Description of Commons IMC Strategy - Research Paper Example

? New Project Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 3 Introduction 4 Part I: General Research 4 Aspects of IMC 4 Advertising 5 Direct Marketing 6 Sales promotion 6 Public relations 7 Personal selling 8 Part II: Application to Product/ Service 8 2. Overview 8 3. Detailed Description of Common’s IMC strategy 9 4. 10 5. 10 Conclusion 10 Reference 12 Abstract In today’s highly competitive world, fast paced change along with steady technological advancements helps in generating competitive edge for the firms as well as business entities. Organization which can adapt itself with the changing business needs and scenarios are in a greater position to remain sustainable and competitive in the long term. The rise of technology has transformed the global markets in to a single connected entity. As businesses around the world engage in cross border transactions with individuals and other business entities, the issue of security in online financial transactions has gained high importance. This project introduces a new online product, which belongs to the online transaction market. This new product will try to resolve consumer issues faced in regards to existence of high service charges as well as level of security and confidentiality provided by the online transaction service provider. Introduction The world of business today has undergone a significant amount of change as compared to the early decades. Due to the rise of technology and internet, the extent of doing business for organizations as well as individuals comprises of various markets around the world. In the context of engaging business in various markets, the individuals and organizations has to engage in online transfer of high value transactions. As of the recent times, the financial options that are available to facilitate the online money transfer has some strong drawbacks in regards to the financial cap allowed as well as the application of high service charges. This project discusses a new online product, Common, which tries to address the gap that exists in the online transaction market all over the world. Part I: General Research 1. Aspects of IMC From the theoretical aspect, the concept of integrated marketing communication is being explained as the smooth coordination as well as effective integration of the various elements of the promotion mix like advertising, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing with the multiple other elements of the marketing mix of the brand like product, place and price (Shimp, 2013, p. 12). It is important to remember that in the context of integrated marketing communication, the AIDA concept holds tremendous importance. The AIDA framework talks about generating awareness, interest, desire and action from the consumers. The various elements of the communication mix like advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations campaign as well as personal selling helps the marketer in implementing the AIDA concept for the purpose of value communication of their product or service. In the course of discussing the aspects of integrated marketing communications, each of the elements will be explained in details while weighing their respective pros and cons. Advertising Advertising is a paid and mediated form of communication which originates from a reliable and identifiable source, whose responsibility comprises of generating consumer interest or consumer action in regards to the value offered through the product or service (Shimp, 2010, p. 182). Advertising in the modern day world can happen through the traditional channels like the print and electronic media as well as through the digitized channels like the internet and online social media. Since the channels of advertising have become diversified in nature with the advancement of technology, so the advantages and disadvantages of advertising has to be evaluated in a separate case by case basis. While judging the advantage of traditional channels like the print and electronic media, the factor of geographical selection, content control, low cost as well as ability to reach a large target base has to be factored. However, these channels suffer the disadvantages of slow build-up audience of the audience, competition from rivals as well as short life span of the advertising message, high chances of getting lost in the market clutter and noise. In judging the advantage of the internet and the social media, the factors of faster generation of responses, short lead time to design the entire online campaign as well as moderate cost needs to be considered. However, on the negative side are the factors like difficult in measuring effectiveness of the online campaign, risk from instant negative feedback from the target audience (Lamb and et.al, 2010, p. 268) Direct Marketing Direct marketing is the concept of having a focused and targeted nature of communication with a potential customer for the purpose of promoting a product or service. It is important to state that the direct marketing approach is multi channel in nature and this concept is global in nature. By applying a direct marketing technique, a firm or business entity can measure the effectiveness of value communication (Thomas, 2007, p. 6). While discussing the advantages of direct selling, it has to be considered that this technique enables a high degree of personalization of the intended message as well as the approach to the target audience. Also, it provides the advantage of effectively measuring the success rate of the value communication approach. . However, the approach of direct selling has the disadvantages of high cost, continuous requirement of new content (Belch, 2003, p. 481). Sales promotion The Institute of Sales Promotion has defined the concept as a planned activity of marketing that helps in the process of enhancing product appeal as well as bringing a positive influence in the customer behaviour while providing other relevant and additional value to the target audience (Yeshin, 2006 , p. 7). The advantages of sales promotion are multiple in nature. Sales promotion can trigger a sudden increase in demand. This technique has the power in mobilising the sales of mature brands as well as generating repeat purchases from the same audience. The negative aspects of sales promotion are potential loss of brand image; fall in purchase frequency with the ending of sales promotion offer. Also, another negative side of this technique is it helps in distributing the values of the product or service to only a limited number of target audiences. Public relations Traditionally, public relations are being defined as a function related to management which comprises of evaluation of public attitudes. The domain also includes identification and designing of policies for an organization and thereby synchronizing them with the interest of the masses. It is to be stated that with the increase in the level of competition in marketplaces around the world, the roles of public relations has also undergone significant change with time. With the passage of time, the public relations functions have merged with that of various function of marketing and thereby given birth to the concept of marketing public relations (Belch, 2003, p. 565- 566). The advantages of engaging in effective public relations are that it helps in communicating the value of the services and products offered along with a human touch. By the human touch, the exposure of the value proposition to the consumers becomes easy. Also because of the rising power of the digital technology, the public relations will be highly effective in dealing with negative publicity that might generate from an online media or from other arenas in a tremendously fast manner. Also, the low cost factor of public relations needs to be counted in this case. The negative side of public relations is that unless the content and strategy is well implemented it might backfire on the reputation of the brand. Another big negative factor of public relations is its inability to gain control of it (Burrow, 2011, p. 437). Also, failure of public relations might seriously dampen the value proposition of the product or service that is being focused on the spot light. Personal selling Personal selling is generally the concept of generating value capture of the products and services while engaging a person to person value communication interface. The advantages that can be associated with personal selling is that it has the ability to communicate the values of the product and services in a tailored and customized fashion. Also, this particular technique has the ability to educate the customers as well as engage in building long term relationships (Koekemoer, 2004, p. 223). The negative side of personal selling arises out of the factor of high costs. Also, the poor selling skills of an individual as well as high dependency of success on the prospective leads can be counted as potential disadvantages. Part II: Application to Product/ Service 2. Overview As a new product for the online transaction market, ‘Common’ needs to be introduced. The basic value offering of the product is that it will be providing a platform for operating online currency on the internet medium. The unique selling proposition of Common is that it will provide consumers with extreme security features so as to guard their online transactions as well as providing privacy. The online oriented product Common will also provide unique value to the consumers through the factor of non existence of any transaction limit as well as providing low service charges. 3. Detailed Description of Common’s IMC strategy While talking about Common’s IMC strategy, the multiple components of the IMC strategy have to be taken into account. The multiple components are advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations as well as personal selling. While deciding on Common’ IMC strategy, it is very important to consider the online nature of the product. The most useful method of designing the IMC strategy of Common is by leveraging benefits out of the components of advertising as well as direct marketing. The advertising method has been chosen as it will help in value communication in the online arena through internet based advertising, because of the online nature of the product. The direct marketing concept will also prove to be very instrumental for value communication of Common to the target audience as this concept can be easily applicable in the form of targeting email based direct marketing campaign to potential leads and customers. It needs to be mentioned in this case, that the lead can be generated by acquiring online databases of customers from various financial entities and online associations tracking consumers based financial transactions. The other components of an integrated marketing communication (IMC) strategy like sales promotion, public relation as well as personal selling will not be very effective in this case, as the potential customers can only be targeted through the online medium. To cope up with the maturity of the online product, Common can diversify with time and can start to provide other high value transaction services to the same customers. 4. The message that will be communicated through the IMC strategy is that the online product Common provides the most secured as well as cost effective value delivery to the consumers in the arena of online transactions. Since the entire product is online in nature, it is very natural to say that it will provide value for the consumers exclusively in the online domain. For communicating with the target market, two specific strategies will be used. In case of advertising, an online advertising campaign will be executed to reach out to the target audience. In case of direct marketing, consumer databases acquired from various financial entities and online associations will be used. 5. The most effective method for measuring advertising effectiveness in this case is the usage of online survey of the consumers. The reason for opting for an online customer of the survey is that it will help the marketing team in correctly gauging the effectiveness of the advertising campaign. Also this online survey will help in denoting the effectiveness of the direct marketing campaign, thereby giving the marketing team with the complete idea of the amount of success achieved by their integrated marketing communications strategy. Conclusion On the concluding note, it can be stated that the designed integrated marketing communications strategy of Common will help in gathering a sizeable amount of the target audience in a very small time. However, to retain the attention of the customers who will opt for the services of Common at the early stage, the company should focus on high quality delivery of services as promised to the consumers. Reference Shimp, T.A. (2013). Advertising Promotion and Other Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications, 9th ed. USA: Cengage Learning. Shimp, T.A. (2010) Advertisingition. USA: Cengage Learning. Burrow, J.L. (2011) Marketing, Copyright Update, 3rd ed. USA: Cengage Learning. Koekemoer, L. (2004). Marketing communications. South Africa: Juta and Co. Ltd. Belch (2003) Advertising And Promotion, 6/E. New Delhi: Tata : McGraw Hill Education. Yeshin, T. (2006) Sales Promotion. London: Thomson Learning. Thomas, A.R. (2007) Direct Marketing in Action: Cutting-Edge Strategies for Finding and Keeping the Best Customers.USA: Greenwood Publishing Group. Lamb, C.W. and et.al. (2010) MKTG4 2010. USA: Cengage Learning. Read More