Integrated Marketing Communication - Essay Example

MARKETING ………………………….. College ……………………………… IMC, the communication process, and affect/behaviour/cognitionIntegrated marketing communication is process that enables a marketer to accelerate its returns by aligning communication and integrating diverse forms of communication such as advertisement, publicity programs, event marketing, sales promotion, public relation etc. In order to ensure achieving competitive advantage, companies in recent years have been giving greater importance to planning and executing certain marketing strategies such as IMC, customer focus, marketing orientation etc. IMC has been considered as a very effective strategy since it can directly influence the behaviour of targeted audience (Belch and Belch, 2007). IMC is meant to maintain a proper and coherent communication relation as one of the most important basic principles of IMC is to ensure ‘consistency’ in messages being communicated. IMC is not only a careful coordination of some or all promotional messages such as personal selling, advertisement, sales promotion, sponsorship etc, but also a very strategic tool to ensure consistency in each and every contacts between the firm its stakeholders including management, employees and customers. As some literatures noted, IMC’s philosophy advocates that there should be a proper coordination in messaging so as to ensure that IMC facilitate multiple messaging with a single voice (Shimp, 2008). Marketing communication is a process of exchanging facts, ideas, opinions, emotions etc about the brand or the firm that are important for the marketer to impact customers’ behaviour and attitudes. An important principle of IMC suggests that marketing communication should not only influence customers’ awareness about brand, but also should encourage them to respond to the desired action. If IMC’s specific goal is to improve word-of-mouth, the messages should be able to affect customers’ positive talk about the brand. 2. The marketing orientation and how products are sold Assessing what present and future customers want and need and what can satisfy them is a critically important requirement in marketing. A firm is not supposed to offer to its customers a product or service that it simply wants to produce or provide, but rather, it should see what its customers want now and in future and then to design and develop products or services accordingly. Marketing orientation is a process of organization-wide generation of market intelligence pertaining to current and future customers’ needs and wants. There are basically three dimensions in marketing orientation- They are:- Generating organization-wide market intelligence practices to assess or to comprehend customers’ both present and future wants and needs Disseminating this marketing intelligence across various departments in the firm such as finance, management, marketing, procurement, HRM etc, and Creating, encouraging and establishing an organization-wide responsiveness to the marketing intelligence (Pride and Ferrel, 2010). For example, the marketer of a computer manufacturing firm needs to foresee anticipated changes in technology and customer’s attitude now and in future pertaining to speed, accuracy, size, capacity etc. In generating and disseminating marketing intelligence, the marketer then requires to encourage responsiveness from across different departments. In marketing process, goods and services are sold to final consumers through middle-men business people such as retailers or directly to the consumers through online or other distribution systems. Demand for specific goods or service is the driving factor to affect sales. Demand occurs only when customers are willing to buy. But, their willingness occurs when they find certain values, qualities, benefits and utility that can satisfy their wants, needs and expectations. 3. Motivations for shopping Customers take decision to buy when they are affected by logical or impulsive or emotional motivations. Buying decisions can be influenced by some marketing programs such as advertising, sales promotion, public relation etc since they cause emotional, logical and impulsive responses in customers behaviour. This is the main reason why all companies love to understand what motivates their targeted customers. Advertisings aims to 1) inform customers about goods, services, brand or firm and certain features of goods or services, 2) remind them about existing goods or services and 3) persuade them to buy. With all these three actions, a marketer can motivate customers to buy, because, if the advertising gives information about certain unique features or values of the offerings that can meet their needs, wants and individual requirements, they will prompted to buy. The same motive works when they are reminded by advertisements. When customers are persuaded by certain strategic messaging such as ‘limited stock’ or ‘50% discount for the first 100 entries’ etc, they are more effectively persuaded to buy. The primary objective of marketing communication is not to create an emotional response at the advertisement, but is to build emotional association with brand itself so that customers will have a consistent emotional touch with the brand its offerings. Customers buying decisions are affected logically when they find goods or services worth its costs. Impulsive responses are generated when advertising uses certain techniques of persuasion as mentioned above. Customers go for shopping and they buy certain goods that they didn’t plan to buy before they reached there for certain factors such as display, self-service, point-of-sale advertising etc. Apart from emotional, logical and impulsive factors that affect buying decisions, there are other factors that can too cause motivation to buy. 4. Persuasion, selling, and ethics Sales occurs only when products or services offered by a firm attract customers who are not only willing to buy for that they perceive these goods or services to meet their needs or wants and but also they are capable to do so. Consumers are informed and persuaded to buy these goods or services through marketing communication such as advertisement or promotional activities such as sales promotion. Advertising and promotion activities are carried out either before the sale to spread information among the public to ensure increase sales or during and after sales to consistently remind customers or persuade them to buy goods or services. After sale services, for example, is a very strategic approach to increase positive feedback and word-of-mouth which in turn augments long-term loyalty and customer relation. Motivation or persuasion works only when customers are notified about a product or service and their capacity to meet their wants or needs. Marketing communication including advertisement that are aligned to organizational goal, mission or objectives of the firm and its aspirations to satisfy customers’ specific requirements can more effectively impact their motivation for shopping. Advertising and other promotional messages must not be misleading or inaccurate as ethical and fair-trade practices are major concerns in today’s competitive marketing environment. For example, customers expect greater accuracy, speed and high-power technology when they are looking for computer or electronic products. They, for instance, expect freshness, quality etc when they buy fruits. The marketer of these products, therefore, is required to advertise about such elements or features that not only their customers are mostly looking at but also that these products are best capable to meet. References Belch, G. E and Belch, M. A (2007), Advertising and Promotion, An integrated marketing Perspective, McGraw Hill Irwin Pride, W.M, & Ferrel, O.C. 2010, Marketing, Cengage Learning Shimp, T, 2008, Advertising Promotion and Other Aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications, Eighth edition, Cengage Learning Read More