Integrated Marketing Communication - Essay Example

? Integrated Marketing Communication Section integrated marketing communication Integrated marketing approach is amodern marketing approach that gained prominence during the late 20th century and has been employed in different avenues of marketing with varying success. This approach recognizes the value that is present within comprehensive planning through which evaluation of strategic roles, personal selling and sales promotion is achieved. Integrated marketing communication seeks to integrate all the marketing or promotional tools to ensure harmonious and successful marketing of a product (Chen, 2011). Promotion is considered as one of the major elements of marketing mix and it possesses its own mix of communication tools. Advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion among others are some of the elements of IMC, these tools enable a company to implement its advertising and marketing objectives constructively through a coordinated approach. This paper seeks to discuss the basic elements of communication mix putting more emphasis on their pros and cons and how they influence an organizations ability to succeed in their marketing program. It will provide an overview of a promotional product that I created and how I intend to market it using the IMC approach. The rational that I will follow in choosing or rejecting specific elements of the integrated marketing mix will also be provided (Mossman, 2007). Advertising is any paid form of promotions that does not employ active participation of personal presentation to promote ideas, goods, or services through the use of a specific sponsor. Advertising uses a number of channels which include the print media, media broadcast through radios and television, outdoor advertising and other forms of non personal selling. Advertising is a promotional strategy that maintains the omnipresence nature of an organization by increasing its non personal availability to different people. Advertising is highly flexible as it allows a business to focus on a small and precise segment or a mass market depending on the intention of the advertising model. It is also highly cost effective as compared to other elements of market mix as it reaches a large number of target consumers at a lower cost per person (Chen, 2011). With advertising, the message is repeated severally to the consumers which allow them time to compare the product with others offered with other organizations. Dramatization captures the attention of the audience and creates a lasting impression on their minds, a feature that is only possible with advertising. Advertising can also trigger quick sale and impulse buying among consumers which improves the impacts intended by the promotional strategy employed. However, advertising also have a number of disadvantages as compared to the other available elements of market mix. Feedback is an important aspect of promotion as it enables a business to repackage their product according to the consumer’s desires. Advertising has no room for any immediate feedback from consumers and is less persuasive when compared with the other elements of communication mix (Lichtenthal and Eliaz, 2003). Personal selling is a face to face interaction between the product promoter and the prospective consumers for the sole purpose of making presentation, answering any questions that may arise and finally procuring orders from the consumers. Personal selling is one of the most powerful elements of communication mix as they provide room for building customer relationship and long lasting business relations with the buyers. It provides the room for getting feedbacks from the consumers which allows for any adjustments on the products being marketed. Personal selling occurs in an environment where the consumers attention is fully captured increasing the possibility of getting a genuine response from them on how they view the products and the company. Despite the numerous advantages that personal selling posses, it is however an expensive means of product promotion and marketing and the sales representatives are required to travel over a long distance to meet consumers. The number of clients met at a particular time is also highly restricted due to the personal approach of this method which makes it impossible to interact with a large number of people at a time (Mossman, 2007). Sales promotion is the use of short term incentives like quantity discount or free product incentives to make consumers buy a product one more time. Some products found in our hyper markets have free cachets attached to them to induce consumers into buying them to increase the sale of such products. Sales promotion is very common in products which have just been introduced into the market or are on trials and thus requires gauging of the consumers’ attitude towards them. It attracts the attention of the consumers and thus offers a strong purchase incentive which has the potential of increasing the sales made. It also stimulates quick response and the consumer’s feedback on product can be registered with immediate effect as compared to advertising. Sales promotion is however short lived and cannot be used for an extended period of time an organization without running the risk of losses. It cannot also be used in situations where an organization requires building long term brand preferences among consumers (Lichtenthal and Eliaz, 2003). Public relation is an approach that is meant to endear consumers towards products of a particular company by building a positive company or individual product’s image. It involves the attempts that a company make in building a good corporate image and how it handles unfavorable rumors, stories or event that are used by competitors to win over the trust of consumers. A positive public image is highly credible and believable and it can be achieved through the use of many different forms like stories, events and sponsorship of events. It also reaches out to many prospective customers who are impressed by a company’s positive image but missed the other elements of communication mix that the organization employed. The creation of a good public image and relation is however not cheap as compared to advertising as it involves expensive company engagement like event sponsoring. It also lacks room for observing and acting on the consumer feedback which may increase product performance in the market (Mossman, 2007). Direct marketing is the final element of marketing mix that involves the use of a number of communication channels to reach a large number of consumers. It includes telephone, electronic mail, fax and internet that facilitate communication directly with the prospective customers. With direct communication, specific targeted individuals are contacted and direct feedback achieved that the company can thus use to design its products. Direct marketing has the advantage of being non public and thus devised specifically to suit the receivers needs with immediate timing and response. It is also highly interactive and well suited for highly targeted market efforts which have a higher possibility of translating into sales. It is however ineffective if a large number of prospective customers are to be contacted as it consumers time (Lichtenthal and Eliaz, 2003). Section 2: application to product/service In this section, I will provide an overview of a product that I created and how I intend to employ integrated marketing communication to increase its presence in the market. I will also provide the strategic approach that I shall use to communicate with my prospective consumers and the benefits that the internet shall provide in this strategy. Product overview My product shall be marketed with the trade name ‘my healthy robot’, a portable device that will be used to keep tracks of consumer’s health and positive living. My healthy robot is a small hand held device that collects specific health information from consumers and processes the information to formulate a health report. This gadget will use saliva as its main specimen which shall be placed inside a probe which is connected to the device. This device will be able to generate the profile report of the consumers within five minutes which will then be displayed on the screen or printed by an external device. It has a number of health makers such cholesterol, hormone levels and STIs. It also has the ability to analyze a consumers’ body mass index, a nutritional parameter which is important in weight loss and control. Core strategy and product positioning As a new product that lacks proper market presence and feasibility report, the integrated marketing communication approaches that shall be employed will ensure that its presence is announced to a larger percentage of the targeted market. As a product that lacks significant market presence and control, an approach that effectively introduces it to a larger percentage of the target market shall be adopted. This shall increase its awareness in the market through the use of non personal marketing approach like advertising through print and digital media. Dramatized advertising shall be adopted to enable catch the attention of the target consumers who would be more willing to get more information concerning the product. My healthy robot is a technical device that will also require professional expertise to operate and understand thus making the use of personal sales necessary. Sales representatives with great operational knowledge on the product will thus be employed to interact with the targeted consumers and market the product. This will also allow for the team to immediately answer any concerns and questions that the consumer may have on the product thus enabling my organization to factor in those concern in future models of the device. As a new product, brochures will provide a better platform through which the features of the product shall be explained in terms which can easily be understood by the consumers. This makes direct element IMC marketing approach necessary tool that will be employed by the business to help increase consumer knowledge on the basic operational details of the product (Lauer, 2007). As a product that seeks to improve the health of the intended consumers, my marketing communication will contain specific information as pertain the needs for living a healthy and informed life. In a world that is full of different lifestyle disorders, one must be able to monitor their health index and work round the clock to maintain their weight. This is a product that will make life easier as it will provide you with an updated information on your health and enable you design your life in such a way that you can actively monitor. As mentioned previously, direct marketing will also be employed to enable the product reach more prospective consumers and customers. With the current advancement in technology and the growth of the internet, the use of electronic mails and internet marketing will enable the product description and brochure reach more clients which will increase the market presence of the product (Mossman, 2007). As a product that has just been introduced into the market, there will be need to access how effective the methods that have been used to promote it are effective or not. This can only be achieved through the use of traditional methods of measuring effectiveness of advertising and product promotion. However, for this product, direct measuring of advertising effectiveness will be preferred as it will provide detailed information on consumer’s attitude and perception towards the product (Lauer, 2007). This approach will involve a comparison of sales made between two specific seasons and how two different markets and adopted similar IMC approach has reacted in terms of sales volume. Measuring of the volume of sales provides direct results on the impression that a product may have had on the potential consumers as a result of the IMC approach that the business had employed. This makes this approach of measuring advertising effectiveness appropriate for the business based on the current circumstance that surrounds the entry of the product into the market. References Chen, C. (2011). Integrated marketing communications and new product performance in international markets. Journal of global marketing, 24,397-416. Lauer, L. (2007). Advertising can be an effective integrated marketing tool. Journal of marketing for higher education, 17, 13-15. Lichtenthal, D and Eliaz, S. (2003). Internet integration in business marketing. Journal of industrial marketing management, 32, 3-13. Mossman, K. (2007). Marketing in the 21st century: integrated marketing communication. Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Group Read More