Marketing communication process strategies

Published: 2024-03-13
Views: 512
Author: Contributor
Published in: Business

Marketing communication (MarCom) is the process of creating and delivering messages that communicate with customers, prospects, and other target audiences.

MarCom includes a wide range of activities like advertising, digital media, government communications, public relations (PR), branding, packaging, sponsorships, sales promotion, and more.

Marketing communication persuades the target audience to take some desired action, such as buying a product or service or donating to a cause.

MarCom is critical to any marketing plan because it helps companies achieve their marketing objectives. It can be used to build brand awareness, create customer loyalty, generate leads, and boost sales.

It can also be useful in communicating with stakeholders, such as employees, shareholders, and the media, or influencing public policy.

Marketing Communication Process

There are a few commonly cited concepts in the marketing communication process that need to be discussed to understand how it works.

• Sender: The process starts with the sender, who is the message's source. This can be an organization, an individual, or a company.
• Encode: The sender encodes the message, which is the process of translating the sender's thoughts and ideas into a form that the target audience can understand. For example, a marketing manager may decide that a new product needs to be pushed through the company's advertising campaign.
• Message: The message will be different depending on what the sender wants to communicate. The term message refers to the intended content to be conveyed. In the example above, the message would be about the new product and why it is important. Marketers should strive to create a message that is clear, concise, and easy to understand.
• Medium: The medium is the channel through which the message is delivered. A variety of channels can be used, such as television, radio, internet, print (e.g., newspapers and magazines), and more. The choice of medium depends on the target audience, the message, and the budget.
• Receive: The target audience receives the message through the chosen medium.
• Decode: The target audience decodes the message, which is the process of understanding and interpreting the meaning of the message. The target audience may not always interpret the message in the way that the sender intended. This is why marketers need to ensure that the message is clear and test it before it is released to the public.

Marketing Communication Strategies

The strategies are the elements that make up the marketing communication mix. The mix is the combination of elements that a company uses to communicate with its target audience. It can be adapted to different situations and target audiences.

For example, a tech company with a target audience of early adopters and tech enthusiasts might use a different mix than a company that sells everyday garden products to a mass market audience.

Some Common Guiding Concepts and Principles that MarCom Strategies Use Include:

• Consistency: All elements should reinforce each other and support the same message. This can be achieved by using similar visuals, tonality, and messaging across all channels.
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP): The USP is the unique selling proposition or unique selling point. It is the one thing that sets a company apart from its competitors and is the reason why customers often buy from that company. The USP should be well defined and communicated in all important marketing communications.
• Demographics: The target audience should be well defined in terms of demographics, such as age, gender, income, etc. This information can be used to create marketing communications that are more likely to resonate with the target audience. Audiences can be further segmented using psychographics, which are variables that describe people based on their attitudes, values, and lifestyles.
• Choosing appropriate mediums: The mediums chosen should be appropriate for the target audience and the message. For example, if a company tries to reach stay-at-home moms, it might use targeted online ads or sponsored posts on mom bloggers' websites or social media.
• Call to action: Marketing communications should typically include a call to action, which is an instruction to the target audience about what they should do next.

Objectives of Marketing Communication

Various objectives of marketing communication are as follows:

1. To Modify Behavior:

The primary objective of any marketing communication programme is to modify the thought process and behavior of individuals (like inducing customers to prefer Coca-Cola over Pepsi) and to maintain this modified behavior among them (like inducing customers to continue their preference for Coca Cola once they started to use it).

Therefore, the aim here is to motivate the customers to buy the organisational goods and services and hence develop a sound image in their minds.

2. To Inform:

To inform the widespread market about the organization's products and services is the next important objective of any marketing communication program. This objective is the basis behind designing all the promotional communications.

A product or service is largely promoted through informative promotion in its initial phase of product life cycle so as to enhance its primary demand in the market. Information. about the product as well as its features is the first thing that any customer requires for smart decision-making.

3. To Persuade:

Another important objective of marketing communication is to persuade the customers for purchasing organizational goods and services thus, increasing the sales.

A product or service is largely promoted through persuasive promotion in its growth phase of product life cycle as both consumer creation and consumer retention objectives are simultaneously targeted here. Despite of enhancing the current sales, sometimes organisations aim to develop a positive image among consumers so as to attain a long-term gain.

4. To Remind:

Reminding customer about the available organizational products and services is also an important objective of marketing communication programmed.

Under this objective, organizations refresh the memory of customers (since they assume that organizational products and services are known to customers) so as to make them aware that the particular product or service is still satisfying their demands.

In case the product is in maturity phase of product life cycle. this objective is targeted by the organization. The whole idea behind this marketing communication objective is to maintain the position of the product or service in the minds of customers.

Importance of Marketing Communication

The role of marketing communication in communicating value to customers in target market can be explained with following points:

1. Increasing Awareness:

Promotion becomes highly critical activity when a product is at nascent stage in the market or it is to be launched in a new potential market.

Thus, the overall market awareness of the product has to be increased by citing research about the product, validating usefulness and appeal of the product, and by attracting maximum media attention towards the product, to portray a popular image of the product.

The existence of the new product in the market has to be effectively conveyed to the target consumers.

2. Increasing Knowledge and Preference:

Customers would not directly purchase the new product or brand only by knowing that it exists in the market. Promotion has the responsibility to further communicate the usefulness of the brand to customers by assuring that the product is required by them.

Putting together product (or brand) awareness and information, is a way to attract more customers towards the stores for finding promoted products.

3. Increasing Retailers:

Promotion communication designed by the organizations, improves the awareness and knowledge of the potential consumers about the new product(s). These consumers seek the promoted product(s) in the retail stores.

This prompts the retailers to offer the promoted product(s) in their stores. It motivates the other retailers to offer the same product(s). Therefore, promotion helps in increasing the number of retailers.

4. Increasing Sales and Establishing Brand:

Increase in sales is the final measure of a successful promotional strategy. As the three basic objectives of promotion are to inform, to persuade and to remind, an effective promotion strategy leads to the sales increment of a particular product or product-mix.

 It describes how products and services offered by organisations are different from those of competitors. Thus, it helps in sales increment and thereby building-up of brand loyalty.