How to Improve the Overall Effectiveness of a Company - Essay Example

XXXXXXXXX Number: XXXXXX XXXXXXXX XXXXXX XXXXXXXX of XXXXXXX Integrated Marketing Communication Plan Executive Summary In the current times there is a high need for companies to concentrate and deliver their corporate social responsibility. The paper has been based on a publishing company called GDS International. The main aim of the paper has been to develop strategies to improve the organizations position and the carbon consciousness among the customers. The paper provides three strategies that can be followed by the company to improve the overall effectiveness and also help in doing their bit for the society. The recommended strategies can have a major impact on the overall business and if implemented together or individually, these strategies will be very helpful in raising the overall profile of the company relating to carbon consciousness among its consumers. Table of Contents Executive Summary 1 Table of Contents 2 Introduction: 3 Background of Company: 3 Target Audience Analysis: 4 Creative Objective & Strategies: 5 Media Plan: 7 Conclusions: 13 Works Cited 14 Introduction: The term Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC), refers to a complete and holistic view of the marketing communication. The main aim of this is to provide a consistent message using media. The main idea of this concept is to use a combination of online as well as offline marketing channels and to provide complete marketing communication. The main aim of this study is to provide a complete explanation of the concept of IMC and to also examine the relationship with the promotional mix. The paper also aims at understanding the different advertising media and providing an evaluation of the current trends. Also, in order to be able to portray the skills related to this topic, a company has been chosen based on which a media plan has been developed and designed to meet the needs of the organization. The company chosen for this study is GDS International. The paper will firstly provide an overview of the company and a background of the industry, following which the target audiences will be analyzed. Based on the study, a media plan will be developed for GDS International to help raise the focus relating to carbon consciousness among its consumers. Background of Company: GDS International is a publishing company that specializes in journals on subjects like industrial and business management and caters mainly to markets of Asia Pacific, China, CIS, Eastern Europe, North America and Australia. The company was founded in 1993 and in the current time has over 40 leading titles on a number of different fields. The company was started by Spencer Green the Chairman. The company apart from publishing also organizes a number of events on different fields like business, financial, food, IT service management and telecoms (fixed and mobile) (Monster). The company works on a combination printed publications along with the real time benefits of the Internet and produce superb online B2B magazines for a number of selected industries. The main revenue generating activities of the company are based on the sales of advertising, data services and also executive conference packages. The company has a young and energetic team with a focused aim at the objectives of the company. The company consists of, “a unique entrepreneurial culture of aspiring executives, passionate about developing their careers through continued company success” (Monster). Considering the industry on a whole, it is clear that the industry deals with printed and digital information for both individuals as well as corporate consumers. The industry basically deals with the publication of books, magazines, journal, directories, websites and also electronic media. The industry is relatively a very stable business and is very competitive. In the case of GDS international, the major competitors include, Executive Health Care, Hybrid news, and many more. The industry is one which mainly relies on information and can be recognized to be knowledge based and information based company (GDS International). The main issues and challenges of the industry is the kind of usage of the internet and also other digital channels which can be used to expand its growth and also to reach out to the right customers at the right time with the right products. The company’s head office has its head office at Queen Square House, 18-21 Queen Square, Bristol, UK. The company also has a number of offices in different places like, Trump Building, 40 Wall Street, Floor 5, New York, USA, and also the Australian office is at Mezzanine Level, 17-19 Bridge Street, Sydney, Australia (GDS International). Target Audience Analysis: The target audience for GDS mainly includes businesses in the field of management, finance, pharmacy, healthcare, food safety, intelligence, homeland security, human resource management and also other companies that deal with oil and gas manufacturing. The target audiences of GDS international mainly include all the high level personnel of different businesses and mainly the CXOs of all the different companies. The company provides many articles to various heads of companies across the various locations and to a great extent mainly deal with CXOs of companies, Board of Directors, Vice Presidents, and major personnel of different companies. The main aim of the company is to provide straight forward and relevant information to the major personalities. The main aim of the company is to be able to achieve the focus of these individuals. The company deals with a number of different companies and customers like, Alfonso Di Ianni, Vice President for the Accession Region, Oracle, Mohamed Muhsin, VP and CIO of the World Bank Group, Paul Bulten, Director of Marketing, Ameristar Fence Products, Chin Yin, Marketing Director, MyAngel.com, Dennis Romano, Sr. VP, Business Development, Washington Group International, Paul N Argyropoulos, Director, International Fuel Quality Center, Larry Krantz, Senior Technologist, SNIA Chairman, Board of Directors EMC Corp and many more (GDS International). The target audiences of the company do not have the time and to spend on long lean in media. Also most of the companies that are customers to GDS International are very eco friendly and focused on the improvement of the world by taking simple steps from their own end. The next section deals with the creative objective of the company and helps in the development of the overall IMC plan. Creative Objective & Strategies: GDS International is a very ethical company and the is one of the few publishing companies that aims at reducing their carbon footprints and develop more effective ways to get the information to the targeted audiences at lower prices and more effective. GDS International has a number of areas where it can make improvements and develop better options to work in ‘green’ environments and reduced carbon footprints as well. The main objectives of the creative plan are as follows: a) To help GDS International reduces the amount of paper used and to work around with newer strategies. b) To help the company develop a green working environment and an eco friendly work space c) To help the company work with the customers towards a more eco friendly working. There are a number of different strategies that the company can adopt to help reduce the carbon footprints and also reduce the overall negative aspects of the eco friendly behavior of the company. Based on an understanding of the company and an understanding of the industry as a whole and considering the latest trends in the need for ‘green’ working. The main idea of the efforts of this report is to develop strategies where the company can use different media to improve the same processes and products that they deliver to the customers. Here the strategies that the company can use include: use of ePads and eBooks, use of Internet, improved in house working environment and paperless offices and also the use of recycled paper in events where the company cannot work around the need for paper and print outs (Kotler and Lee). The main idea is to ensure that the company does not use normal paper as it leads to a number of issues. As explained by Heide Hackworth, “Rising carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere is one of the major causes of global warming and we contribute to it in just about everything we do. Trees have evolved over millions of years to become incredibly efficient and powerful at withdrawing carbon from the atmosphere. They absorb carbon dioxide through tiny pores in their leaves and store it in their wood, bark, leaves and soil. Trees also help to combat salinity, reduce soil erosion, provide windbreaks, clean underground water systems and provide habitat for wildlife” (Hackworth). She also moves on to explain, “Yet every minute 100 acres of rainforest is cleared worldwide. Recent World-first research by the Australian National University, contained in their Green Carbon Report, has revealed that unlogged native forests store three times more carbon then previously thought. According to The Wilderness Society, this research confirms that Australia has some of the most carbon dense forests on Earth – and that logging and clearing them has significant climate implications. Logging also releases carbon in the atmosphere. ANU research shows that the logging each hectare of the giant Eucalyptus regnans forests in Tasmania and Victoria releases over 1,000 tonnes of greenhouse pollution. Only a small portion of the carbon removed from logged forests ends up as durable goods and buildings, which retain absorbed carbon for thousands of years. Australia also exports unprocessed wood chips, wood waste and sawdust. The remainder ends up as pulp and paper” (Hackworth). Media Plan: A media plan is a planning document which helps describe and also explain the main decisions that are based on the objectives as described above. The main aim of this plan is to provide a selection, schedule and also a research based budget for the company and what the company can use. Since the main objective for the company is to ensure reduced usage of paper and reduced wastage, one of the main media that the company can use for the publications is the Internet (Esty and Winston). The following section provides a detailed insight into the use of the Internet and how the internet can be useful for the company in the mode of raising their profile relating to carbon consciousness among its consumers. Strategy 1: Use of the Internet and Electronic media as a mode of publication rather than paper publications: Considering the use of EBooks, the company can resort to EBooks as the electronic media to reach out to the customers. An EBook is very similar to a conventional book however is mostly in electronic formats. The company can ensure that all publications are developed in a format to fit the usage of eBooks. There are a number of benefits of the eBooks. Firstly, it allows the company to reduce the number of print outs that it utilized by the company and sent out to the customers across the globe. Also the use of the eBooks can allow the company to move away from the conventional printed books and to work towards a more technologically savvy option for the same. For GDS, a very good option is to develop a set of GDS ePads. The company can work on producing the ePads or EBooks and brand them with the GDS brand image. These ePads can be developed where the company alone can syndicate content to it. This will help reduce the possibility of any corruption of the ePads as well as help in reducing the possibility of any misuse. The ePads can be very effective as the company can send out the articles and magazines directly to the customers and this will help in reducing the overall printed documents. Also, the company can send out the ePads to the major officials and the high end customers. The product can be installed with the basic software that can support the format that GDS sends out the products in. The customers will only require keeping the ePads connected to the Internet and this will download all the recent updates and publications from the company. The overall time that will be taken for this process is as explained below: Task Timeline Development and production of GDS ePads 2 Months Distribution of the ePads 1 Month Testing and Corrections 2 Months Once the company has tested the ePads and has made all the corrections, it can start sending out the product to the customers. The cost of developing and producing an ePad in bulk orders cost around $100 - $150. The amount that the company would generally spend on sending out paper magazines would cost over $200 per release. Hence when the company sends out the ePad once, there will be no costs involved in sending the new publications out later. This will help the company reduce the carbon foot prints and will also help the company cut costs to a great extent. The overall benefits of using this method are that it would help the company reduce complete paper work, and also reduces the cost of shipping, transportation and printing. Also the other most important benefit of this form of delivery of articles is that it is accessible in any part of the world, if there is an internet connection. The books can be got at the comfort of the office without having to wait for the books to be mailed and received, and can be read both online as well as offline. Also these ePads will prove to be more economical that any of the traditional hardcover and paperback copies (Esty and Winston). The other important benefit of the GDS ePads is that the customers can be sure of safe copies of the publications as soon as they are released and can also help build a strong level of ‘green’ image for the company as well. The second type of format that can be used by the company is the internet. The World Wide Web (also referred as W3, Internet, or simply as the Web) has been turning into indispensable global communication media over the last two decades. Nowadays, billions of people around the world are online for 24 hours a day. On one hand, the Internet users are constantly growing particularly in developing markets like China, India, Brasilia, and Eastern Europe (Internet World Stats). On another hand, the broadband Interment connections are getting wide spread in the developed countries in North America, Europe, and South-East Asia. These two major developments of the last several years make possible many new trends in Internet marketing strategies to occur. Novel trends in Internet marketing are successfully employed by global companies like Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and many others. In addition, Internet offers some valuable options for reducing the cost of many marketing strategies, which is becoming more important in the presence of world-wide finical and economical crisis (Comm and Joyner). Internet marketing can be employed to different scopes including international, county-wide as well as local businesses. The local Internet marking is used by home-based companies traditionally selling goods in their local areas and using Internet to find and attract local consumers (Moran and Hunt). However, Internet marking is usually focusing on broadly targeting specific interests rather than reaching out some local area. Wide-spread methods for target specific interests online are search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) (Moran and Hunt). Both methods aim to increase the popularity of a website within a target group of interests by attracting Internet traffic via keyword search in Internet search engines. The main difference is that SEM uses paid inclusions while SEO applies unpaid search results. The development of innovative methods in SEM and SEO draw Google Corporation to a leading position in this multi-billion business with a global reach. This trend was even more noticeable in 2009 as Google extent its lead to the closed competitors Yahoo and Microsoft (Kaushik). The true power of Internet marketing lies in its global reach. To make the global Internet marketing more efficient various geo targeting methods are being applied in recent years. In geo-targeting different methods are used to locate geographically website visitors and to adapt the website’s content to their language and culture. The geo-targeting methods in Internet marking are made possible because the development of novel Internet programming tools that make the Web content dynamic and adaptive to a concrete user (Darie and Sirovich). The internet will allow the publications to not only be marketed but also a mode of delivering the publications to the customers without the use of paper or any form of eco – unfriendly materials. The articles and magazines can be delivered to the customers on their emails and no paper copy needs to be sent out. The time line for this is relatively much lower. The company will need to stop sending out the papers and to use their backend systems to send out emails to the customers (Hbsp). The cost here is only that which relates to the newsletters costs online if any. Strategy 2: Improvements of the overall work environment within the offices: Since the main business involves a high level of use of paper, it is seen that the people within the company also tend to use a lot of paper for the basic selling purposes as well as to get new customers and people to advertise in the magazines of the company. In order to help improve the overall office environment and to bring out the ‘green’ approach of the company, it is important that the company firstly ensures that all efforts within the office are environmental friendly and are based on saving paper. Hence for the employees and the sales representatives particularly, it is possible to make it mandatory to use the computers or ePads to store all relevant information needed for making the sales. Also the printing should be minimized in the company and the organization can also ensure that no extra prints are taken. This will help reduce the use of paper. It is important to note that the highest use of paper within the organization is by the sales teams and they tend to have handy notes (Hackworth). This can be changed by use of the ePads and also other electronic equipments to save the information. This will help develop a more effective and efficient work force and will also help the company reduce the carbon foot prints by reducing the use of paper within the office. All the important notes and the information can be saved in the electronic medium which will help the company not only share the knowledge but will also help the company improve the overall working environment. The time taken to incorporate this is similar to the previous strategy. Task Timeline Development and production of GDS ePads 2 Months Distribution of the ePads to employees 1 Month Testing and Corrections 2 Months Strategy 3: Use of alternative materials for printed content: In order to retain the current readers of the magazines, it is essential that GDS publishing also provides an option for the readers to receive their subscriptions in hard copies. This will also prevent the company from losing potential readers and clients who are not comfortable using the e – pads or do not have access to Internet. However in these cases, GDS can still continue its campaign of going green by utilizing recycled paper and enhancing its quality so that the user experience is not compromised. There are number of recycling paper manufacturers that do not utilize wood pulp to produce paper (Hackworth). GDS can outsource the supplies from one of these manufacturers and utilize them for printing purposes. Whenever a user subscribes to any of the magazines of GDS International, they will be given the option to select their mode of subscription – e-pad or hard copies. Based on their selection, the magazine subscription can be managed by the company. When making the selection, the user has to be fully informed about the advantages of opting for e-pads. This will drive the user to opt for e-pads even if they are comfortable with the hard copies. The magazine subscribers can be sent periodic email campaigns stressing the importance of ‘going green’ and saving the environment. Actionable response in terms of shifting to e-pad subscription should be included in the emails so that the user gets a sense of achievement in terms of acting his part in saving the environment. Statistics regarding the number of trees saved for every 1,000 e – pad subscriptions will stress the need for saving the environment even more effectively. Conclusions: A recent research by Time Inc. explains, “Greenhouse emissions from one of its paper mills accounted for 61 percent of the emissions from Time magazine and 77 percent of In Style’s emissions. In May, Time Inc. announced that it had asked the company’s paper suppliers to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2012. Mr. Refkin said the idea of sustainability — an emphasis on improving society and the environment for future generations — had come up recently in discussions with advertisers like Aveda, a beauty products company owned by Estée Lauder. Aveda sends sustainability surveys to publications to help decide where to place its ads. The surveys include questions about greenhouse emissions” (Story). Hence in conclusion it can be clearly stated that the main aim of the company here is to ensure that carbon foot prints are reduced. Being a publishing company, there is a high need for the company to reduce the use of paper and to work on improved working conditions within the company. If the working conditions within GDS International are eco friendly, then the company will directly have a more focused and will help the organization looking to raise their profile relating to carbon consciousness among its consumers. The use of either one of the three strategies will help the company move towards developing a greener working environment. However if the company is able to implement all three of the strategies then there is a higher chance for the organization to be more successful in the overall effort of ‘going green’. Also, the use of the communication that is available in the company will allow the company to bring out this initiative and will also permit an overall impact on the customers and their views of the company as well. GDS International is led by a very effective and efficient leader who is young and is also focused on providing effective, efficient products to the customers (Hbsp). Hence with a strong leader and with a little investment the company can move ahead of the traditional style of publishing and can move on to become a more technologically savvy company with a strong focus on ‘green’ living and green business. Works Cited Comm, Joel and Mark Joyner. "Stage Coach: "Showing Off", From Seminars to Workshops." Comm, Joel and Mark Joyner. Click Here to Order: Stories of the Worlds Most Successful Internet Marketing Entrepreneurs. Morgan James Publishing, 2008. 151 - 196. Darie, Cristian and Jaimie Sirovich. "Cloaking, Geo - targeting and IP Delivery." Darie, Cristian and Jaimie Sirovich. rofessional Search Engine Optimization with ASP.NET: A Developers Guide to SEO . Wrox; Pap/Pas edition, 2007. 265-298. Esty, Daniel and Andrew Winston. Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage. Wiley, 2009. Evans, Dave and Susan Bratton. "What Is Social Media?" Evans, Dave and Susan Bratton. Social Media Marketing: An Hour a Day. Sybex , 2008. 31 - 46. GDS International. About GDS. 2010. 8 May 2010 . Hackworth, Heide. Paper, Printing & The Environment. 2010. 4 May 2010 . Hbsp. Harvard Business Review on Green Business Strategy . Harvard Business School Press, 2007. Kaushik, Avinash. "The Optimal Strategy for Choosing Your Web Analytical Soul Mate." Kaushik, Avinash. Web Analytics 2.0: The Art of Online Accountability and Science of Customer Centricity . Sybex, 2009. 56. Kotler, Philip and Nancy Lee. Corporate Social Responsibility: Doing the Most Good for Your Company and Your Cause. Wiley Publishers, 2004. Monster. GDS International. 2010. 2 May 2010 . Moran, Mike and Bill Hunt. "Why Search Marketing Is Important...and Difficult." Moran, Mike and Bill Hunt. Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Companys Web Site . IBM Press, 2008. 1 - 28. Story, Louise. The Hidden Life of Paper and Its Impact on the Environment . 25 October 2006. 4 May 2010 . Read More