Marketing Communication Activities - the New Hotel - Research Paper Example

Marketing Communication Activities Any new business that wishes to establish a huge base needs to have a marketing communication plan. Such as plan outlines the marketing communication activities that the business will need to be involved in so as to deliver effective marketing messages to the targeted potential customers. Marketing communication activities entail all the duties undertaken with the aim of getting messages to customers, important audiences and prospects. Marketing communication activities are meant to promote the products, services and activities of a business. Marketing communication activities are primarily aimed at building awareness of the existence of a business, its products, its services and its position. Such activities are done through advertising, trade show presentations, web sites, press releases, brochures and other public relations activities. This report will discuss the marketing communications activities for pre and post-launch aimed at optimizing food and beverage income for investors who are establishing a hotel. The report will also highlight the tools and approaches required for measuring the effectiveness of these marketing communication activities. Introduction The property at 45 Avenue de la Gare in Lausanne has been bought by the investment team that wishes to establish a hotel at the site. This report is a consultancy support paper that provides professional advice to the investment team on the marketing communication activities that it can be involved in so as to effectively deal with competition and market conditions within the Lausanne area. The new hotel that is being set up is aimed at providing affordable luxury which appeals to mobile warriors and is attractive to a local hip crowd. The hotel is intended to have comfortable beds, social spaces and a business pop-up space to be used for short term retail meetings and small seminars. The new hotel is finally meant to have a welcome area, dining space, functional work-out space with basic gym equipment and space as well as being technologically relevant. The marketing communications activities are intended to pass across messages that the hotel is accessible, affordable, ambient, kid-friendly and functional. This report will highlight the marketing communication activities that the hotel can be engaged in so as to send messages to the potential customers that the hotel that the hotel is accessible, affordable, ambient, kid-friendly and functional. Marketing communication planning It is imperative that all marketing activities should be guided by a marketing communications plan which is strategically thought out so as to guide all marketing and promotion activities (Clow and Baack, p. 9). Marketing communications activities are all the programs that are designed by the marketing team to sell products, services or ideas of a business. These activities need to be planned for so that they can succeed. Market communication planning is usually made up of four major steps which are: 1. Research Research involves the systematic and objective gathering of pertinent information that will be used in determine what will messages will be communicated and to whom they will be communicated (Clow and Baack, p. 10). Research is necessary before planning is done and it can be done through browsing libraries, web sites and asking opinions of authoritative and reputable people. Research on marketing communication activities is necessary because it helps to find out the basic attitudes of customers so that we can know construct effective messages. Research is also useful because it measures the true opinions of the various groups that will need to be communicated to. The hotel investment team should conduct research on market communication activities so as to identify opinion leaders who have influence over the target market. The hotel investment team will be able to minimize on costs since it will only concentrate on key audiences and valid objectives during the market communication activities. Research will give the hotel investment team the opportunity to pretest proposed communication channels and messages before they are actually implemented. The team can be able to know the timing of these market communication activities if proper research is conducted. Finally, research is important because the hotel investment team will be able to achieve immediate feedback from the target audiences and this can help the team to fine tune the messages so as to achieve a mutual understanding by creating a two way communication channel (Clow and Baack, p. 9). There are various factors to take into consideration before the research. These factors include the problem or challenge that necessitates planning, the kind of information needed, how the results will be used, the audience that will be targeted, the research techniques that will be used, how the research data will be analyzed and the cost of the entire research. The importance of the research is to find out the best market communication activities to be engaged in when promoting the new hotel that is being set up. This research will also determine the needs of the potential customers so that these needs can be taken into consideration when deciding the market communication activities to undertake (Clow and Baack, p. 10). 2. Planning Planning for the market communication activities involves defining the problem and coming up with a thorough plan to completely deal with that problem. The problem or challenge in this case of the new hotel that is being set up is creating awareness about the setting up of the new hotel. Another problem is overcoming the negative perception that hotels in Lausanne are not very affordable and appealing. The investment team needs to let the potential customers know that the new hotel will be accessible, affordable, ambient, kid-friendly and functional. This way, the new hotel will be a notch above the rest of the hotels in Lausanne. Once the problem has been identified, the next step in the planning process is setting the objectives that will direct all efforts towards solving the problems. The objectives should be achievable, realistic and measurable (Clow and Baack, p. 11). The next step in the planning process of the marketing communication activities is defining the target audiences that the messages are intended to reach. In this case of the new hotel, the target audiences are the generation Y business travelers, personal travelers (FIT/urban professionals), local crowds (college/urban professionals) and after-work crowds. Determining the target audiences is important for the success of the marketing communication activities. The investment team should determine the broad general audience, the external target audience and the internal target audience. This will help in determining the target group to concentrate on when choosing the marketing communication activities and determining the appropriate messages to pass across to the target audience. It is finally important to develop a plan that outlines the activities that need to be undertaken so as to achieve the objectives that have been identified and what will be done to solve the identified problems (Clow and Baack, p. 12). 3. Marketing communication activities As seen above, marketing communication activities may include collateral materials, special events, trade shows, direct mail, promotion, publicity, electronic media and advertising among others. At this stage of the process, the investment team passes on the actual messages to the already identified target audiences. The investment team must decide the actual activities that will be undertaken with the aim of passing on the intended messages to the already identified target audiences (Clow and Baack, p. 14). The hotel investment team can use the above activities to communicate the marketing needs of the new hotel to the target audience. These are the communication tools that will pass on the messages to the target audience. The investment team should only identify communication tools that will meet the communication needs and discard those that will not. At this stage, the hotel investment team needs to develop marketing communication tools and tactics that will help it to achieve its objectives. The hotel can use electronic media to communicate to the Generation Y customers since they are more likely to be technologically savvy and use electronic media more than other generations. This can be done through having the messages that are to be communicated on web sites or passing them on through emails. The generation Y business travelers can be made aware of the existence of affordable, attractive and comfortable luxury. Using such means of communication will appeal to this generation of customers because they use the internet more often than other generations. The hotel investment team can therefore beat its competitors by advertising using online means so as to let the potential customers know of the existence of the new hotel and the services that it offers to its clients. This is also likely to show the potential customers that the hotel is technologically relevant since it has a reliable web presence and it makes use of technology to promote its services. By doing this, the hotel will be promoting and optimizing the income made by the food and beverage industry (Clow and Baack, p. 17). Another marketing communication activity that the hotel investment team can be engaged in is the issuing out of brochures that market and promote the new hotel. The brochures can have pictures of the comfortable bed spaces that the hotel intends to have so that the potential customers can see for themselves what the hotel has to offer. The brochures can also have pictures of the functional work out spaces, the dining space and the welcome area/bar/longue so that the customers can see what they will get when they make use of the services offered by the hotel (Clow and Baack, p. 21). The hotel investment team can also plan to make use of special events to market its service to potential customers. The hotel can sponsor an upcoming event whereby potential customers will be invited and they will have a chance to see what the hotel has to offer through the events. This is an effective way of communicating to the customers. The hotel can participate in trade shows so as to reach a wider client base that are most likely to be part of these trade shows (Clow and Baack, p. 29). 4. Evaluation This entails the measurement of the achieved results against the objectives that had been set during the planning stage. Evaluation is done so as to measure the effectiveness of the marketing communication activities. It is used to determine whether the objectives of the marketing communication activities were met or not and establishing what action should be taken after. Evaluation of the marketing communication activities can be done through various methods. One method is through asking the following questions after the marketing communication activities have been carried out: a) Did the marketing communication activities fall within the budget that had been set for them? b) Were all the target audiences reached by the messages? c) Were all the objectives set by the investment team achieved? d) Were the marketing communication activities adequately planned for? e) Were there any unforeseen circumstances or occurrences that affected the success of the marketing communication activities? f) Did the target audiences understand the messages that were communicated to them? g) What could have been done differently so as to make the strategies of the marketing communication activities more effective? h) What steps can the hotel investment team take so as to ensure that the marketing communication activities are improved in future? Recommendations The investment team should only identify communication tools that will meet the communication needs and discard those that will not. The marketing communication activities chosen by the hotel investment team should consider what is in for the target audience. Whichever marketing communication activity that the hotel decides to use, the target audiences should be given a sense of involvement so that they can know what is going on and feel part of the process. Getting them involved is one sure way of gaining their interest in the marketing activities. The marketing communication activities should deliver the messages as close as possible to the location of the intended audiences. The investment team should also use as many communication channels as possible so as to create diversity and ensure that the impact of the communication is greater. The communication activities should be consistent and they should complement each other. They should all clearly state the position of the hotel and pass on the messages as intended. They should not be ambiguous or full of propaganda. They should simply be credible and should not mislead or lie. They should give a true picture of what the customers will find at the hotel (Clow and Baack, p. 107). Conclusion Marketing communication activities entail all the duties undertaken with the aim of getting messages to customers, important audiences and prospects. They are meant to promote the products, services and activities of a business. These activities are primarily aimed at building awareness of the existence of a business, its products, its services and its position. The new hotel that is about to be set up in Lausanne area needs to conduct these activities so as to make all the potential customers aware of its existence. Executive Summary This report has discussed the importance of planning for the marketing communication activities for the new hotel that is being set up at Lausanne area. The report has taken into account all the competition and market conditions in the Lausanne area and has provided advice to the hotel investment team it should go about marketing its new services. This report has outlined some of the marketing communication activities that the hotel investment team can be involved in so as to create awareness of its existence to all potential customers. The report has also given some important tools and approaches that can be used to measure the effectiveness of the marketing communication activities undertaken by the hotel. This report has finally given valuable recommendations that the hotel investment team can take into consideration when planning, executing and evaluating the marketing communication activities. Works cited Auburn University. A Marketing Communication Plan for Auburn University. 2004. . Clow, Kenneth E., and Baack, Donald. Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications. New York: Prentice Hall PTR, 2007. Print. Clow, Kenneth E., and Baack, Donald. Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communication. 3rd ed. New York: Pearson Education, 2007. Print. Ohio Arts Council. Marketing Communication Planning. Columbus, OH. 2011. . Read More