Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities, and Content - Book Report/Review Example

Executive Summary Marketing communication has been provided with utmost importance by companies to gain acceptance within the market. The following integrated marketing communication plan will serve as a roadmap to turn the direction of the business to achieve the desired level of success. This plan aims to provide better understanding of the strategies taken into consideration to increase the overall engagement level of customers within the market, while influencing the customers to purchase the products offered by Cupcake Central. Cupcake Central once witnessed significant increase in the level of sales, primarily due to the excitement of the customers. But this excitement soon came to an end due to the rising number of competitors in the market that are offering the same products with similar differentiation strategy. To overcome the troublesome time, Cupcake Central must focus highly on its strengths to transform the weaknesses into opportunities that could help in catering the needs of the customers accordingly. Through integrated marketing communication, Cupcake Central is provided with an opportunity to increase the level of sales, while increasing the awareness level of the customers in the market. By doing so, the organization will once again engage with the customers on a significant level. The marketing and communication objectives set within this plan include the increase of Facebook likes by 30 percent, while increasing the followers and subscribers on Youtube and Instagram by 50 percent each. In order to attain the objectives, Cupcake Central must initiate a campaign to attract the customers on Facebook. The campaign is to add friends on Facebook to win a free cupcake. Similarly, engaging with the customers is considered equally important by Cupcake Central. To engage with the customers, Cupcake Central will initiate campaign where the customers would be presented with an opportunity to celebrate birthdays with Cupcake Central. In addition, the corporate clients will be provided with free cupcakes for a limited time period to motivate them to place orders frequently to taste the delicious cupcakes offered by Cupcake Central. With a limited budget, the media would be used carefully. Meanwhile, effectiveness of each campaign initiated will be frequently monitored for the evaluation of campaign’s success along with the level of goal accomplishment. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Introduction 4 Cupcake Central 5 Situation Analysis 6 SWOT Analysis 8 Marketing Objectives 8 Target Market (Audience) 9 Communication Objectives 12 IMC Strategy and Specific Objectives for IMC Elements 13 Social Media 13 Highpoint Sales 14 Corporate Sales 14 Creative Strategy 15 Media Strategy 15 Social Media 16 Highpoint and Corporate Sales 17 Media Schedule 17 Monitoring and Evaluation 18 Conclusion 19 list of references 20 Introduction Marketing has moved beyond the traditional approach to more interactive, consumer driven and social marketing approach. With an aim to run a successful business, entrepreneurs and businessman have relied upon the usage of Integrated Marketing Communication, in short IMC, which focuses on integrating all the marketing disciplines under one umbrella (Kotler and Keller, 2009). As a result, the organizations are provided with an ability to deliver one consistent message across the channels to develop its brand experience to utmost level (Kotler, Armstrong, Wong, and Saunders, 2008). Integrated Marketing Communication has continually ushered in the new era by ensuring all forms of communications and messages are linked together to deliver a consistent message to the customers (Kotler, 2003; Smith and Zook, 2011). This reflects that IMC has answered the question that constantly bothered the entrepreneurs and businessman: ‘How can I keep my business running successfully?’ The purpose of this study is to develop an integrated marketing communication plan for Cupcake Central. To gain better understanding of the core competencies and the business environment of Cupcake Central, a relevant situational environment has been taken into account. The situational analysis helps significantly in the evaluation of internal and external business environment along with the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats presented. In short, the situational analysis has helped in clarifying the information gaps that reduces the possibility to keep the business running successfully. Next, the marketing objectives are defined and elaborated for Cupcake Central along with the target audience and communication objectives. To help the organization attain its desired objectives, the IMC strategy along with its roles and specific objectives for the IMC elements have been elaborated separately. Next, the IMC plan encompasses the creative strategy including the position statement. Media strategy is an important section in this IMC plan. To convince and convert the potential customers into actual customers can only be done through effective media strategy. In short, the media strategy helps in guiding the organization to interact with the media to attain the desired result and objectives. By taking the importance of media strategy into account, the IMC plan includes media strategy along with media schedule for the IMC. In the very end, the IMC plan encompasses the monitoring and evaluation of the plan. Cupcake Central Cupcake Central is in a business of providing the customers with best ever baked cupcakes, while creating a uniquely experiential brand. Being located in Hawthorn and Melbourne Central, Cupcake Central has worked towards the creation of unique experience through its freshly baked cupcakes to the superior customer service. With an aim to become the most accessible brand to the customers, Cupcake Central has distinguished its brand by eliminating all the frills associated with a typical cupcake bakery. Cupcake Central has always been inspired with the American pop-culture and to make the American pop-culture thrive, Cupcake Central has added a unique Melbourne twist within the culture. This is the major reason for Cupcake Central brand to be quirky, strong and engaging. The passion for innovation and entrepreneurship has resulted in the creation of Cupcake Central that aspires to deliver remarkable experience to each and every customer in the locality. The one-of-its-kind Cupcake Central has continually worked to provide its customers with unique and high quality products. This has eventually resulted in the consistently growing customer-base within the areas in which Cupcake Central operates. Additionally, Cupcake Central business revolves around the aspiration of providing the customers with remarkable experience. With every bite the customer takes on freshly baked cupcakes, Cupcake Central focuses on inspiring the customers to ‘hatch their dreams’ through the quirky and strong cupcakes. The mission of Cupcake Central has eventually presented the organization with a unique position within the cupcake industry. To make the most out of this position, Cupcake Central must ensure effective integrated communication plan to further enhance its customer base, while chewing the market share of the competitors as well as the typical cupcake bakeries. At this point, IMC strategy can provide Cupcake Central with an opportunity to align its strategies to deliver consisted message to the customers. Situation Analysis Cupcakes have become a pop-cultural trend across the globe. With people around the globe showing interest in cupcakes, the concept has been widely accepted by several bakeries. The trend started in Los Angeles and New York. Sprinkle was amongst the bakeries that took significant advantage of the trend and became the first cupcake bakery in Beverly Hills. With the passage of time, Sprinkle expanded to over twenty locations. Within flash, the concept of cupcakes became the new black. This could be witnessed through the declaration of Vogue magazine, ‘Being an owner of the cupcake bakery is the fantasy of every living human being’. According to the predictions of the experts, owning a cupcake bakery within the locality can present the owner with dominant advantage to earn a fortune due to the high prices. The recession that started in the late 2007 has significantly impacted the bakery and confectionery industry across the globe to significant level. With an idea how to make cupcakes at home, significant number of individuals shifted from cupcake giants to home baked tasty cupcakes through cheap basic ingredients. With significantly less investment required to start and scale up a cupcake bakery, Australia has witnessed significant increase in the number of cupcake bakeries with the passage of time. The turn of casual baking into an urban industry has resulted in the opening of hundred of cupcake bakeries in Melbourne over the last decade. With significant rise in the bakeries, it has become quite difficult for the cupcake bakeries to differentiate themselves from one other, while capitalizing the market through their delicious cupcakes. Some of the bakeries that are listed among the top places to purchase cupcakes in Melbourne are as follows (Simeonvisser, 2011); Little Cupcakes The Cupcake Bakery The Cupcake Queens Cupcake Occasion Cupcakes by Paolo Cupcake Central Sugadeaux Cupcakes Love at First Bite Cupcakes Three Sweeties Sweethut Cupcakes SWOT Analysis Being one of the famous cupcake shops in Melbourne, Cupcake Central has gained variety of advantages through its strengths. Some of the core strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats presented within the business environment in which Cupcake Central operates are as follows; Strengths Provides customized cupcakes to customers according to their desires Online portal to order desired cupcakes Cupcakes for occasion and business events Constant innovation in product development Fresh ingredients Provides unique cupcake classes Loyal customers Weaknesses Unclear product differentiation in competitive environment The constantly changing demands of the customers makes it difficult to create awareness regarding the products offered Constantly declining sales Opportunities The emerging social media can be used to advertise freely over the internet Engaging with the customers through social media can lead to significant rise in in-store customers Online presence and guerilla marketing tactics can lead to significant increase in the level of awareness Threats Constantly rising number of cupcake shops in the locality can significantly damage the market share and sales Without proper online engagement, there is a possibility to lose the direction of the business in the clutter Marketing Objectives For the communication plan to be successful, it is significantly important for the organization to devise appropriate marketing objectives (Piercy, 2009). As identified by Fill (2009), the marketing objectives are to be on the basis of SMART (i.e. specific, measurable, accurate, reliable and timely). The target of this integrated communication plan is to accelerate the declining market share in the bakery and confectionary industry in Australia. Despite significant competition in the bakery and confectionary industry, Cupcake Central aims to enhance the awareness of the brand to increase its sales and revenues during the limited time frame. Some of the dominant marketing objectives of Cupcake Central are as follows; To increase the brand awareness of Cupcake Central through dominant social media platforms during the months of September to December 2013. To increase the number of likes on Facebook from 9240 to 12000 (i.e. 30 percent) by the end of December 31st 2013. To increase the number of followers on Instagram from 3350 to 5025 (i.e. 50 percent) by the end of December 31st 2013. To increase the number of YouTube subscribers from 3430 to 5145 (i.e. 50 percent) by the end of December 31st 2013. To drive the sales through highpoint and corporate customers, while establishing a steady flow of orders to enhance the revenue by 20 percent during September and December 2013. Target Market (Audience) The aim of Cupcake Central is to make the brand accessible to all its customers, while reducing the frills associated with the traditional cupcake bakery. The passion for entrepreneurship and innovation has inspired Cupcake Central to focus primarily on accessibility of cupcakes to all of its customers. To define the target audience of Cupcake Central, buyer’s persona has been created to ensure the understanding of buying behavior. A persona could be defined as a fake member of the target market that helps in the presentation of collective summary of the audience that shares similar interests, demographics and perceptions. The personas for the defined target audience are as follows; Health Conscious Students These are young and career minded female students that are fond of music, sports and fashion. The 24-years-old students are mostly health fanatic and tend to live fit and stylish lifestyle. Working Women The women at the age of 34 are mostly professionals with entire focus upon the career development and enhancement, while having keen eye for quality products with unique taste. Career Moms The career moms at the age of 40 are financially sound to purchase products according to their desires. With very active recreational lifestyle, career moms own high-tech gadgets and products to keep them socially and culturally active. Upscale Mature Women The women approaching retirement at the age of 55 are quite interested in charitable causes and investments. With sound financial resources, the upscale mature women tend to do and eat whatever they want without any restrictions from any one. To understand more about the target audience for Cupcake Central, it is essentially important to learn more about the personality, lifestyle and usage of social media. The following table clearly reflects all of the earlier mentioned factors related to the target audience; Target Audience Personality Lifestyle Usage of Social Media Health Conscious Students The young, fashion-conscious and sports loving female students tend to keep themselves updated through the high-tech gadgets available within the market. A career-minded female student aspires to get a real job in the business world to show their worth within the market. Being a fashion-conscious, 24 years old students tend to shop online due to the conveniences associated with online-shopping. To a 24 years old female student, it is critically important to get a thing done in the quickest manner regardless of the most effective way to get the job done. 24 years old female tend to spend most of their time on social networking sites. They tend to check their activity on Facebook and Twitter even in the middle of the night or as soon as they wake-up in the morning. The other social media includes BBM, Groupon, Emailer, Blogger and Podcaster. Working Women Women at the age of 34 are interested in spending their time on beautiful islands. Being a workaholic, such women keep their body appealing through yoga and kick boxing. Action and romantic movies are considered attractive by chic working women. To relieve their stress and tension, they tend to spend time with their closest friends over a bar or café. These women tend to purchase only designer brands. Their wardrobes are filled with brands like Ann Taylor, Levis, Espirit, Burberry and Mulberry. Being a workaholic, such women are considered regular at branded coffeehouse (i.e. Starbucks). A research indicates that women in their 30s are the most active social media users. With 50 percent of activities over the social media, such women are considered heavy users. The mostly used social media activity by this age group includes Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Groupon, BBM, Skype and Blogger. Career Mom The savvy career moms are enthusiastic and energetic to take risks that could bring significant change in their lives. A 40-years-old career mom spends time pampering herself on the weekend with mani-pedi. They cannot think of going anywhere without their Smartphone and is highly interested in collecting souvenirs during her travelling. Being an active social media user, a career savvy mom tends to receive notifications and news through her Facebook account before the traditional media. Despite the frequency and load of work, a career mom shops through online-portals primarily due to her convenience. Being an earning individual, a 40 years old woman has the authority to shop whatever and whenever she wants. Groceries are frequently bought from the nearest located grocery shop. A career savvy mom tends to use social networking sites to find relevant information regarding a product to be purchased, while monitoring the activities of her children. With limited available time, a career savvy mom tends to use following social media; Blogger, Facebook, Twitter, BBM and Emailer. Upscale Mature Women An upscale mature woman feels liberated due to the age. Irrespective of the age, upscale mature women tend to wear things that they want. With significant amount of money in the account, a comfortable life is guaranteed for mature women. With all the time available in the world, mature women tend to travel from one place to another, while having the grandchildren visit the home in summers. Due to the passing age, mature women tend to spend time purchasing furnishing items, while buying groceries from the nearest located store in non-peak hours. With significant amount of money in the account, they tend to purchase dress that can be afforded. With a growth rate of 175 percent since last fall, women over the age of 55 are considered to be the most active and fastest growing user-group over the internet. The most common social media networking site includes Blogger and Facebook. This clearly reflects that women between the ages of 24 to 60 are to be taken into account for the target market. The target market ranges in income level, but what they share in common is the love for delicious and sophisticated freshly baked cupcakes. Being located in Hawthorn + Melbourne + Highpoint, Cupcake Central is provided with an outstanding opportunity to attract the customers by enhancing the accessibility to the customers from all age groups. Communication Objectives The communication objectives that are to be accomplished through this integrated marketing communication plan are as follows; To strengthen the relationship with the customers by building customer based through social networking sites to significantly enhance the resonance with the customers by 30 percent. To coordinate a single message through all the channels utilized to represent a clear idea of the existence of Cupcake Central in the minds of customers. By taking into account the love for delicious and sophisticated freshly baked cupcakes without any associated frills, Cupcake Central would increase the sales by 20 percent. To communicate the customers regarding the cupcake subscription service to enhance the corporate sales by 25 percent, while establishing a steady flow of orders to corporate customers. IMC Strategy and Specific Objectives for IMC Elements With an aim to enhance the overall awareness of the products offered by Cupcake Central through social media websites, it is essential to understand the specific objectives for each of the IMC element. The objectives associated with IMC elements are as follows; Social Media Social media will play an influential role in increasing the awareness level of Cupcake Central in Melbourne and Hawthorn. With an aim to enhance the accessibility to all the customers, social media will surely help in attracting the customers to shift from their cupcake brand to Cupcake Central offerings. Some of the objectives that are to be achieved through this element are as follows; To increase the number of likes by 30 percent on Facebook. To increase the number of followers by 50 percent on Instagram. To increase the number of subscriber by 50 percent on Youtube. Apart from these objectives, social media will also help in providing the customers with updated information regarding the new flavored cupcakes available along with new recipes of cupcakes at Cupcake Central. The use of social media will surely impact the buying behavior. As a result, the customer traffic over the Facebook page will significantly increase, thus leading to the enhancement of sales and revenues. Highpoint Sales Highpoint sale is a capital intensive campaign but to communicate and attract the customers in the market, it has to be taken into consideration. The best utilization of resources to increase the awareness of customers regarding the variety of cupcakes offered by Cupcake Central can be done through out-of-house (OOH) marketing. This guerilla marketing played an essential role in preceding year and will surely help in changing the behavior of the customers towards the experience filled cupcakes offered by Cupcake Central. The use of the multi-channel strategy will surely help in gaining the attention of the customers. With entire focus on the demand of customers at highpoint sales, Cupcake Central experienced significant amount of sales that declined with the passage of time. To once again motivate the customers to purchase the cupcakes, Cupcake Central will use its unique brand characteristics to utilize the best channel available for the enhancement of sales. Corporate Sales Corporate customers have played a dominant role in the successful journey of Cupcake Central. To once again witness significant sale and steady flow of orders, it has become essential to take the corporate customers into assurance. This can be done through subscription service that will allow the corporate customers to enjoy steady supply of cupcakes. The values and lifestyle of the customers can significantly help in attaining new customers that are interested in availing the monthly delivery of cupcakes at predefined charges. This will motivate the customers to change their attitude and behavior towards the cupcakes offered by Cupcake Central in Melbourne and Hawthorn. Creative Strategy Cupcake Central is all about providing the customers with remarkable experience through the cupcakes offered to the customers. To differentiate the brand in the baking and confectionery industry, it has become pivotal to aware the customers regarding the existence of the brand. This can be done through Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Cupcake Central has always focused on providing the customers with remarkable experience through the cupcakes offered to the customers. By taking this factor into account, the USP of Cupcake Central would revolve around remarkable experience and quality products. “Celebrate your dreams with unique and high quality cupcakes with Cupcake Central”. The main goal here would be to arouse the interests of customers to celebrate their happiness with Cupcake Central. The passion of Cupcake Central to inspire the customers will ultimately provide them with a remarkable experience, spanning from everything Cupcake Central offers from product to values and customer service. Media Strategy A plan of action is necessary for every work that needs to be done in the most appropriate manner. The discrepancies associated with the work to be done can be eliminated through the media strategy (Mulhem, 2009; Thackeray, Neiger, and Hanson, 2007). Media strategy plays a dominant role in the success of integrated communication plan, primarily due to its role of evaluating the right path or direction to deliver the message to the target market and audience (Zenker & Martin, 2011). The media strategy of Cupcake Central has kept the budget in mind to attract the right customers through the media used. Social Media The evolution of social media has provided organizations with an appealing opportunity to advertise their products freely over the internet (Smith and Zook, 2011; Samiee, 1998). But to do so, organizations must be prepared for both the positives and the negatives. Some of the tactics that are to be used over social media to gain attention over social media are as follows; Add Friends to Get a Free Cupcake With an objective to gain customer’s attention over social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Instagram and Youtube), Cupcake Central would provide the customers with a challenge to add more than 100 friends over the prominent social media sites to win a free cupcake. This will eventually put Cupcake Central in a position to attract its target audience in the market by helping them connect with one another. The core scheme would be to inform the friends that were added over the social networking sites. The person that will add most friends over the social media will win a free customized cupcake. To take part within the campaign the target audience would have to like the Cupcake Central page over Facebook, while following the Cupcake Central on Instagram and Youtube. Highpoint and Corporate Sales Highpoint and Corporate sales declined with the passage of time. To get the things back on the track, Cupcake Central must take the following strategy into consideration; Celebrate Your Birthday with Cupcake Central Birthday is an occasion that is celebrated all over the world. To show appreciation and love towards its customers, Cupcake Central will initiate a campaign that will provide cupcakes at discounted rate to people celebrating their birthday with Cupcake Central. To further gain the acceptance of the customers, gift hampers will be provided to children. Find Greatness Campaign To once again restore the corporate orders, Cupcake Central will start a campaign of providing cupcakes to the corporate personnel for free. This campaign will be for a time period of 1 week and corporate clients would be informed regarding the campaign. This campaign will help to increase the level of awareness regarding the quality products offered by Cupcake Central in Melbourne and Hawthorn. Media Schedule The calendar that reveals the integrated marketing communication schedule is as follows; Communication Medium 13-Sep 13-Oct 13-Nov 13-Dec Social Media         Add Friends to Get a Free Cupcake         Corporate and Highpoint Sales         Find Greatness Campaign         Celebrate Your Birthday with Cupcake Central         Out-of-house         For this integrated marketing communication plan, Cupcake Central needs to define the budget allocated for the evaluation of effectiveness. To promote the message while achieving the objectives, Cupcake Central has allocated the budget in the following manner; Communication Medium Budget Allocation Social Media   Add Friends to Get a Free Cupcake $1,000 Corporate and Highpoint Sales   Find Greatness Campaign $500 Celebrate Your Birthday with Cupcake Central $500 Out-of-house $1,000 Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring and evaluation play a predominant role in assessing the success of the IMC plan. Following are the ways through which the strategies taken into consideration are to be assessed and evaluated. The increase in number of likes on Facebook can reveal the impact of strategies taken into account by Cupcake Central. In addition, the number of people talking about the Cupcake Central over Facebook can also help in assessing the success of IMC plan. The number of recently joined users will also help in evaluating the success of plan taken into account. The number of subscribers to win a free cupcake by adding friends over social media site (i.e. Facebook) will also help in assessing the impact of campaign to increase the awareness level of Cupcake Central. The number of clicks received by the link can also help in revealing the success of Cupcake Central Success over the social media. The number of comments and amount of subscribers on Youtube and Instagram can help in revealing the engagement level of customers over the internet. The number of orders received by the highpoint sales stores along with the increase in customer traffic within the store can also help in assessing the interested target audience. Conclusion This integrated marketing communication plan has been devised for Cupcake Central that once provided with significant opportunities to expand in the market. With the passage of time, Cupcake Central experience significant decline in the number of sales and customer orders that eventually impacted the generation of revenue. The communication plan is aimed to provide Cupcake Central with an ability to increase the overall brand awareness within the bakery and confectionery industry, while increasing its level of sales and engagement on social networking websites. list of references Fill, C. (2009). Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities and Content (5th Ed.) London: FT Prentice Hall Kotler P., Armstrong, G.,Wong, V. and Saunders, J. (2008). Principles of Marketing (5th European Ed.) London: FT Prentice Hall Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management. Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall. Kotler, P., and Keller, K. (2009). A Framework for Marketing Management. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Mulhem, F. 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