Marketing Decision Making - Essay Example

Type Here Type your Paper Project Type: example Unit 3 Individual Project The FlowerWorld needs effective marketing and advertising campaigns in order to attract consumes and inform target audience about the new service and its benefits. Societal institutions such as advertising arise because of economic, social, and cultural need. In an abundant economy, the provision of marketing information becomes a complex, expensive task. Marketing Decision Making Introduction The communications process is concerned with the dissemination of stimuli and their perception, impact, use, and effectiveness. Marketing communications have meaning to the extent that an individual's predisposition or experience permits him to see, hear, or read them. Communications channels Effective market communication requires an integrated promotional system that reaches from primary producer to ultimate consumer. Communications flow to markets through long, complex channels that include manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, consumers, agencies, and media. Each unit can break the chain or pass on the information as it sees fit. The amount and quality of information, therefore, depends on the channel. IMC's most fundamental and perhaps most challenging task is trying to reach people who can conceivably purchase a client's product. Allin (2009). explains marketing communications as "the process by which the marketer develops and presents an appropriate set of communications stimuli to a defined target audience with the intention of eliciting a desired set of responses" (p.37). Formal channels, however, do not account for all marketing communications. Publicity, which is an integral part of many promotional campaigns and sometimes precedes the advertising and sales effort, lies outside them. Although it can be important in gaining market acceptance for products and companies, publicity, like word of mouth, is often a relatively low-grade communications channel with a high degree of interference, distortion, and noise. Marketing communications serve four basic management purposes. First, they bridge information gaps existing among manufacturers, middlemen, and customers. Second, they help coordinate the promotional activities of the total marketing system to achieve a coordinated thrust. Third, they help adjust the system to customer and consumer requirements. Fourth, they adjust and help in adjusting the product to customer needs. The task of marketing communications is to get people or markets to progress from a state of unawareness, or even negative reaction, to one of positive action. The stages in this progression are unawareness, awareness, comprehension, conviction, and action (Steve 2009). The theory of information is one that holds promise for the measurement of marketing communications. To date, its primary application is in electrical engineering. It deals with measuring the information content of a message, self-information, bits of information, entropy, the value of average information, loose channels, and noisy and noiseless channels. It provides operational definitions, measures, and a different basis for thinking about marketing communications. The idea of measuring the information content of stimuli, though particularly relevant, is not yet tractable, and the application of this part communications theory to practical marketing situations remains unattained. The careful financial review now being given to investments in plant and equipment or to inventory purchases is destined to be extended to advertising expenditures. Advertising messages are meeting increasing competition from a plethora of other ads, from other media, from competitors, and from all the activities that vie for a person's attention. As output swells and communications facilities increase, more claims will be made on consumer time and the cost of marketing communications will skyrocket (Ng and Houston 2009). Pros and cons: advertising. The advantage of advertising is that it allows the company to inform consumers about the service. Coordination of sales and advertising effort, however, is a weak area of marketing management. Often sales and advertising managers behave like rivals rather than members of the same marketing team. Lack of coordination affects sales and profits adversely, and both sales and costs can be pushed beyond optimal levels. However, the organizational changes reflected by the marketing-management concept and the brand-manager system are designed to provide more effective promotional campaigns that have greater market impact. Among the reasons for the lack of sales-advertising coordination are the following: (1) each area wishes to maintain control over the broadest possible group of activities; (2) sales and advertising are not considered as communication partners, and budgets are set independently; (3) salesmen do not use advertising programs or relate their presentations to them (the converse holds for advertising executives); and (4) the synergistic effect of an integrated promotional program is not appreciated. The negative issue of advertising is that it can have a negative impact on consumers' choice because of poor and inadequate messages. Sales or advertising managers should not concern themselves with which group gets the biggest budget or is more important to the company. Rather, they should develop the most effective total marketing communications. Both should assess their relative contributions to the total marketing task and view each other as alternative and supporting communications resources. As alternatives they present management with different means of cultivating markets. The problem at this level is one of deciding what proportion of the total promotional budget should be allocated to each (Barak, 2009). Pros and cons: direct marketing. Even though a synergistic relationship often exists between them, direct marketing performs different parts of the marketing task. Direct marketing supports selling and makes it more effective. It can lower sales costs, which is important. Direct marketing communications with mass markets. But advertising furnishes a one-way channel, and selling can be two way. Direct marketing is set, standardized, less adjustable, and impersonal. Personal selling can be tailored to individual situations at a cost. Another logical approach is to determine the communications functions that must be performed, such as making contact, creating interest, and closing the sale. Then either a predetermined total promotional budget can be allocated among each of these phases, based on executive judgment, or the expenditures on advertising and personal selling necessary to perform them may be estimated. In these ways the relative expenditures are establislied. The disadvantage of the direct marketing is low response rate and rejection of personal sales by many customers (Allin, 2009). Pros and cons: sales promotion. Sales promotion performs the necessary functions of informing and persuading, which are both complementary and conflicting. Consumers want it to guide their consumption decisions in an objective manner, whereas advertisers want it to achieve mass selling by aggregating mass demand so that mass production can be stabilized and supported. The reasons for the use of advertising are clear. Sales promotion affects both costs and revenues; used effectively, it can increase sales and profits. It supplements and improves the effectiveness of other elements of the marketing mix, it alters the predisposition of potential purchasers, it provides information, and it gains brand loyalty, attracting customers and stimulating consumer desire and action. As a principal means of illuminating the attributes that differentiate a product, advertising is a competitive weapon that can secure a market niche and assure some stability in the marketplace by shaping demand curves, making them more inelastic, and extending markets. A lack of consensus often exists within a company as to what advertising is designed to do. Is it aimed at immediate sales impact, the introduction of a new product, the development of a general image, or the promotion of a brand name All of these are legitimate Sales promotion tasks, each of which requires a different solution. It is germane to distinguish the task of maintaining market position from that of cultivating and developing new markets. Marketing management must define its advertising tasks unambiguously before effective campaigns are launched. The disadvantage of sales promotions are low response rate ("Aedgency Unveils" 2009). Pros and cons: public relations. The nature of public relations tasks is indicated by the decisions that must be made: the amount of money to be spent on advertising, the allocation of the budget among classes of media, the specific media to be selected within each class, the frequency and continuity of ads, the makeup of the specific messages to be presented, and the kinds and amount of advertising research. These are difficult decisions to make. For instance, management is faced with the decision of whether to advertise in markets where sales are high or low. Absolute decision guides are lacking, but fragmentary information may exist. For some agricultural products, for example, experiments indicate that sales increased significantly more in those areas where sales volume was already highest. The disadvantage of public relations is negative perception of the target audience and difficulty in reaching diverse target audience ("Merrick Towle Communication" 2009). Pros and cons: personal selling. The role of personal selling in the marketing mix varies with the product and its stage of development. Advertising compresses time horizons for the acceptance of products and facilitates the introduction of new products. Managers have explained that a new product may be a fundamental, functional, or strategic innovation. Fundamental and functional innovations necessitate basic changes in consumer habits, which are difficult to achieve and require heavy advertising. Strategic and tactical innovations do not demand great change in consumer habits, a fact that may shift the focus of the advertising job. The disadvantages of personal selling are low response rate, possible misunderstanding of the promotional messages and very high costs ("Donovan Creative Communications" 2008). Overview of the product/service Flower World is a company that will give the opportunity for immigrants, international students or anyone else to send flowers and possibly other gifts to Central Asia from US. All orders would be handled via internet and local (target market country) vendors. Rationale for choosing channels Implementation of the first campaign Send Direct mail - twice on September and October and one on November; Cinema ad - 7 times a day starting from the 20th of September to end of November; Radio ad - 10 times a day from the 5th of September to end of November; Advertising in local Press - once a week from the 5th of September to end of November; TV ad - 3 times in the evening starting from the 5th of September to end of November; Posters in transport; Calendars and wallcharts. The messages The message will be: "Be really free with Flower World like a Bird" For people do not automatically stand willing and able to buy goods and services. The marketing mix therefore becomes an essential building block of markets. One of our stated economic goals is a high rate of employment, which is directly related to both consumer investments and expenditures, and the business cycle. Strategy to measure the effectiveness of the campaign Marketing executives often wonder how effective their advertising is. The problem is raised because of the magnitude of advertising expenditures and the opportunity to influence effectiveness significantly. It is estimated "that the best advertisement in the current issue of a leading The most common applications of computers at present occur in the area of data processing rather than problem solving. Computers are used for high-speed analysis and communication of masses of data, thereby extending the information available for more rational advertising decisions. However, through the development of mathematical models, computers are also becoming a powerful tool for improving the effectiveness of advertising appropriations. They are resulting in new approaches to solutions. Many attempts have been made to approach the problems of advertising brand switching through the use of a Markov process model. The measurement problem is also affected by the kind of advertising. At one extreme we find direct-action advertising. Here a newspaper ad, a TV spot, or a direct-mail campaign is aimed at a sale to be held the following day by a retail establishment. The advertising expenditure and results can be noted and good estimates of advertising effectiveness can often be made. At the other extreme, there is institutional or long-range advertising dedicated to image building. One interesting attempt to gain information about the relative effectiveness of potential advertisements or campaigns is through the use of a Pupil-Response Apparatus or an eye camera. Such studies are based on the finding that the size of the pupil of the eye relates directly to the activity of the brain and vice versa. It has been found that if people are interested in a stimulus such as an advertising campaign, the pupil expands in size; if they are not, the pupil contracts. When corroborated, such findings could result in the selection of more effective advertising programs ("Direct Marketing Association" 2009). Conclusion For Flower World, IMC as an institution can be distinguished from advertising as an instrument, and both connotations have rich meaning for marketing management. As an institution, advertising has a role of mass communication that extends beyond the firm and influences changing economic systems, including those in socialist countries. The dissemination of information, presentation of ideas, and persuasion of people, however, may require the use of various instruments and the application of many techniques Whether advertising can help iron out business fluctuations is debatable, but there is evidence to suggest that it may have a positive effect. However, its impact on consumer spending is immediate and powerful, for by helping to create consumer confidence and optimism, advertising stimulates expenditure and generates economic vitality. References Allin, M. (2009). GROWERS' VOICE IN THE BOARDROOM. AgriMarketing. 46 (9), 37. Retrieved April 12 2009, from ProQuest. Anonymous. (2009. Aedgency Unveils Integrated Performance Marketing Suite With new Branding and Website. Marketing Weekly News. Atlanta, March 21, p. 42. Retrieved April 12 2009, from Academic Research Premier. Anonymous, (2009). Merrick Towle Communications; Merrick Towle Communications Appoints Director of Media and Director of Client Services and Strategy. Marketing Weekly News. Atlanta, March 21, p. 46. Retrieved April 12 2009, from Academic Research Premier. Anonymous (2008). Donovan Creative Communications Inc.; Donovan Creative wins triple silver at prestigious international Davey Awards. Marketing Weekly News. Atlanta, Dec 06, p. 29. Retrieved April 12 2009, from Academic Research Premier. Anonymous (2008). Direct Marketing Association; Direct Marketing Association Announces Future of Business-to-Consumer Communications. Business and Finance Week. Nov. 11. pg. 48. Retrieved April 12 2009, from Academic Research Premier. Barak, L. (May2009). The Role of Within-Brand and Cross-Brand Communications in Competitive Growth. Journal of Marketing., 73 (3), 19-34. Retrieved April 12 2009, from Academic Research Premier. Ng, Sharon; Houston, Michael J. (2009). Field Dependency and Brand Cognitive Structures. Journal of Marketing Research (JMR), May2009, 46 (2), pp. 279-292. Retrieved April 12 2009, from Academic Research Premier. Steve, G. (2009). Marketing Through Web Sites. American Nurseryman, 209 (4), pp. 34-37 Retrieved April 12 2009, from Academic Research Premier. Read More