Marketing Communications Issues - Assignment Example

Running Head: MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS Question 1 a) The concept of Marketing Communications pertains to the media which is related and utilized to commune in the product market. It refers to the "promotion" element of the practically applied 4 Ps of the "Marketing Mix" which includes product, price, promotion, and place. All those practices of advertisement, brand language, branding, marketing, direct marketing, packaging, graphic design, publicity, promotion, public relations, sponsorship, sales promotion, sales and online marketing are generally known as marketing communication managers, or marketing communicators (Clow, Kenneth, Baack, 2007). The tools of communication include most importantly the direct marketing and public relations. These tools help the businesses in promoting and advertising themselves in a sophisticated manner depending upon their nature of products and services. Both of them are effective in enabling the businesses communicate with its customers. The concept of public relations pertains to the activity of carrying the flow of information between the public and the organization. This tactic gives the organization an opening to the audiences by utilizing the news items that do not need direct payments. The tools of direct marketing and public relations differ from each other in effectiveness in a minor way. These comparisons are described below: The strategies of direct marketing primarily promote the products and increase their awareness amongst customers. While, the public relations activities involve making the image of the company and brand in the entire public. Direct marketing only promotes and advertises the individual products to the buyers. While, public relations is more important in the senses that it promotes the organization and product lines by building its image at the social level. The direct market of the products and goods involves selling them only, while public relations prove to be effective because it involves promoting the entire brand. The direct marketing tactics give an idea of the price at which the product can be sold by the marketers. While, the public relations person aims upon gauging the reactions and perceptions of public for the purpose of marketing the product. b) The tools of communication mix include advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and direct marketing. The retailers can use all this tools in an effective manner to promote their products and services. Advertising can be used by the retailers to create awareness about the store or the product for the purpose of creating a good image in the minds of customers. It convinces them by creating a desire in them to purchase the product and assists the store’s repositioning in their minds. The retailers can also utilize personal selling as one of the effective ways to deliver their products and services. A personal representative for the company’s promotion can be hired in order to inform and persuade the consumers of company’s goods and services. Moreover, the short-term incentives can be given for the purpose of sales promotion. This will further encourage the purchase or sale of the product or services provided by the retailers. Besides all other communion tools, the tactics of public relations can be utilized by the retailers in a most effective manner. With the help of new features, sponsorships, and news stories, the retailers can reach the prospective stakeholders and relevant people. This will help it build the corporate image and handle rumors or negative news successfully. Moreover, through direct marketing, the retailer’s products can be promoted in a customized, non-public, immediate, and interactive manner. The retailer can make the target individual consumers aware of the products and obtain an immediate feedback from them about it. c) Trust is the major elements that should be taken care of while building of rapport between the agencies and the retailers. The concept of relationship marketing works upon creating, maintaining and developing the level of trust and the development of successful relations between the retailers and the agency (Rodolfo, 2005). The most important factor in building trust is to use the technological tools of communication in a most appropriate manner. The appropriate use of public relations technique can be an important tool in the bridging of the trust between the agency and retailers. It will help the retailers in establishing their image and heading off with any rumors and bad news that might affect their corporate image adversely amongst the public. Question 2 a) The concept of transactional marketing pertains to a type of marketing that focuses merely on the individual transactions. The basic theory of transactional marketing includes cost cutting, low-price competition, and ROI. The major three characteristics of the transactional marketing include: The transactional marketing initially focuses on acquiring customers for the organization’s products and services. It aims at acquiring new customers and promoting the products amongst them for the revenue generation purposes. The basic goal of the transactional marketing is to make the sale and generating revenue. It only focuses on the exchange of products and services for a profit-earning motive. The commitment and contact with customers is relatively low and the customer services are given lesser priority in transactional marketing method. Relationship Marketing pertains to a short-term arrangement in which both the sellers and buyers are interested in providing an exchange which is more satisfying. The approach of relationship marketing attempts to surpass the entire process of post purchase exchange and makes a more complete and customized purchase by creating stronger customer relationship ties (Kotler, 2003). The major characteristics of the relationship marketing include the following: The relationship marketing aims on the customer retention features and building a good rapport with them in order to encourage them for future purchases. Its basic goal is to provide them the desired satisfaction from the quality product in order to create value. The relationship marketing possesses higher customer service priority, a more frequent customer contact, and high rate of commitment to customers. It builds confidence and mutual respect with them. b) The concept of marketing budget refers to the estimation of the projected cost doe the purpose of marketing the service or product of the company. A typical marketing cost considers all the costs related to the marketing aspect in the organization. They might include salaries for marketing managers, marketing communications, cost of office space and other related short term and long term costs. However, most of the budget is connected with the marketing communication aspect which includes advertising, public relationing and other elements of the marketing communication mix. Companies usually allocate the costs of marketing budget in accordance with the media and campaign being utilized. It will be essential to conduct some advanced research in order to make the approximations as actual and real as possible. There are various methods through which the integrated marketing communications budget can be planned, designed and allocated. The initial planning of the budget allocation depends upon the available resources to the company. The methods to be chosen depend upon the feasibility assessment by the company. The various budgeting methods are described as follows: Affordable Method The affordable method of setting the communications budget is applied by many organizations in order to allocate proportionate financing in the marketing of their products. This method does not prove to be much optimal for the organizations profitability but is sometimes necessary for them. A realistic budgetary figure can be extracted through this method. Once the decisions regarding the financial allocation towards the product development are made, and the operations and all other major costs are allocated, the left over finances are assigned towards the needs of communication. Percentage-of-Sale Method The percentage of sales method is another form of the advertising budget undertaken by the organizations. This method pertains to the determination of advertising budget based on the expected or past sales and is used by most of the successful organizations. Competitive Parity Method The basic essence of competitive-parity approach pertains to the systematic manner of the outlays of company’s advertisement on the outlays of other components in the industry. Thus, a small percentage of the total competitive advertising can equal to the share of its markets. Objective-and-Task Method Under the approach of objective and task method, the budget refers to the approximate amount which is needed to accomplish the predetermined goals and objectives; it involves the systematic series of steps which include the definition of objectives, and determining of the cost of accomplishing tasks. The best methods for the company depend upon the nature of operation and activities that the organization undertakes. For example, the affordable method can provide the organizations with a realistic figure of the budget if they systematically keep track of it every year. Percentage of past and future sales Approach can also be a good method of analyzing the communication budget. This is due top fact that it helps the organization in keeping track of the industry averages and its sales in the past and future years. REFERENCES Berry, Leonard, 1983, Relationship Marketing, American Marketing Association, Chicago, p. 146 Clow, Kenneth E., Baack, Donald (2007), Integrated Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing Communications, 3rd edition, Pearson Education, pp. 9–10 Grunig, James E., Hunt, Todd, 1984, Managing Public Relations, Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 6the edition Kotler, 2003, Relationship marketing, Philip Kotler, John Wiley& Sons Oguinn, Thomas, 2008, Advertising and Integrated Brand Promotion, Oxford Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, p. 625. Rodolfo Váquez Casielles, 2005, Trust as a key factor in successful relationships between consumers and retail service providers, The Service Industries Journal, Volume 25, Issue 1, pp. 17-19 Rubel, Gina F., 2007, Everyday Public Relations for Lawyers, Doylestown, PA: 1st Edition Read More