The Role of Marketing Communication for Business - Essay Example

Marketing: Marketing Communication A lot of people think that marketing is just about advertising and sales. In every business, marketing plays a very important role as it is everything a company does to get customers and keep a relationship as long as possible with them. It includes every activity a company does with buying, and selling of goods and services to consumers. Even little tasks that may seem negligible such as sending a thank you mail, playing darts with a prospective customer, responding to communication on time and having coffee with a former client are all important in marketing and no stone should be left unturned. Those involved in marketing focus on catching consumers’ attention through catchy slogans, media exposure, redesigning packages and endorsements from celebrities. Marketing includes what is known as the four “Ps” which are product, people, place and promotion (Kerin, 2012). A result oriented business knows very well that it cannot afford to play around with marketing communication. Marketing communication is a fundamental part of any businesses marketing department. As a key element, communication plays a major part in marketing, as a process it uses words, signs, sounds, images, and behaviors to express ideas, feelings or even thoughts to a recipient. In short, it is conveying information to a recipient with an expectation of a feedback. With that knowledge, marketing communication simply put is the deployment of every media to convey a message to the market. It covers advertisements, branding, printing materials, direct marketing, packaging, online presence, sales presentations, PR activities, sponsorships and many more (MaRS, 2012). In as much as marketing communication has a hand in these activities, its main goal is to deliver results in the form of brand loyalty. Objectives of Marketing Communication Marketing communication is geared towards two major objectives; create a sustainable demand for the product (brand loyalty) and to make the sale cycle shorter (Marsdd.com 2012). Preference creation is often a long term objective as it is aimed at using tools of communication to place the company or product in the mind of the customers targeted. To place or position a product and build a brand is not an overnight adventure, but requires consistency and time in communication, product, pricing and distribution to show degree of commitment by the company. When preference is done through building brands, it helps impact the market share, access to talent and profitability as a means for company’s’ long term value provision. Communication through positioning helps the consumer answer four major questions: what is this? Which is answered by the product, what does it do, answered by the benefits, what it means, answered by the effects and finally why should I care? Which is defined by the motivation (Marsdd.com 2012). Shortening sales cycle on the other hand deals with assisting partners in sales as they make efforts to identify, engage and get hold of customers. A good understanding of customers buying process is key to knowing how to shorten the sales cycle (Marsdd.com 2012). This also involves market research and conversations with salepersons as this helps a market communication staff gain knowledge on how to speed up the process. If the product is high-tech, one thing considered is the education of the customer as the aim of the market communication staff is to create, package and deliver information in the best way in relation to the customers’ education. In general, though techniques used to shorten sales cycle seem more tactical, there must be a balance between the two to avoid questions on legitimacy when one plan has the upper hand over the other. A close collaboration with those in sales and face consumers is mandatory to achieve this (Marsdd.com 2012). Role of Marketing Communication in the Consumer Buying Process As stated by Thackston (2003), many marketers do not put a lot of considerations towards the buying process of their consumers. This may have a detrimental effect on a business. On a general note, the buying process has five steps. The five steps involved are; the need recognition, information search, evaluation, purchase and finally cognizant dissonant or post purchase anxiety (Thackston 2003). In the first step of need recognition, a buyer is brought to the knowledge that they lack and need something. They realize they their desire for something and try to find a solution for it. Marketing communication may be useful in making potential customers get aware that they indeed have a need that can be fulfilled. This may be the case especially where a new product is has been introduced in the market and many people are not aware of its capacity to solve their problems. When marketers succeed in creating awareness of a need, through communication, they make a major step toward delivering results; attracting sales or brand loyalty. After the need has been recognized, the buyer moves a step further to search for information relevant to the need to help make quality decisions related the needs. During this time they make phone calls, visit websites, read printed information, free samples are tested; test drives and other means of gathering information are tested and put in place. Marketing communication plays an important role in helping potential customers understand what the product they are researching about can do for them. The sooner they understand this, the shorter the purchasing cycle gets. After information is gathered consumers move to evaluate the information and narrow down to what they feel suits them best as they feel comfortable and in a position to afford. During this process follow up is necessary incase there is need for more information, correction of a problem that may have risen. Marketing communication is important at this point as it encourages the customer to actually purchase the product for all it is worth. Once information is evaluated, the consumer makes the decision to buy the product, this is always assumed as the final step but at times customers tend to start thinking of their decisions and re-evaluate their choices, this leads to post purchase anxiety or buyer regrets (Thackston 2003). At this stage, factors such as trial periods, warrantees, and guarantees are important. These factors, together with the quality of the product, when properly expressed to the customer an play a major role in ensuring that the customers remain loyal to the company or brand. Product Positioning Another key element in marketing communication is positioning. This is a concept that spells out what a company needs to get done in order to market its products/services to the consumer. The image of the product is created in regards to the audience that is targeted. This is where the 4’Ps’ (product, place, price and promotion) come handy. Thoroughness in positioning leads to thoroughness in marketing strategy for the company. When good positioning is done the buyer find it easy to move from product knowledge to purchase. Target market analysis must be done in the beginning to gain knowledge of the audience targeted. The target audience includes the group of people who will benefit from the product/services. Once the needs and interests of the audience is know, a good marketing team moves to create a good positioning statement that will help reach the market as much as possible (Richards, 2014). There are many ways businesses position themselves, one of them is advertisements. This is usually the first place businesses position themselves. It is up to a cosmetic company to determine whom they are targeting and what need they are trying to meet. For instance if they choose to go for an audience of African teenagers in Britain, the aim of the cosmetic product should be clear. If the product is to help them deal with acne, the advert can include a British African physician attempting to educate them on how to fight acne with that product. Such an advert might not work with older Caucasians trying to look younger. Another way of positioning is through sales locations, reaching consumers is more than just a good advert; it involves making the right choices for the line of distribution. Products should be positioned as close as possible to the consumer; the business needs to create an advertisement in store that would be like the one out of store to create a general identification. Positioning is also effectively done through price. There is a great deal of research done behind the psychology of market price, more than it is realized the item price speaks a lot about the product to the buyer. Higher prices are mostly associated with high quality as opposed to lower prices being related to low quality. Positioning a product to be an alternative to high priced ones requires pricing to be done in the middle of the spectrum to deal with the issue of comparison to the cheaper ones Lauren (2014). Marketing Message Just as positioning, marketing message is an element of marketing communication; it is what gets hold of your prospective customer (Frey, 2014). The not only tells them how you can solve their problems, but why they must trust you, and the reason why they need to get involved in business with you and not to consider other choices they have. As mostly confused, it is not the business slogan or the representation of awards won or the vision and mission statement of the company. The message should speak to your prospects by presenting a statement that touches the emotional sensitivity of your prospects. To come up with an appeal marketing message, a few steps ought to be followed. First the market must be identified as the message can only be crafted after the target market has been narrowed. Every business whether small or big has a target market whether or not they are aware of that, a local dry cleaners market may be the local professionals (Frey, 2014). Identifying the problems experience by the market is fundamental, this raise the question as to what problem is the market facing and how does it affect their feelings. As the old adage goes, people do not care about you until they know that you care. Your target market needs to know that you understand the problems and empathize. The next thing is to offer your solution; the question raised here is what is the solution that being offered. The solution should be presented as a remedy for all the issues eating up the target consumers. The importance of this presentation is that many people seem not to care unless they are really in need. After identifying all benefits show them how these benefits are meant to be a remedy for all their problems. Results from what your solutions have done to others are important, as you do the message, ask what the results of your solutions to other people who had similar problems? This proves to people that you do not just have a solution but a working one. People tend to believe other people who have come out of the same situation they are in. Use testimonies from both former and current customers whom you offered the working solution that changed their situation. This is the point where a business needs s to explain to the consumers what makes them stand out apart from others. People will be out to see the differences communicated, these differences must have values that the prospects have understood, something they deeply value (Frey, 2014). Marketing Communication in a New Market There are two sources from where target customers are drawn from in the early market, that is, those who are passionate about technology and those who are visionary. Both of them have their own methods of gaining knowledge on new products and this must be considered when communicating. Due to limited resources, start ups employ the power of persuasion to try and convert prospects into customers. This demands a lot, it is to be note that employing the right evidence and the right media is important. The first goal is to prove the presence of an existing technology possessed beyond what is normal (marsdd.com1 2012). At this point your target audience are those people passionate about technology such analysts, bloggers, super users, journalist and others. The message communicated needs to be focused on leading the pack, as you present the crisis give a solution on how the product will solve it better than what has been there. The second goal is to communicate to those visionary prospects that do not look so much to the technology behind the product but the innovative product. To convey the message to this audience, the message must show how the product can offer a specific advantage with their own methods as their main concern is how the product is innovative. When this level is attained, issues to do with the market will have very little effect (marsdd.com1 2012). Marketing Communication Strategy The mainstream market deals mainly with pragmatists whose main interest is not the product or the technology behind it, they are skeptical and what interest them are the companies and the market (marsdd.com 2012). The message forged should put your product in apposition where it relates to the business problem that interests the pragmatists, and they consider as a priority. It must be considered that this audience seeks for different message in the media from the early market, guided by market orientation and not technology. The more successful a business becomes the more it needs to reach the mass market beyond the bowling alley. This calls for a sophisticated marketing communication and strategy, experts such as PR firms, advertising companies and designers are employed at this point (Marsdd.com 2012). References Frey D. (2014) 5 Step Formula for Creating Your Marketing Message, available:https://www.powerhomebiz.com/marketing-tips/marketing-strategies/5-step-formula-creating-marketing-message.htm[April 19, 2014] Kerin, R. (2012). Marketing: The Core. McGaw-Hill Ryerson, New York. Lauren L. (2014) Small business: what is positioning in marketing plan? Available: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/positioning-marketing-plan-22983.html [April 19, 2014] marsdd.com (2012) Market communication across the Chasm and in the Bowling Alley http://www.marsdd.com/articles/market-communication-across-the-chasm-and-in-the-bowling-alley/ [April 19, 2014] marsdd.com1 (2012) Market communication in the Early Market. http://www.marsdd.com/articles/market-communication-in-the-early-market/ [April 19, 2014] marsdd.com1 (2012) Marketing communication overview. available:http://www.marsdd.com/articles/marketing-communication-overview/ [April 19, 2014] Richards L. (2014) The Importance of Product Positioning to the Marketing Plan, available:http://smallbusiness.chron.com/importance-product-positioning-marketing-plan-24275.html [April 19, 2014] Thackston K. (2003) Sales and marketing: Understanding the Buying Process Can Increase Your Sales, available http://www.4hb.com/20031222061010.html [April 19, 2014] Read More