only with its direct customers i.e. visitors but also with the other allied players such as suppliers of various goods and services to the visitors during their visit to the state. This would mean that the sales promotion activities of the firm should be directed both at the visitors as well as the suppliers of those services. The available facts suggest that VTC has the plans to initiate sales promotional activities for its suppliers but for customers i.e. visitors, there is no direct reference as to how the sales promotional activities such as offering discounts, point of sales promotional activities will took place. It is also important to mention that the company is also intending to initiate the viral marketing campaign. Viral marketing help organisations to raise their brand identity through a completely unique and different way and can also serve as one of the strongest tools to initiate sales promotional activities by the firm. (Simmons). However it is unclear as to how the firm is intending to utilize this tool and as such there remains a wide gap between the means of achieving the marketing objectives and the plans which have been chalked out to achieve those objectives. Viral marketing is also one of the chosen methods of marketing by the firm however it is debatable whether the target market i.e. female baby boomers use internet so often and whether at this mature age, they will be willing to play games and other online tricks to lead them to the original message of making Virginia as they next destination of their vacation. It is also very critical to mention here the fact that since VTC will be collaborating with other firms also therefore it is still ambiguous as to how the firm is going to enforce the sales promotional activities for other players in this whole chain of delivering the service. Public Relations There are five broader objectives of VTC in terms of its public relation efforts. The firm intends to bring media journalist, delivering various media pitches, development of multi-cultured marketing programs as well as educating the officials regarding the possible economic benefits of the tourism. Tourism has a very strong capability to affect the very social fabrics of the society as it has the significant influence over the way how its users interact with its environment. It is therefore important that the public relation efforts of the firm should be well directed and accurately projected. (L'Etang and Pieczka). Since public relations and publicity is largely considered as unpaid and voluntary in nature therefore it is really important that the public relations of the firm should be aligned with the environment within which the organisation works. However, on the other hand, the public relation component of the company's marketing communication mix seems to be focusing more on commercial aspect of this element rather than improving the general image of the organisation. VTC seems to be more interested into improving its image by inviting journalists to visit the state and then write positively about the tourism potential of the region. Though this technique may seems to be working however, theoretically this technique can create significant public relation fiasco for the organisation too as the paid projection of the state's tourism through publicity may tarnish the image of the organisation. Conclusion Virginia Tourism Corporation, VTC, is a very important and innovative Virginia based organisation engaged into promoting the tourism within the State. For this purpose, it has designed a comprehensive marketing plan. A closer analysis of the marketing communication techniques employed by VTC suggests that most of its techniques are effective enough to ensure that the firm succeeds into fulfilling its objectives. Its advertising programs are well targeted and tailored according to the needs of the customers besides exploiting the Virginia's historical relevance as well as its beauty. However, other marketing mix communication techniques may be somewhat off-tracked from the main objectives of the firm. The marketing plan has left many important areas which if have been incorporated into the marketing plan could have achieved more and better results for the company. Works Cited 1. Fyall, Alan and Brian Garrod. Tourism Marketing. Australia: Channel View Publications, 2005. 2. Galeotti, Andrea and , Jos Luis Moraga-Gonzlez. "Segmentation, advertising and prices." International Journal of Industrial Organization 26.5 (2008): p1106-1119. 3. L'Etang, Jacquie and Magda Pieczka. Public Relations. Chicago: Routledge, 2006. 4. Simmons, Geoffrey J. "i-Branding": developing the internet as a branding tool." Marketing Intelligence & Planning 25.6 (2005): 544-562. 5. Slotegraff, Rebecca J. "The impact of brand equity and innovation on the long term effectiveness of promotions." Journal of Marketing Research 55 (2008): 293-306. 6. Dolak, Dave. (2008). The Marketing Communications (Promotion) Mix. Available: http://www.davedolak.com/promix.htm. Last accessed 12 August 2008. Read More