Marketing communication: Effective Promotion and Sale in Face of Globalization Today - Essay Example

?Running head: COMMUNICATION MARKETING Communication Marketing: Effective Promotion and Sale in Face of Globalization Today Introduction Communication in marketing cannot be ignored especially in the advent of globalization, increased competition and increased consumer awareness and the society at large. Blythe (2006) reckons that a business that is to survive in the current business environment must factor in and apply the relevant marketing tools and processes. Further, such businesses must be guided, in their marketing communication endeavors, by a set of codes of ethics as well as conventional norms confined in society in the increasingly globalized market and negative perception on marketing particularly advertising. This is affirmed by Becker (2009) who profoundly asserts that: ‘moral business leaders represent values that are not confined to the secrecy of the boardrooms and centers of power but are universally recognized as the fundamental building blocks of a life worth living’. Whereas various tactics are available for marketers to exploit, it is only the best marketers that use them appropriately to maximize their potential. When one factors in the significance of communication in marketing and the bad press and perception it has received, it becomes even challenging to come up with the right strategies. Blythe (2006) for example notes that marketing has been mainly compared to “… gimmicks and thus there is a commonly held perception that marketing is about persuading people to buy things they do not need ...” He however argues that the negative perception is unfair since marketing is directed at deliberate creation of value and not needs, and is consequently exclusively pointed towards customer search and retention and not misdirection. In business, marketing communication tools are employed to raise awareness about the company’s goods or services in the market place. The marketing tools are many and they include among others brochures, websites, and mail shots. The overall objective often is to enhance sales and that is why it is important to effectively communicate (Blythe, 2006). For the Marketing Communicator, it is significant that decisions are arrived at before engaging in communication with customers. One should have in mind: what needs to be said, the target audience, mode of presentation, where the information should be distributed and when to send the information/message. After these considerations, they must validate appropriately the style and tone that the message should entail with the follow up details clearly outlined. This paper seeks to address Communication Marketing as an important tool in the current business environment and how it ought to be executed. Further, the paper illuminates on the importance of communication in marketing. It deviates slightly to bring in culture as an important factor to scrutinize. It subsequently zeroes on E-Marketing as a case study to demonstrate the significance of communication marketing and how it should be carried out in the current global market arena. In the end, the paper exclusively focuses on ethics as a clarion call in any business endeavor including communication marketing. Importance of Marketing Communication: Overall View Marketing has been widely conceptualized in different perspectives. Blythe (2006) defines it as: “… process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of ideas, goods and services to create exchange and satisfy individual and organizational objectives.” The cardinal goal of marketing communication is to convey a piece or pieces of information to influence the recipients to buy the goods or seek the services being advertised. For instance, when a business is changing location, it is important that the proprietor communicates the fact clearly to their customers. Such issues may include why the location is being changed, where it is being changed to, what services/goods will be offered and whether there will be any changes in the same among other pertinent issues. Larsen and Rosenbloom (2001) note that while communicating issues in marketing it is important to consider culture as a fundamental link to communication. Whereas communication that considers culture is relatively difficult to achieve in a homogeneous market it is even more difficult in a global setting. Communication in E-marketing Electronic marketing especially as a communication tool is increasingly being used many businesses today. It is seen as the corrective measure against delays in business programming and failure to exploit opportunities that only e-marketing conveniently reaches. Dennis (2007) observes that some traditional methods around physical movement in communication have been time-wasting, cumbersome and unappealing in the postmodern world characterized by information technology. Indeed, the last ten years have been characterized by many business entities adopting internet use in many facets including e-marketing. This has been made worse by globalization. Friedman (2006) reckons that many governments are themselves involved in changing education to match two basic levels: equality and social issues that are associated with democracy. For him, the concept of democratic level-headedness suggests the call for a system of education that facilitates socio-economic progress and the appreciation of a culture that supports democracy among the citizenry that can then meaningfully take part in communities and groups aligned in democratic ideals in an impartially and objectively informed approach. Arguably is the fact that national governments across the world continue to hub on equality in regards to education accessibility and other social institutions that promote sustainable development through means like e-commerce (Albee, 2010). This development has helped in increasing business potential mainly because of its wide usage and convenience. Moreover, e-marketing as Baker (2003) observes, has been associated with anchoring the traditional methodologies of communication and marketing strategies, and therefore complementary in many ways while internet has notably changed businesses significantly. Albee (2010) for instance foresees a situation where in the next two decades ‘interactive technology’ will predominantly take the mainstream part and parcel of marketing, communication and shopping, and an increasing advent of the consumer society. Further, it has also been reckoned that people because of e-technology are slowly reducing physical shopping in seeking of goods and services. Even though some arguments against the percentage of the number of people seeking online marketing and shopping is incredibly low, the number of business entities that have adopted e-marketing at large has been on the increase in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the world over with businesses, schools, colleges and universities towing the line at a faster speed (Albee, 2010). Baker (2003) on his part contends that due to internet usage and its attractiveness, most businesses have adopted it in so far as trade and services provision cycle and marketing are concerned. This includes pre-sale or decision making stage, execution, settlement and after sale service (Baker, 2003). Thus, e-marketing strategy combines the advantages of both the operational advantages and those of competition in the execution of electronic marketing. Forrester Research in 2002 indicated that a number of business entities in the United States and across all over Europe shall have doubled if not tripled in the coming decade (Albee, 2010). It should be noted however that scholars earlier used terms electronic marketing and communication thereby minimizing e-marketing to refer to internet and web-marketing alone, yet it should be wide to encompass use of mobile telephones and digital Television. Therefore, the right term would be e-marketing (Dennis 2007). Broadly, however, it denotes marketing and therefore communication in data mining and manipulation, building public relationships and even adoption of electronic commerce (Dennis, 2007). The strategies that this paper seeks to examine in the above light of electronic marketing communication are in the Seven (7) Ps. Baker (2003) believes that these in marketing should include price, product, promotion, physical evidence and people. The tenets such as advertising, personal selling, and the process of seeking relevant data, direct marketing as well as branding are critically scrutinized in communication marketing (Haegele, 2001). One might then be tempted to ask how e-marketing in communication is executed. How E-Marketing is executed? E-marketing plan for any business must factor in a number of issues and follow a distinct process. The components that have been used in many business organizations and will directly apply here include goals, actors, spaces, actions and outcomes. Goals show what the communication plan would want to achieve by employing e-marketing, whereas actors stipulate who the marketing personnel and tools represent. Spaces centers on where e-marketing will be online as far as the business entity should permit. Actions and Outcomes refer to the particular set of activities that the business entity then takes in regards to e-marketing communication and the expectations that such endeavors bring on the table (Albee, 2009). As outlined by Friedman (2006), marketing strategies with the objective of crafting a marketing plan seeks to ensure that five phases are followed. Phase one is the identification of communication goals. Here, the management should institute the long term and the short term goals in reference to e-marketing. The goals must revolve around SMART i.e. they must be Sustainable, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound. This will enable them to be evaluated against the results achieved in both the long-term and short-term. The first goal may be to construct criteria for promoting e-marketing as a tool of communication and awareness-enhancing means for the business. The second goal is to evaluate how this can be squeezed to correspond to the traditional methods that a business may have been using previously and assess the concomitance levels (Friedman, 2006). Phase two is identification of actors. The management must then carefully select those actors suitable for the marketing communication process. Overall, the identification of the actors must be clear in stating the neutral, cooperative and the ones who need to be anchored or trained (Haegele, 2001). Moreover, naturally, the team has to identify the ones who are likely to be intimidating or unfriendly and who must be corrected as time goes by. Phase three involves identification of applicable spaces. This is arguably the most important component in developing an e-marketing communication plan. Here, marketing will involve the team, particularly the managers and the administration in selecting the internet spaces they wish to be dominant on, and the ones they would simply have some presence on (Haegele, 2001). The next stage is identification of action. This involves selection of actions that are then taken to the spaces identified or selected. These will be the specific set of activities to be implemented in trying to achieve the strategic plan in e-marketing and communication. One of these is the development of a company’s or business entity’s standardized website (Haegele, 2001). The last phase is on measurement of the outcomes. The results are evaluated in relation the planned goals and objectives. Evaluation is to be carried out quite often as determined by the management committee while taking into account the timeline that was set for their realization (Haegele, 2001). Overall the communication actions in e-marketing include, pop-up Ads, immersive advertising and email newsletters. In doing so the adverts must/will seek to ensure frequent inquiries about the business entity (Haegele, 2001). Ethic in Communication Marketing In a normal social setting, ethics refers to the acceptable code of conduct upon which the behavior of an individual can be evaluated as acceptable or not acceptable, or as either right or wrong. In business, ethics attempts to harmonize the conflicting issues concerning the acceptable behaviors in a business environment including communication and marketing. It is basically concerned with examining the various activities involved at different levels or channels of production and determines if they are morally or ethically upright or not. As De George (2010) broadly puts it “… ethics in business is simply the application of everyday moral or ethical norms to business”. In a business setting, ethics will be applied in determining the rights and privileges of the employees, their roles in ensuring business confidentiality, the roles of the top management in keeping business privacy, determination of labor prices and the prices of the commodities/ products that the organization deals in, as well as communication in line with sales promotion through advertisement. In the latter it helps the management to curb poor marketing strategies and in various conflict resolutions. The manner in which communication marketing activities are formulated, scheduled and executed must be in accordance with some kind of pre-established legislation, culture of a people and the discipline under scrutiny or application (De George, 2010). In studying Marketing Ethics, one can approach the subject from different perspectives. This can be in relation to the employees in a business enterprise, the top management or the enterprise itself. It can also be considered in relation to the society with the analysis of the social, political and economic impacts such behaviors have in the society. Considering the diversity that is often witnessed in these settings, there conflicts arise between the various organs that are fundamental in the smooth running of the enterprises. The interest of each of the different parties may not be fully satisfied in that attempting to satisfy one party may be equivalent to harming another. A communication marketing strategy by the management can suite the interest of the employees while it carries with it losses to the business. Various forms of conflict emerge in a business environment and failure to properly resolve them can lead to the organization’s downfall. A number of communication conflicts in a business environment could be external conflicts, management conflicts, strategic conflicts, interdepartmental conflicts, operational conflicts and value conflicts (Moore 2004). The social norms in a business environment may fail to apply globally and this is what results into value conflicts. Just as it is in the various social settings, in a business marketing environment, it is the responsibility of both the employees and all levels of management to ensure that all the marketing activities are executed as planned. Laxity by any of the organs will lead to a downfall or failure on the side of the organization. Moore (2004) pointed out that “when a person, family, or business fails to take a communication responsibility, the result is chaos”. He further observes that in order to manage the above situations, the relevant stakeholders need to acknowledge the fact that all the activities to be performed in our society can only succeed if everyone acts responsibly and ethically. If there have been laws established to govern business operations, then abiding by the regulations is a key to ensuring success of a business. However, in as much as it is ethical to conform to the legislations, the act only remains with the less powerful groups in a market set up. Many states also do not believe in strict business regulation framework operated by the government thereby ignoring the dangers posed by such decisions. In such countries, “… citizens are accustomed to a system in which the law is ignored and the powerful are free to make deals with their friends, habits that also flourish under unfettered capitalism” (IEO, 2005). It is further the role of the government to ensure that businesses abide by all the regulations that have been put in place (IOE, 2005). However, what seems to be the best approach is to allow the market to regulate itself. The management in such organizations needs to behave responsibly in order to ensure their businesses operate sustainably. Thus, in either case, ethics finds its way as fundamental player in the long-term survival of a business and in its communication strategies. The involvement of ethics in business is considered essential even to this date (De George, 2010). In deed, this is a view that is consistent with the above view concerning conformity to a kind of legislation. Desirable qualities in marketing communication like courtesy, honesty, office etiquette, and transparency all derive their roots from good ethics. In E-marketing for instance there must be some privacy accorded to the customer. This may include the business adapting privacy templates in its websites and other sensitive documents. This is to ensure that third parties are not privy to sensitive information or actions they take while dealing with various issues. It will also entail campaigns against virus and even creation of group in popular websites such as Twitter and Facebook (Baker, 2006). Beyond this whenever a business popular website or link is created the management team must endeavor to advertise it for instance through a press release. The advantage of doing so is to promote awareness among the main clients to go and log into the website. Regardless, however, the codes of conduct need to be practiced by all the parties involved in the marketing arena. This has never been the case and the effect is a total loss on the side of the firms that maintain their moral high ground. The few firms that abide by the set business rules often find their businesses slowing down than other more powerful firms that do not follow the same rules. “While in public life it is ultimately the law that sets enforceable limits to business leaders and their deals, the law is neither able or the best possible tool for the protection of the interest of the companies, shareholders, employees, and consumers” (Becker, 2009). Thus, for a continued success in the business arena, anchored in by marketing communication tools, legislation alone may not be sufficient. In conclusion, as much as any business enterprise is charged with various responsibilities, the major responsibility is to maximize the profits of the shareholders and thus communication marketing becomes important in tapping customer loyalty from the diverse, dynamic and competitive market. Secondly, a business that hopes to survive both in the short-term and long-term and in the global market needs not to abide by numerous sets of government legislations, upholding the codes of conduct and adoption of modern technologies such as internet marketing in order to capture far and wide markets. References Albee, A. (2009). E-Marketing strategies for the complex marketing. Interaction Inc. Baker, J. (2003). The marketing book. Oxford. Butterworth-Heinemann. Becker, G. K. (2009). Moral leadership in business. Journal of International Business Ethics. 2(1). Blythe, J. (2006). Principles of marketing. New York. Thompson Publishing. De George, R. (2010). A history of business ethics. Dennis, C. (2007). Marketing the e-business. New York. Routledge. Friedman, T. (2006). The Lexus and the olive tree. New York. Optimistic Analysis. Haegele, K. (2001). E-Advertising and e-marketing opportunities. New York. Rosen Publishing Group Inc. International Organization of Employers. (2005). The role of business within society: How companies and business organization see the role of business within society, IOE. Larsen, T. and Rosenbloom, B. (2011). Communication in international business-to-business marketing channels. Drexel University. Moore, S. (2004). Reconciliation: A study of Biblical families in conflict. College Press. Read More