Download 17-Integrated Marketing Communication

Dr Zain Yousafzai
Integrated Marketing Communication
Chapter 17 (page 472-495)
Integrated Marketing Communication
Integrated marketing communications is an effort that contributes to a firm’s total marketing program. To
know much about the integrated marketing communication following main elements are important
The role of promotion
The forms promotion can take
The concept of integrated marketing communications
How the process of communicating relates to effective promotion
Key considerations in developing a promotion mix
Alternative promotional budgeting methods
The major types of promotion regulation
The Role of Promotion in Marketing
The main purpose of promotion is to affect the awareness feelings beliefs and behavior of prospective
customers. To understand the main purpose of promotion lets know how it works from economic and from
marketing perspective.
Promotion and Imperfect Competition
The market place operates under conditions of imperfect competition characterized by incomplete market
information product differentiation and emotional buying behavior. In economic terms, the role of promotion
is to change the location and shape of the demand (revenue) curve for company’s product.
Promotion and Marketing
From a marketing perspective, promotion is intended to further the objectives of an organization. It makes
use of various tools to perform three essential promotional roles
1. Informing
2. Persuading
3. Reminding target audiences
The most useful product will be a failure if no one knows it exists, so the first task of promotion is to inform.
Beyond simply being aware of a product or brand, customers must understand what benefits it provides
how it works and how to get it. Another purpose of promoting is persuasion competition among firms puts
pressure on the promotional programs of sellers to draw attention to and differentiate their offerings.
Consumer also must be reminded about a product’s availability and its potential to satisfy. Sellers bombard
the marketplace with thousands of messages every day in hopes of attracting new consumer and
establishing markets for new products. Given the intense competition for consumer’s attention, even an
established firm must constantly remind people about its brand to retain a place in their minds.
Promotion Methods
There are different types of promotion methods some are as following
Advertising
Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified
sponsor. Examples: Print ads, radio, television, billboard, direct mail, brochures and catalogs, signs, instore displays, posters, motion pictures, Web pages, banner ads, and emails.
Personal Selling
A process of helping and persuading one or more prospects to purchase a good or service or to act on any
idea by an oral presentation
Examples: Sales presentations, sales meetings, sales training and incentive programs for intermediary
salespeople, samples, and telemarketing. Can be face-to-face or via telephone.
Marketing (Fourteenth Edition)
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Dr Zain Yousafzai
Integrated Marketing Communication
Chapter 17 (page 472-495)
Sales Promotion
Incentives designed to stimulate the purchase or sale of a product, usually in the short term.
Examples: Coupons, sweepstakes, contests, product samples, rebates, tie-ins, self-liquidating premiums,
trade shows, trade-ins, and exhibitions.
Public Relations
Non-paid non-personal stimulation of demand for a product, service, or business unit by planting significant
news about it or a favorable presentation of it in the media
Examples: Newspaper and magazine articles/reports, TV and radio presentations, charitable contributions,
speeches, issue advertising, and seminars
Integrated Marketing Communication
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), according to The American Marketing Association, is “a
planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a
product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.” Marketing Power
Dictionary, Integrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying
and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels.
Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine
optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, and affiliate, and email, banner to latest web related channels for
webinar, blog, RSS, pod cast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper,
magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations billboard, radio, and television.
An Audience Perspective
An IMC approach adopts the position that a customer or prospect is exposed to many bits and pieces of
information about a company or brand. Certainly some of these are designed and presented by the
marketer but many possibly the majority come from other sources. These sources can include personal
experiences the opinions or friends and comparisons made by competitors in their advertising.
IMC Elements
The use of an IMC approach to promotion is reflected in how manager think about the information
needs of the message recipients
An awareness of the target audiences information sources as well as their media habits and
preferences.
An understanding of what the audience knows and believes that relates to the desired response.
The use of a mix of promotional tools
A coordinated promotional effort in which personal selling, advertising sales promotion consistent
message tailored to the audiences’ information needs.
Implementing IMC
Depending on objectives and available funds, a firm may undertake simultaneous local regional national
and international programs. Moreover, a firm may have one campaign aimed at consumer and another
aimed at wholesaler and retailers.
Evaluating IMC
The last step in an IMC program is evaluation. A program can be evaluated in a number of ways.
An advertising program
Personal selling effort
Marketing (Fourteenth Edition)
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Dr Zain Yousafzai
Integrated Marketing Communication
Chapter 17 (page 472-495)
Sales promotional device
Public relation efforts
The Communication Process and Promotion
Communication is the verbal or nonverbal transmission of information between someone wanting to
express an idea and someone else expected or expecting to get that idea.
Basic Communication Elements
A message
A source of the message
A communication channel
A receiver
Encoding
Decoding
Communication process components: 
Response
Feedback
Noise
The information the sender wants to share must first be encoded into a transmittable form.
Once the message is transmitted through a communication, channel in this case television the
symbols must be decoded or given meaning by the recipient.
If the message is transmitted as intended, there is some change in the receiver’s knowledge beliefs
or feelings. Because of this change, the receiver formulates a response.
The response serves as feedback informing the sender whether the message was received and
how the recipient perceived it. Through feedback, the sender can learn what a communication
accomplished.
All stages of the process are affected by noise any factor external to the sender or receiver that
interferes with successful communication. Any distraction that undermines or competes for the
recipient’s attention while the message is transmitted serves as noise.
Determining the Promotion Mix
A promotion mix is an organization combination of
Personal selling
Advertising
Sales promotion
And public relations.
Designing an effective promotion mix involves strategic decision about five factors
1. Target audience
2. Objective of the promotion effort
3. Nature of the product
4. Stage in the product life cycle
5. Amount of money available for promotion
Target Audience
As is true for most areas of marketing, decisions on the promotional mix will be greatly influenced by the
target audience. The target may be a final consumer who could be further defined as existing customers or
new prospects.
A promotion aimed at intermediaries is called a push strategy and a promotion directed at end users is
called a pull strategy.
Marketing (Fourteenth Edition)
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Dr Zain Yousafzai
Integrated Marketing Communication
Chapter 17 (page 472-495)
Using a push strategy means a channel member directs its promotion primarily at the intermediaries that
are the next link forward in the distribution channel. In effect, the product is pushed through the channel.
With a pull strategy, promotion is directed at end users usually ultimate consumers. The intention is to
motivate them to ask retailers for the product. The retailer’s in turn will request the product from
wholesalers and wholesalers will order it from the producer.
Promotion Objective
A target audience can be in any one of six stages of buying readiness. These stages are
1. Awareness
4. Preference
2. Knowledge
5. Conviction
3. Liking
6. Purchase
1. Awareness
At the awareness stage, the seller’s task is to let the buyers know that the product or brand exists. Here
the objective is to build familiarity with the product and association with the brand name
2. Knowledge
Knowledge goes beyond awareness to learning about products features
3. Liking
Liking refers to how the market feels about the product. Promotion can be used to move
knowledgeable from being indifferent to linking a brand
4. Preference
Creating preference involves distinguishing among brands so that the market finds your brand more
attractive than available alternatives.
5. Conviction
Conviction entails the actual decision or commitment to purchase
6. Purchase
Purchase can be delayed or postponed indefinitely even for customers who are convinced they should
buy a product.
Nature of the Product
Several product attributes influence the promotion mix. Three are very significant
1. Unit value
2. Degree of customization
3. Presale and post sale service
a. Unit value
A product with low unit value is usually relatively uncomplicated involves little risk for the buyer and must
appeal to a mass market to survive. As a result, advertising would be the primary promotional tool. In
contrast high unit value products often are complex and expensive. These features suggest the need for
personal selling.
b. Degree of customization
The benefits of most standardized products can be effectively communicated with advertising. However if a
product must be adapted to the individual customers needs personal selling is typically necessary.
c. Presale and post sale service
Products that must be demonstrated for which there are trade in’s or that require frequent servicing to stay
in good working order lend themselves to personal selling
Marketing (Fourteenth Edition)
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Dr Zain Yousafzai
Integrated Marketing Communication
Chapter 17 (page 472-495)
Stages in the Product Life Cycle
There are four stages in product life cycle introduction, growth, maturity and decline.
In Introduction stage inform and educate potential customers that the product exists how it might be used
and what want satisfying benefits it provides.
In Growth stage, increases emphasis on advertising to differentiate the product. Sales promotion tools are
used to gain trial customers. Intermediaries share more of the total promotional effort.
In Maturity, stage intense competition forces seller to devote larger sums to advertising and thus
contributes to the declining profits experienced in this stage.
In Decline stage, all promotional efforts are cut back substantially.
Funds Available
The amount of money available for promotion is often the ultimate determinant of the mix. A business with
ample funds can make more effective use of advertising than a firm with limited financial resources
The Promotion Budget
Establishing promotion budgets is extremely challenging because management lacks reliable standards to
determine how much to spend altogether on advertising personal selling and the remainder of the
promotion mix or how much of the total budget to allocate to each mix component.
Rather than one generally accepted approach to promotion budgeting there are four common promotional
budgeting methods
1. Percentage of sale
2. All available funds
3. Following the competition
4. Budgeting by task or objective
Percentage of Sale
The promotional budget may be related in some way to a company’s income as a percentage of either past
or anticipated sales. Percentage of sales method is simple to calculate it is probably the most widely used
budgeting method. Moreover, it sets the cost of promotion in relation to sales income, making it a variable
rather than a fixed expense.
All Available Funds
A new company or a firm introducing a new product frequently plows all available funds into its promotional
program. The objective is to build sales and market share as rapidly as possible during those early critical
years. After a time management generally finds it necessary to invest in other things such as new
equipment expanded production capacity or warehouse and distribution.
Following Competition
The best approach for establishing the promotional budget is to determine the tasks or objectives the
promotional program must accomplish and then decide what they will cost the task method forces
management to realistically define the goals of its promotional program and view them outside the confines
of a defined budgetary period. This often called the buildup method because of the way the budget is
constructed.
Marketing (Fourteenth Edition)
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Dr Zain Yousafzai
Integrated Marketing Communication
Chapter 17 (page 472-495)
Regulation of Promotion
Primary objective of promotion is to sell something through persuasion; the potential for abuse always
exists. As a result, some firms must be discouraged or prevented from intentional or unintentional
misrepresentation.
Federal Regulation
Federal regulation of promotional activities applies to firms engaged interstate commerce. It is authorized
by three major pieces of legislation. The federal trade commission Act and the Robinson pat-man Act both
administered by the federal trade commission (FTC) and the Lanham Trademark Act
State and Local Regulation (Use local examples)
Legislation at the state level is intended to regulate promotional activities in intrastate commerce. Most of
these state statutes are patterned after a model developed by printer ink magazine in 1911 to establish
truth in advertising. Today 44 states have what are known as printers ink statutes to punish untrue
deceptive or misleading advertising.
Regulation by Private Organizations
Numerous private organizations exert considerable control over the promotional practices of business. The
media also serve a regulatory role. Virtually all publications and broadcasters have established standards
for acceptable advertising.
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