chapter 13 terms
Identifying the target audience
A marketing communicator starts with a clear target audience in mind. Audience could be potential buyers or current users, those who make the buying decision, or those who influence it. The target audience heavily effects the communicator's decision on what will be said, how it will be said, when it will be said, where it will be said, and who will say it. In order to create effective communication a marketer must understand the target audience by creating a message that will be meaningful to them in a media they will understand. Managers need to understand their target markets before they can communicate with them.
Younger consumers
Appear to be turning away from major television networks in favor of cable tv or altogether different media
Developing programs for specific segments, niches, and individuals,
Because customers differ greatly communications programs need to be developed for specific segments, niches, and even individuals, given the new interactive communications technologies, companies must ask both "how can we reach our customers" and "how can we let our customers reach us"
Company goal with IMC
Company goal should be to deliver a consistent and positive message to each contact.
The major factors that are changing the face of today's marketing communications
Consumers are changing, marketing strategies are changing, and sweeping advances in communication and technology are causing huge changes in the ways in which companies and consumers communicate with each other
IMC (continued)
IMC leads to a total marketing communications strategy aimed at building strong customer relationships by showing how the company and its products can help customers solve their problems. IMS ties together all of the company's messages and images. its television and print ads have the same message, look, and feel as its e-mail and personnel selling communications. Its public relations materials project the same image as its website or social network presence.
Important to remember about IMC
Often different media play unique roles in attracting, informing, and persuading consumers. These roles must be carefully coordinated under the overall marketing communications plan.
Determining the Communication Objective
Once a target audience has been defined, the marketing communicator must decide what response is sought. In most cases the final response is purchase. Purchase is the long result though of a long process of consumer decision making. The marketing communicator needs to know where the target audience stands in relation to the product and to what state it needs to be moved.
What is the problem
The problem is that the communications often come from different parts of the company. advertising messages are planned and implemented by the advertising department or an advertising agency. Personnel selling communications are developed by sales management. These companies have separated their communication tools and customers will not separate them. So mixed communications will result in blurred consumer brand perceptions
Company Promotion Mix
This is also called the marketing communications mix. It consists of a specific blend of advertising, public relations, personnel selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing tools that the company uses to communicate customer value and build consumer relationships persuasively.
affordable method
a budget is set based on what management thinks it can afford
preference
a target audience might like the product but not prefer it over others. In this case the communicator must try to build consumer preference. the communicator promotes the product's quality, value, performance, and other features. The communicator can check on the campaign's success by measuring audience preferences after the campaign. Companies need to find areas where their product has better offerings than competing restaurants. It must then promote its advantages to build preference among possible customers.
conviction
a target audience might prefer a product, but not develop a conviction for buying the product. marketers have a responsibility to turn favorable attitudes into conviction because conviction is closely linked with purchase.
who is in their place
advertisers are now adding a broad selection of more specialized and highly targeted media to reach smaller customer segments with more personalized, interactive messages.
nature of each promotional tool
advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations
What tools does the marketing communications mix consist of?
advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing tools
setting the total promotion and budget mix
after looking at the steps in planning and sending communications to a target audience, how does the company determine its promotion budget and the division among the major promotional tools to create the promotion mix. by what process does it blend the tools to create IMC?
collecting feedback
after sending the message, the communicator must research its effect on the target audience. this involves asking the target audience whether they remember the message, how many times they saw it, what points they recall, how they felt about the message, and their past and present attitudes toward the product and company.
advertising
any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor
emotional appeals
attempt to provoke emotions that motivate purchase
emotional appeal
attempt to provoke emotions to motivate purchase. thee include fear, guilt, and shame appeals that entice people to do things that they should ex. (brush their teeth, buy new tires). they are widely used by resorts and hotels to stimulate cross-purchases
public relations
building good relations with the company's various publics by obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling or heading off unfavorable rumors
objective and task method
companies develop their promotion budget by defining specific objectives, determining the tasks that must be formed to achieve these objectives, and estimating the costs of performing them
percentage of sales method
companies set promotion method at a certain percentage of current or forecasted sales or a percentage of the sales price
competitive parity method
companies set their promotion budgets to match their competitors
conflicting messages
conflicting messages from these different sources can result in confused company images, brand positions, and customer relationships
the best messages
consist of words and other symbols that are familiar to the receiver
consumer mindset
consumers do not distinguish between message sources the way marketers do. In the consumer's mind messages from different media and promotional approaches all become part of a single message about the company
advertising
defined as any paid form of non personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or serviced by an identified sponsor
AIDA framework for designing a message
describes suggests the desirable qualities for a good message (message should get attention, hold interest, arouse desire, and obtain action
direct marketing
direct connections with carefully targeted individual consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting customer relationships (use of direct mail, telephone, direct response television, e-mail, internet, and other tools to communicate directly with specific consumers
moral appeal
directed to the audience's sense of what is right and proper
brand contact
each brand contact will deliver a message whether good, bad, or indifferent. the company's goal should be to deliver a consistent and positive message to each contact.
four other major communication functions
encoding, decoding, response, feedback
awareness
first the communicator must be able to measure the target audience's awareness of the product or organization. Audience may be completely unaware of it, know only the name, or a few things about it. the awareness process can begin with simple messages repeating the name.
what needs to happen for a message to be effective
for a message to be effective, the sender's encoding process must mesh with the receiver's decoding process
Designing the Message
having defined the desired audience response the communicator turns to developing an effective message. ideally the message should get attention, hold interest, arouse desire, and obtain action (this is a framework known as the AIDA model). few messages take the consumer all the way from awareness to purchase.
steps in developing effective communications
identify the target audience, determine the communication objective (the six buyer readiness stages are awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, and purchase), design a message (AIDA model) meaning the message should get attention, hold interest, arouse desire, and obtain action, message content (what to say), message structure (how to say it), message format (how to say it symbolically), select communication channels, message source, measure the results of communication
liking
if target audience members know the product, how do they feel about it? we can develop a range of preference such as scales that cover the degrees for liking
"DOOM AND GLOOM CHAOS SCENARIO"
in which the old mass media communications model will collapse entirely
non personal communication channels
include media (all print, broadcast, and display media), atmospheres, and events
direct marketing (continued)
includes catalogs, telephone marketing kiosks, and the internet
personal selling (continued)
includes presentations, trade shows, and incentive programs. Public relations includes press releases, sponsorships, special events, and web pages.
A view of the communication process
integrated marketing communications involves identifying the target audience and shaping a well-coordinated promotional program to obtain the desired audience response.
mass communication
it affects attitudes and behaviors through a two step flow of communication. in this process communications first flow from tv, magazines, and other mass media to opinion leaders and then from these opinion leaders to others. therefore, opinion leaders step between mass media and their audiences and carry messages to people who are less exposed to the media.
How the communication touchpoint process should start
it should start with an audit of all the potential touchpoint that target customers may have with the company and its brands. The marketer must assess what influence each communication experience will have at different stages of the buying process.
purchase
last step. some members of the target audience might have conviction but not quite get around to making the purchase. they may wait for more information or plan to act later. the communicator must lead these consumers to take the final step.
Shifting Marketing Communications Model
likely that the new marketing mix communications model will consist of a gradually shifting mix of both traditional mass media and wide array of exciting new more targeted and personalized media
Shortsighted approach is bad
marketers are moving away from focusing on immediate awareness, image, or preference goals in the target market. This approach is too short sighted. Today marketers are moving toward viewing communications as managing the customer relationship over time.
effective communication
marketers need to understand how communication works in order to understand how to communicate effectively. Communication involves the nine elements shown in the figure. sender, encoding, message, media, decoding, receiver, response, feedback, noise
two other major communication tools
message and the media
last element of communication functions system
noise
non personal communication channels
non personnel communication channels are media that carry messages without personal contact or feedback. they include media, atmospheres, and events. major media consist of print media (newspapers, magazines, direct mail). non personal communication affects buyers directly. in addition though using mass media often affects buyers indirectly by causing more personal communication.
media
non personnel communication channels. this includes print media, broadcast media, and display media.
Alternative to a "chaos scenario"
other industry insiders see a more gradual shift to a new marketing communications model. note that board-cast television and other mass media still capture a large share of the promotion budgets of most major marketing firms
personal selling
personal presentation by the firm's sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships
Buyer readiness state
promotional tools will vary in their effects at different stages of buyer readiness.
Push versus pull strategy
push strategy: the company directs its marketing activities at channel members to induce them to order, carry, and promote the product. Pull strategy is when the company directs its marketing activities toward final consumers to induce them to order, carry, and promote the product.
message content: what to say, there are three types of appeals
rational, emotional, moral
rational appeals
relate to audience self-interest, they show that the product will produce desired benefits
rational appeal
relates to the audiences self-interest, they show that the product will produce desired benefits.
Two elements that are major parties in a communication
sender and receiver
major decisions in advertising
setting objectives, setting the advertisement budget, developing the advertising strategy, creating the advertising message, choosing among major media steps
Setting the total promotion and budget mix
setting the total promotional budget: affordable method, percentage of sales method, competitive parity method, objective and task method
sales promotion
short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service
Whose dominance is declining
television, magazines, newspapers, and other mass media remain very important
media
the communication channels through which the message moves from the sender to the receiver
message format
the communicator also needs a strong format for the message. if the message is to be carried on tv or in person, all the elements plus body language must be planned.
message structure
the communicator must also decide how to handle message structure issues. The first issue is whether to draw a conclusion or leave it to the audience. Research that is fairly recent indicates that in many cases the advertiser is bettie off asking questions and letting buyers come to their own conclusions
message content
the communicator must figure out an appeal or theme that will produce a desired response. there are three types of appeals: rational, emotional, moral
Selecting communication channels
the communicator must now select channels of communication. the two broad types of communication are personal and non personal
integrated marketing communications
the company carefully integrates its many communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the organization and its brands.
product life-cycle stage
the effects of different promotion tools also vary with the stages of the product life style
selecting the message source
the message's impact is also affected by how the audience views the sender. messages that are delivered by highly credible sources are persuasive. what factors go into making a source credible? the three factors most often found are expertise, trustworthiness, and likability.
Fragmentation
the opportunity to reach and have a conversation with small clusters of consumers who are consuming exactly what they want, they are not consuming what is force-fed to them
feedback
the part of the receiver's response communicated back to the sender
receiver
the party receiving the message sent by another party
sender
the party sending the message to another party
decoding
the process by which the receiver assigns meaning to the symbols encoded by the sender. interpreting the words and messages it contains
encoding
the process of putting thought into symbolic form
response
the reactions of the receiver after being exposed to the message
message
the set of symbols that the sender transmits
problem for marketers
the shift towards a richer mix of media and communication approaches poses a problem for marketers. consumers today are bombarded by commercial messages from a broad range of sources. BUT consumers do not distinguish between message sources the way marketers do
promotion mix
the specific mix of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations a company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing objectives.
target audience stages
the target audience may be in any of six buyer readiness states: awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, and purchase
knowledge
the target audience might be aware of the company or product, but not know very much else. A simple message can quickly give the reader knowledge of restaurant location, size of steak (for example)
noise
the unplanned static or distortion during the communication process, which results in the receiver getting a different message than the one the sender sent
personal communication channels
they are used for products that are expensive and complex. it can create opinion leaders to influence others to buy.
Steps in developing Effective Communications
to develop an effective integrated communications and promotion program marketers must do the following: identify the target audience, determine the communication objectives, design the message, select the communication channels, select the message source, and collect feedback.
integrated marketing communications (IMC)
today more companies are adopting the concept of IMC. Under this concept the company carefully integrates its many communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the organization and its brands. IMC calls for recognizing all touch points where the customer may encounter the company and its brands.
personal communication channels
two or more people communicate directly with each other. they might communicate face to face, over the phone, the mail or email. some of these personal communication channels are controlled directly by the company.
importance of communication channels
very often companies fail to integrate their different communication channels. The result that occurs is a hodgepodge of communications to consumers. ex. mass media ads say one thing while a price promotion sends a different signal. Everything is out of sync.
