CHAPTER 1: INTRO TO INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS THE ROLE OF MARKETING Marketing: Activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large Focus on relationship building Must create, communicate and deliver value to customers Marketing Exchange: creates value. Must have Two or more parties Something of value to one another Desire and ability to give up something to the other party Way to communicate with each other Value: is the customer s perception of all the benefits of a product or service weighed against the costs of acquiring and consuming it Costs: money paid as well as factors such as acquiring information, making purchase, learning to use product, maintaining product, disposing product and opportunity costs. Benefits: functional, experiential or psychological Marketing mix: Product, price, place, promotion to facilitate the potential for exchange. These all interact with each other and act as a communication tool. Example of place as communication tool: buying in JBHIFI rather than apple To develop an effective marketing mix, marketers must: Be knowledgeable about the issues and options of each element of the mix Know how to combine the elements to form an effective marketing program Analyze the market and use the data to develop the marketing strategy and mix INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) IMC: coordinating various promotional elements and other marketing activities that communicate with a firm s customers. Recognises the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates strategic roles of communication disciplines and combines disciplines to provide clarity, consistence and maximum communications impact. Ensures all marketing and promotional activities project a consistent unified image. Growing importance of IMC:
IMC strategically integrates the various communications functions rather than having them operate autonomously IMC avoids duplication and takes advantage of synergy among promotional tools Develops more efficient and effective marketing communications programs Reflects adaptation of marketers to a changing marketing environment o Change to micro marketing marketers using platforms where they can highly target due to fragmentation of media market. o Consumers unresponsive to traditional advertising sceptical of marketing o Change in the way marketing occurs growth of internet, database marketing etc. Role in branding: helps develop and sustain brand identity and equity. THE PROMOTIONAL MIX Promotional mix: tools that accomplish an organisation s communication objectives. Promotion involves coordination of all seller-initiated efforts to set up channels of information and persuasion Elements of the promotional mix: advertising, direct marketing, digital/internet marketing, sales promotion, publicity/public relations, personal selling Contact/touch point: every opportunity a consumer has to see or hear about a company and its bransds or have an encounter and experience with it IMC CONTACT POINTS: CONTROL VS. IMPACT The less control you have over the marketing source, the higher the impact on consumers e.g. word of mouth, social media interactions, PR etc. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR EXAM The more control you have the less impact as consumers are empowered and can avoid. Consumers are also very sceptical of ads e.g. print, tv etc.
CHAPTER 2: THE ROLL OF IMC IN THE MARKETING PROCESS MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS PROCESS MODEL (IMPORTANT) There are 4 major components 1. Marketing strategy and analysis 2. Target marketing process 3. Marketing planning program development 4. Target market MARKETING STRATEGY AND ANALYSIS Strategic marketing plan: guides the allocation of an organisation s resources and contains specific marketing programs and policies. It evolves from the corporate strategy Opportunity analysis: identifies market opportunities where there are favourable demand trends, customer s needs and opportunities aren t being satisfied and a firm can compete effectively. Target market selection: done after evaluating market opportunities and doing competitive analysis. Directly implies a firms advertising and promotional efforts TARGET MARKETING PROCESS
Market segmentation: dividing market into distinct groups that have common needs and will respond similarly to a marketing plan segmentation using the five segmentation bases: geographic, demographic, psychographic, usage base, socioeconomic Selecting a target market: how many segments to target and which offer the most potential. There are 3 market coverage alternatives Undifferentiated only government utilities Differentiated marketing in a number of segments, developing separate strategies for each Concentrated (niche) concentrating marketing on one segment Positioning: fitting product or service into one or more segments to make it unique within the market place. Consumer focus linking product with benefits consumer receives Competition focus comparing benefit it offers versus competition Positioning strategies: positioning by product attributes and benefits sets the brand apart from competitors on t he basis of specific characteristics. Salient attributes are important to the consumer on the basis of decision-making. Positioning can be by: Price/quality Use or application Product class Product user Competitor Cultural symbols Attributes (unique selling proposition) Repositioning: altering a product or brands position due to declining sales or anticipated opportunities. It is hard to do especially for established brands. PROMOTIONAL PUSH AND PULL STRATEGIES Push strategies: designed to persuade the trade to stock merchandise and promote a manufacturers products. The goal is to push the product through the channels of distribution by selling and promoting it. You push your brand out through trade promotion and advertising. Your product is only stocked because you provide retailers with an incentive to stock. This incentive can be easily replaced by another company Pull strategies: spending money on advertising and sales promotion efforts directed to consumers. This creates demand among consumers who request the product from retailers. Consumers pull your product out This builds your brand and is a better long-term solution.
CHAPTER 4: PERSPECTIVES ON CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR Consumer behaviour: the process and activities people engage in when searching for, selecting, purchasing, using, evaluating and disposing of a product or service. Obtaining, consuming then disposing Marketers want to maximise value for consumers throughout this process so that consumers reaction is positive and they form a positive attitude about the product, service or brand CONSUMER DECISION MAKING PROCESS The ways consumers make purchases varies depending on the nature of the product, their experience with the product, involvement with product/brand and the importance of the purchase The consumer decision-making process is accompanied by a number of internal psychological processes. 1. PROBLEM RECOGNITION Occurs when the consumer perceives a need and becomes motivated to solve the problem. Consumers recognise this problem through the following sources Out of stock routine purchase often choosing familiar brand Dissatisfaction New needs/wants due to changes in consumers lives Related products/purchases Marketer induced problem recognition to satisfy social needs/trends. For self expression or to induce latent needs. New products Consumer motivations: factors that compel a consumer to take a particular action Lower-level needs are an ongoing source of motivation for consumer purchase behavior Because basic, lower-level needs are met in most developed countries, marketers often target consumers higher-level needs in order to sell products. Advertising can be used to show how a brand can fulfill these needs.