Customer Relationships and Marketing Communications - Essay Example

"You can fool all the people all of the time, if the advertising is right and the budget is big enough." Word count: 4547words Twenty first century is encompassed by various technologies, so can we really say that the target audience can be fooled if the advertising media is right and the budget is big enough I would disagree because I believe this very thought does not hold good in this new era flooded with trends and technologies. In today's scenario due to drastic advancements in various fields with the involvement of newer technologies, information has become translucent. Media has enhanced to many mediums such as newspapers, weekly journals, Internet ads, E-mails, Television ads, specialized exhibits with personalized demonstrations, salesmen and so on. These mediums have driven out various methodologies to be implemented as marketing communication trends. Marketing communications have also been upgraded to integrated marketing communications. Technology has enabled the producers to integrate various communications methods to obtain effective branding of products. A right branding methodology needs to be implemented. This perfect scheme of branding involves lot more than just advertising and huge budget investment. Technology has grown manifolds and has been a great boon to mankind over the past few years. Since the past decade, the invent of the Internet has provided man with a strong weapon to acquire every minute details pertaining to various products in a jiffy of a second. Internet has provided mechanisms to obtain information related to diverse products by sitting at one spot. These technological trends provide an opportunity to the companies for carrying out a good marketing plan that would satisfy the consumer's requirements up to a maximum extent possible (Embellix, 2000). The producers are not left with any option to modify the related details as Internet is a vast field that possesses, the vendor's site with the product details and also the information that the critics put up pertaining to the specific products. So, the vendors need to be careful about the impact that the online information has over the consumer's thought. Therefore, by the development of technology producers cannot fool the consumers with over budgeted advertising schemes. Technology trends are also offering scope for consumers to compare the similar products based on their features and quality performance. These sorts of comparisons enable the consumer to purchase the necessary product that would serve the purpose based on all the requirements. Consumer convenience has been a key issue for the producers to add on value to their products (Lindsey Partos, 2005). These issues have been mostly addressed by the technology developments. The consumers are provided with e-commerce aspects where in they can do a whole lot of shopping by sitting at home. Products are made available to the consumers with the power of the Internet and on line transactions at a click of a button (Secerno, nd). The companies that provide e-commerce business have been adapting a constant technology change to enhance the facilities provided to the customers. The technology changes mostly include the software built to provide security to consumer data (Gary Palgon, 2006). These online purchases of products offer a perfect comparison chart system through which the consumers can make a perfect choice for the specified requirements. The websites are custom designed so as to support the consumer right from striking a decision regarding the purchase of a product to the payment and delivery of the product (John Staubly, nd). E-commerce dealers have also taken up the responsibility to install the necessary security measures to avert catastrophic situations at any point of time (RSA.com, nd). The company websites are being powered by featuring maximum facilities. These facilities are provided by the implementation of the specialized software and markup languages that work well in combination (Reece Rushing, Ari Schwartz and Paula Bruening, 2006). For example Amazon and E-bay have been the considered one among the best dealers to provide excellent facilities to the consumers on every purchase of the product (Bill Syken, nd). These features have instilled a lot of faith in the consumers, so as to encouraging them to make more number of on line purchases without any threat. Consumers trust their experiences when it comes to the online purchases. The most preferred service provider would be the one that offers most facilities and complex features with undoubted security (FIS case study, nd). These help the dealers to gain loyal consumers and make better deals by offering good discounts and many more business offers to the consumers. Branding has been considered as the undefeatable weapon being implemented to gain an edge over other companies in the market economy (Frydis Norland, 2002). The producers are always placed on a marathon to gain the leading position in the global market. What exactly is branding It is a perception created by the producers for the entire set of products produced by them. Brand is a sort of confirmation that guarantees the quality of the product (Tom Blackett, 2004). Producers are gaining an edge over other competitors by creating good brand value to their products by investing good amounts of money in advertising. Once a perception of good brand is attained then the producers are likely to attract good number of consumers. Brands are a medium to create an image of the producers who deliver excellent quality of particular products. When it comes to the video gaming field, Nintendo and Sony have been the major players (Alfred Hermida, 2004). They have been producing various products that have always been embedded with upgraded features so as to introduce many new games. Brand images might be sometimes the misleading factors for the primary decision opted by the consumers (Caldern, H., Cervera, A., and Moll, A., 1997). Brand does not always guarantee the quality to be excellent with the chain of products being produced. These facts are not always known to the consumers. Consumers select a particular brand of products to be utilized in their daily needs based on their own experience or by the information gained through the kin and kith. Some of the consumers pick branded products as a matter of prestige (Lars Perner, nd). But this fact does not take in the maximum number of target audience. As it is a known fact that branded products usually claim a fixed principle value to be paid for the product for guaranteeing the quality and functionalities related to the product. This principle value is usually high when compared to the products that do not claim for any brand value. Thus the consumers making a choice to purchase the branded products are likely to pay more. According to Lars Perner [nd], the brand images are not always successful in fooling the target audience. For example, Fara Warner [2001] states that; branding is the essential element at Procter & Gamble. Initially the marketing communications followed up at Procter & Gamble was considered to be one-way i.e. the brands being created and huge amounts of money being invested in Advertising. These strategies led P&G to great heights; "We've been voted the best marketer of the 20th century," claims Greg Icenhower, an associate director for corporate communications. They consider this to be success of their big advertising strategies claiming their products to be the best. But they also had surveys conducted by involving focus groups and market testing being carried out to analyze various other factors. This very effort led to the realization that they had to listen to the customers and make a note on their needs to succeed in an easy manner. They had to create specialized websites based on their brands to reach out to the customers. The best thing was to provide the feature named "try and buy". This helped numerous customers to examine the products and then purchase them in the market. Such sort of perks were also considered important than just spending billions of dollars on advertising tactics. Marketing Communications are turning on to be the important factor for effecting marketing of products. For any product to be branded well, it is essential to implement the right marketing strategies. Marketing communications are the set of communications that involve the diverse media in presenting the information pertaining to a product (CIM, 2004). These marketing strategies are responsible in bringing about the right communications amongst the producers and the consumers. They are the basic foundation that results in building an image to the product. Marketing communications involve many media formats such as ads placed in newspapers, daily journals, and weekly magazines. The fastest mode of implementing marketing communications is electronic mails, radio, television, banners on the websites when compared to the brochures or paper ads that need to be published and then distributed to consumers. Communications can also be personalized with the help of salesmanship, exhibits of products and customized demonstrations. Comparing the marketing communications schemes we can say that the paper ads usually contain less amount of the information related to the products. Newspaper ads and journal ads usually cost a good investment for the producers, thus leaving an option of providing less information to the consumer (Forum.abestweb.com, 2005). These days consumers do not strike a deal until a thorough report pertaining to the product is not obtained. The only way of getting all the details right regarding the product would be to publish an article that would not only provide the details of the specific product but also present the similar product diversifications in an easy to understandable manner. As it is known that the amount of investment on the paper media is proportional to the amount of space acquired. The ads are usually restricted to the space acquired, which leaves the vendors to opt for other modes of media for communication. Now consider the electronic medium of communications. Radio has its own disadvantage when it comes to the presentation visually. As they say that "actions speak better than words", it is always better to gain control over the target audience's mindset with the help of a visual effect. It is always considered to be true that the human mind perceives and responds to the visual effects in a much faster pace when compared to just a simple audio. As it is said that, "Example is better than Precept" a model of the product is definitely a better way to lure the consumers towards the various functionalities of the product. The visual effects are attained by placing ads in the form of commercials on the television and also placing ads in the form of banners and ad rotators on the Internet. Though the usage of the faster mediums costs more, the impact on the target audience is greater than few ratios. It's a known fact that the vendor need not pay huge amounts of money, just to send a personalized email to the consumers through his email id. This medium is the most preferred mode of communication as the invested budget is very low. The Internet medium does not leave the producers with an option to modify the information pertaining to the product. As the Internet provides loads of features such as evaluation aspects for various products and services, blogspots containing the specific information of the products, there seems to be no chance of fooling the consumers. Internet is a wide spread technology engulfing the maximum of mankind. This technology can be implemented to send personalized e-mails to the consumers to refer to a site that provides the information of diverse products and services offered by the chain of producers. This would result in a huge success if the information provided is genuine, but on the contrary if the product is not up to mark the product report is forwarded to numerous consumers as a warning mail. This results in a negative effect towards the producers. Sometimes producers try to mislead the consumers over the defects in the products, by coming up with new deals ad offers. But as time passes by the consumers gain knowledge of these misleading offers and do not wish to indulge into these details. The survey conducted by the Association of National Advertisers had analyzed that Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) has taken the top most position in the list of issues that concern the marketing decisions in the year 2006 (Gizmag.com, 2007).. These IMC strategies result due to the integration of various marketing communications to attain an optimal marketing strategy (Raul Danny Vargas, n.d.). For example consider some of the major players in the market such as Microsoft. The recent scenario that involved the introduction of software named Windows Vista 2007 a Microsoft product comprised of integrated marketing communication strategies. It basically involved the advertising campaigns carried out on the television and Internet enhanced with the audio-visual effects. They also send in personalized e-mails to the customers to upgrade themselves to the newer versions of technology that offers more number of functionalities at the click of a button. Most of the software vendors also offer a trial version for the consumers to judge the product quality based on their experience. These trial versions are almost equivalent to the demonstration schemes. The customer always feels privileged to personally check out the various features offered by the vendors object before striking a deal of purchase. Integrated marketing communications therefore integrate the various communication mediums based on the necessities to acquire a good brand image to the products. Integrated marketing communications is in vogue and is preferred to acquire best solutions to gain quicker and better results in marketing of a product. This form of marketing helps the marketing managers to design a methodology that acts as crucial decision support systems. It involves all the information stored in the consumer database, and all the communications carried out between the customers and the producers in understanding their requirements and building a strong marketing plan. Integrated marketing communications have formed the unconventional marketing strategies that are driving the traditional car companies to implement these strategies for better impact on the target audience (Fast Company, 2001). Chrysler, Mercedes-Benz, and Toyota are the companies that are trying hard to implement the innovative ideas of marketing to lure the generation Y customers. Providing the right information is just the initial step in the process of purchasing the product. Their might be few cases wherein the consumer is forced to invest in the product based on demand. This very feature of purchasing the products without a pre-defined priority is considered as Consumer Behavior. It is just not enough to have a huge budget and advertise heavily for a product. There are these other factors that involve in the success rate of the products. Firstly the consumer behavior might differ at different situations. Though the consumer knows that the product is definitely not the right choice and ends up investing in making a purchase, might be a result of demand. This demand sometimes might be from various other consumers or the relatives or friends. In most of the daily lives children usually demand for certain objects of their choice without thinking about the features and the investment in the products purchase. Kids are usually carried away by the offers that are placed along with the purchase of the products and usually end up demanding to place an order for the purchase. The consumer behavior differs in such matters so as to fulfill the wishes of their family and relatives. Consumers are usually constrained with the brand when it's the matter of heavy investments such as machinery for the company. Some of the consumers prefer to invest huge amounts of money provided that they gain the benefits of guaranteed products (FICCI, 2005). If the investment is not huge enough the consumers might prefer to purchase a non branded product. Under few circumstances the consumer is forced to invest in a non branded product due to lack of monetary surplus. Depending up on the product and the purpose it needs to serve the consumer behavior varies. If a consumer has to make a purchase for personal use then usually they prefer to buy products of good quality and guarantee (Kapferer, J.A., 1997). This does not mean that all the consumers would purchase the product of a highest brand value. Based on the requirements and the monetary benefits gained, the purchase of products is carried out. All these dealing activities are carried out after a thorough analysis of various products that offer similar functionality concerning the requirements criteria of the consumer. Producers concentrate a lot on the consumer behavior by luring them with offers and new business schemes to convert the consumers into their priority customers. A rightful standard of advertising is achieved by analyzing the customer's mindset. Consumer Perception is one of the most crucial factors affecting the product's sales rates and branding is implemented as one of the solutions, to attack the mindset of the consumer (Paul Russell Smith & Jonathan Taylor, 2004). Advertising for any particular product is such a meticulous job that needs to be followed up with consumer perception. If the consumer perceives the product to be the best being provided in the market that addresses al the requirements and also provides additional functionalities then the success rate of the branding is likely to be maximum. Advertising strategies need to be planned well in advance based on the consumer perception (Dave Walker, 2002). Vendors themselves prefer to build products based on the customer's perception. A consumer's perception cannot be the ultimate result of success or failure rate concerned with the advertising strategies. As humans are said to be the complex species possessing diversified perceptions, it is not easy to gain cent percent success rate in the advertising strategies. These might be the best to be carried out for a particular product, but sometimes it does not really hit the target audiences (Carman, J.M. 1990). It is as simple as an antismoker not being convinced of the idea of smoking, based on the advertising media of a vendor who claims that smoking products produced by his company do not cause any damages to his health. Some of the consumers perceive that the specific product is of bad quality based on their past experiences and some of them depend on developing a perception towards a product based on the public opinions. In certain situations customers prefer to purchase a product that has high demand in the market perceiving that the product would be the best to address their individual requirements. Market Economy is the most important factor in determining the market requirements and producing good products that would bring along excellent results in concerned fields of manufacturing a product. The manufacturing process of the products has increased up to such great extents that the vendors need to keep themselves updated with the market requirements along with the consumer needs (Cronin, J. Joseph, Jr. and Steven A. Taylor, 1992). The diversification of market requirements and consumer requirements is a thin line of distinction. The market economy comprises of the market environment that is responsible for the manufacturing, branding, global competitors and successful sales rates of the product. Market economy is mostly built by the consumer and his needs. Scope for a products success is completely dependent on the demand that it generates from the customers point of view. A product is said to be in demand if the sales growth is high when compared to the manufacturing rate of the product. This demand can be generated by many means. Some of the vendors offer a free gift along with the product purchased to lure the customers and create enormous demand. In such scenarios the consumer first identifies the principle value of the product and then compares the values of similar products produced by different vendors. From the customers point of view the most important decision to purchase such a product would be solely dependent on the number of benefits it offers. The benefits can be huge return on investment, providing more functionality than required, resell value and is the product worth the price money All these beneficial factors depend on the right marketing mix. Marketing mix is a model that fundamentally comprises of 4 P's, which indeed represent the Product, Price, Promotion and Place. The marketing mix model is implemented to analyze the status of a product in the market economy (Gummesson. Evert, 2002). The first P denoting the product analyzes the product being produced on the bases of the features it offers and the quality. The features of the product addressing the customer's requirements mandatory, if not it should offer extra set of features that might be useful to the customer. If a product does not satisfy the customer requirements and is not easily adaptable then it leads to the failure of the product in the target market. The second P denoting the price is very crucial factor. A principle price needs to be set to any product that is being introduced into the market economy. Without the principle value set, it is difficult to promote the product and implement various advertising strategies with the help of integrated marketing communications. The promotion of the product needs to be done with the right advertising tactics by analyzing the right time to launch a product. If similar types of products are launched at once into the market, they create huge competition among the vendors and brand names. Lastly the place at which the promotion activity is carried out also plays an important role. A product should be launched at a place where it would create enormous demand supporting the other marketing mix factors. All these factors thus are equally vital in successfully introducing the product to the market economy so as to gain an edge over the mindset of the target audiences. Promotion of products initially depends on the right advertisement tactics and the budget investments. The market economy has undergone phases along with the technological enhancements. The new market economy does not always support the product that has the right advertising schemes and huge budget. In recent times if the vendor does not look into the various issues specified above, then the product is most likely to hit the failure sector in the market. Budget investments are always the issues to be concentrated upon when it comes to the promotion of the product (Kate Maddox, 2006). An over budgeted investment leaves the vendor with poor monetary status in the initial stages of the product being implemented, that might be too risky. If the product fails in its initial stage then the vendor will not be left with any money to either improvise it or to bring out a new set of products. The advertising tactics need to be planned and then cross checked before being implemented. In this fast paced world vendors cannot afford to create drawbacks and then fill in their own loopholes. These tactics are also time bound. Based on the time constraints a demarcation need to be specified in the matter of investment costs. The budgeted investments are thoroughly analyzed by the marketing communications manager and then are calculated on the bases of return on investments they offer. Return on Investments has become a trend that is to be followed by every vendor. The return on investments is the beneficiaries gained by the vendor on the sale of every product in the economy. The return on investments are the foundation for the expansion of the company, or establishing a new set of companies that manufacture new products, or an investment in machine power to improvise the manufacturing process, or it might be the investment on man power who can bring about the enhancements to already existing products. Another sort after issue lately is the customer relationships, which define the loyalty of the customers towards the vendors. As the vendors keep producing similar products with almost the same price money and similar offers, the only distinguishing factor is the customer service being offered (Martin Hessenlink, Jos Van Iwaarden, Ton Van Der Wiele, 2004). There are few companies that consider customer service to be their top priority. These are the best strategies to lure the customers and not the right set of advertising and huge budget investments. When it comes to the customer service the consumer is not bothered about the advertising statistics being implemented by the vendor. For a consumer with such a wide choice of vendors, it is difficult to understand the right and wrong advertising strategies. Some of the companies implement the strategies of Mystery Shopping. There are firms that provide mystery shopping to their individual outlets to gather a report on their performance and the market value they possess. Mystery Shopping is a mechanism to secretly analyze the customer service and customer relationships being taken care off in the specified firm. For example, Coyle Hospitality Group claims to be one among the leading Companies in providing Guest service measurement and analysis for hoteliers to improvise on their market stands (Coyle Hospitality Groups, 2006). The core functionalities involved in this are: to keep an account of the various services provided to the customer by the staff at various departments. They also check the way in which a customer is treated during their stay and then the report is based on the departmental performances which is compared to the other hotels in the lead to gain a better knowledge. They have a specialized tool known as 'InnsQore' which is a robust SQL Sever Environment that can be customized based on the clients requirements. This report is based on graphs and charts to evaluate the performance of the company outlet. The software is built with intelligence so that it compares the similar standard of hotels and presents a narrow report on the minute details. Customer relationships are the major guarantees of the loyal customers. Customer relationships are taking an upper hand when compared to the branding tactics of the product. Loyal customers are not easily swept off by the fanciful advertising statistics offered by the vendors with poor customer service. Thus the customer relationships also make an enormous difference in the field of marketing communications. Investments on large advertising schemes are not the trend to be followed by the vendors. The stakeholder relationships are the next big thing to marketing communications. The business offers that are presented to the stakeholders have a greater impact than the huge budget investments. The rightful tactics of striking the perfect deal with the stakeholders will always fetch huge profits to the vendors (nPresence, nd). Stakeholders are not the consumers who look for diverse qualities; they are specific in their requirements and do not get lured to the lame offers of the vendors over products produced. Based on the various factors such as the consumer behavior, branding image of the product, budget investments, customer relationships and marketing communications a products rightful value is obtained. These factors are the stepping stones in building an excellent image for the product in the market economy. In conclusion I would like to say that the various features specified above have equal amounts of importance that needs to be concentrated upon by the vendors. The illusion of fooling the consumers with huge budget investments and right advertising statistics is a trend of conventional marketing models. This new era demands more than just advertising and budgets. Therefore the marketing communication strategies that are being implemented need to be designed, developed, analyzed, tested and then implemented to obtain the optimal results. References 1) Embellix (2000), "E Marketing Planning: Accountability and eMetrics", Sponsored by Embellix Software, Pg 4 2) Lindsey Partos (2005), Article on: "Consumer convenience drives product development". 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