Ch--4

Services Marketing
Communications
Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
• Know the 5 ‘W’s of the Integrated Service Communications Model, i.e., Who, What,
How, Where and When.
• Be familiar with three broad target audiences (“Who”) for any service communications
program.
• Understand most common strategic and tactical service communications objectives
(“What”).
• Be familiar with “Service Marketing Communications Funnel” and its key objectives
• Understand challenges of service communications and how service communications can
overcome these (“How”).
• Be familiar with marketing communications mix with reference to services (“Where”).
Learning Objectives (2 of 2)
• Know role of the Internet, mobile, apps, quick response (QR) code and other electronic
media in service marketing communications.
• Know elements of communications available via service delivery channels.
• Know communications mix elements that originate outside the firm.
• Understand when communications should take place (“When”), how to set budgets for
service communications and programs, and how to evaluate these programs.
• Appreciate ethical and consumer privacy related issues in service marketing
communications.
• Understand role of corporate design in communications.
• Know importance of integrated marketing communications to deliver a powerful brand
identity.
Integrated Service Marketing Communications
• Communication is the most visible or audible form of marketing activities.
• Through communications, marketers explain and promote the value proposition
their firm is offering.

• It should be used intelligently in conjunction with other marketing efforts for

maximizing value.

• Communications must be viewed with a broader perspective than just as media

advertising, public relations, social media and professional salespeople.
Adding Value through Communication Content
• Information and consultation represent important ways to add value to a product

• Provide information to prospective customers

• Service options available, cost, specific features, functions, service benefits

• Persuade target customers that service offers best solution to meet their needs and build
relationship with them

• Help maintain relationships with existing customers

• Requires comprehensive, up-to-date customer database and ability to make

use of this in a personalized way

• Direct mail and contacts by telephone, e-mail, websites, text messages

• For example, doctors sending annual checkup reminders to patients
Integrated Service Communications Model

Figure 7.2 Integrated

Service Communications
Model
Integrated Service Communications Model

Figure 7.2 Integrated

Service Communications
Model
The 5 ‘W’s Model For Marketing & Communications
Planning
• Who is our target audience?
• What do we need to communicate and achieve?
• How should we communicate this?
• Where should we communicate this?
• When should the communication take place?
Defining The Target Audience
Target audience for Marketing Communications:
• Prospects — not usually known in advance
Employ a traditional communications mix, comprising of elements such as media
advertising, online advertising, public relations, and use of purchased lists for direct mail
or telemarketing.
• Users — existing target audience
Reach by cross-or up-selling efforts by frontline employees, point-of-sale
promotions, other information distributed during service encounters, and location-based
mobile apps.
• Employees — secondary audience
A well-designed communications campaign through public media targeted at
customers can also be motivating for employees.
Specifying Service Communication Objectives
• Strategic Service Communications Objectives
• Include building a service brand, and positioning it and its service products against
competition.

• Tactical Service Communications Objectives

• Relate to shaping and managing customer’s perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and
behavior in any of the three stages of the service consumption process.
• The Service Marketing Communications Funnel is aligned to the Attention-Interest-
Desire-Action (AIDA) and Hierarchy of Effects models.
The Service Marketing Communications Funnel And Communications
Objectives

Figure 7.3 Common

Communications
Objectives along the
Service Marketing
Communications Funnel
The Service Marketing Communications Funnel And Communications
Objectives

Figure 7.3 Common

Communications
Objectives along the
Service Marketing
Communications Funnel
Maximizing Value From Service Communication
Strategy
• Promote tangible cues to communicate quality.
• Add value through communication content.
• Facilitate customer involvement in service production.
• Promote the contribution of service personnel and backstage
operations.
• Stimulate and shift demand to match capacity.
Crafting Effective Service Communication Messages
Challenges in developing communication messages include:
Problems of Intangibility
• Abstractness - financial security or investment-related matters do
not have one-to-one correspondence with physical objects
• Generality - items that comprise of a class of objects, persons or
events are general and not specific enough
• Non-searchability - many of the service attributes cannot be
searched or inspected physically before they are purchased
• Mental impalpability - many services are sufficiently complex, multi-
dimensional or novel; it is difficult to understand the experience of
using them
Overcoming The Problems Of Intangibility

• Specific communications strategies can be created by marketers

• Using tangible cues and metaphors are two other methods firms can
use to create strategies
• Tangible Cues - “vivid information” that catches the audience’s attention.
• Metaphors - metaphors that are tangible in nature to help communicate the
benefits of their service offerings and to emphasize key points of
differentiation.
Accenture Promotes Ability to Turn Innovative Ideas
into Results
 Ad dramatizes abstract notion of helping
clients capitalize on innovative ideas in
fast-moving world

 Features Tiger Woods in eye-catching

situations

 Highlights firm’s ability to help clients

“develop the reflexes of a high-
performance business”

 Use tangible metaphors when possible!

Source: Courtesy of Accenture

DHL: Promoting the Efficiency of Its Import Express
Service
 Use of an easily grasped
metaphor
Heavily knotted string represents
how complex importing can be
Straight string represents how easy
it would be using DHL’s express
service

Source: Courtesy DHL Express Singapore

Table 7.1 Advertising Strategies for Overcoming Intangibility
The Services Marketing Communications Mix
Sources of Messages Received by Target Audience

Front-line staff
Messages originating
within organization Service outlets A
U
Advertising D
Sales promotions
Direct marketing
I
Sources Personal selling E
Public relations N
Messages originating C
outside organization Word of mouth E
Media editorial

Source: Adapted from a diagram by Adrian Palmer, Principles of Services Marketing, London: McGraw-Hill,4th ed., 2005, p. 397
Sources Of Messages
1. Messages transmitted through traditional marketing channels.
2. Messages transmitted online.
3. Messages transmitted through service delivery channels.
4. Messages originating from outside the organization.
Three Key Sources Of Messages
1. Messages Transmitted Through Traditional
Marketing Channels (1 of 2)
• Advertising
• The first point of contact between service marketers and their customers.
• Marketers are increasingly trying to be more creative with their advertising to allow their
messages to be more effective.
• Sales Promotion
• Employed for short-term objectives e.g., to accelerate the purchasing decision or in
motivating customers to use a specific service sooner.
• Sales promotions for service firms may take various forms e.g., samples, coupons and other
discounts, gifts, and competitions with prizes.
• Direct Marketing
• Offer the potential to send personalized messages to highly targeted micro-segments.
• In the permission marketing model, the goal is to persuade consumers to volunteer their
attention.
1. Messages Transmitted Through Traditional
Marketing Channels (2 of 2)
• Personal Selling
– Firms in business-to-business services maintain a sales team or employ agents
and distributors to undertake personal selling efforts on their behalf.
• Public Relations
– PR tools can help a service organization build its reputation and credibility,
form strong relationships with its employees, customers and the community.
2. Messages Transmitted Through Service Delivery
Channels
• Service Outlets
– Both planned and unintended messages reach customers through the
medium of the service delivery environment itself.
• Frontline Employees
– Communication from frontline staff takes the form of the core service and a
variety of supplementary services, including providing information, giving
advice etc.
• Self-Service Delivery Points
– ATMs, vending machines, websites, and service apps can be used effectively
in communications with current and potential customers.
2. Messages Transmitted Online
• Company’s Website
– Creating consumer awareness and interest.
– Providing information and consultation.
– Allowing two-way communications with customers through email and chat
rooms.
– Encouraging product trial.
– Enabling customers to place orders.
– Measuring the effectiveness of specific advertising or promotional campaigns.
• Online Advertising
– Banner Advertising
– Search Engine Advertising
3. Messages Originating From Outside The
Organization
• Word-of-Mouth (WOM)
– Positive WOM is important as services tend to have a high proportion of experience
and credence attributes, and are therefore, associated with high perceived risk by
potential buyers
– Referral reward programs work well for close friends & family
• Blogs, Twitter, and other social media as a type of online WOM
– Service firms monitor blogs and view them as a form of immediate market research
and feedback
• Media coverage
– Traditional media coverage of firms and their services is often through a firm’s PR
activity. Even today, this sector in the firm promises a wide reach.
E.g. Budget Carriers Using Online Channels to Drive
Ticket Sales
Timing Decisions Of Services Marketing
Communications
• Timing is closely matched to the various perceptions and behaviors
the firm wants to manage in the Service Communications Funnel

• Timing of communications is typically managed in a flowchart of the

media plan
Budget Decisions And Program Evaluation
• Service firms use a number of methods to determine their communications
budget:
– Allocating a percentage of sales or profit
– Matching competitors’ spent amount
– Using last year’s budget
• Using objective-and-task method
– Defining the communications objectives
– Determining the tasks needed
– Estimating the costs
• Empirical research method
– Run a series of tests or field experiments with different communications budgets to
determine the optimum level of communications spent
Ethical And Consumer Privacy Issues In
Communications

Unethical
Unrealistic
advertisers
service
and
promises
salespeople

Unwanted Deceptive
intrusion promotions
The Role Of Corporate Design
• Key to ensure that a consistent style and message is communicated throughout a
firm’s communications mix channels.
• Employ unified and distinctive visual appearance for all tangible elements to
facilitate recognition and reinforce a desired brand image.
• A few popular corporate designs:
– Using the name as a central element in corporate design
– Using a trademark symbol
– Creating tangible and recognizable symbols to associate with their respective
corporate brand names
– Using colors in the corporate designs
Corporate Design Strategies
FedEx: Use of Company Name In Corporate
Design (1)
• Changed trade name from Federal Express to FedEx

• Distinctive logo featuring new name

• Chose FedEx Ground when decided to rebrand the RPS ground

delivery service it had purchased some years earlier
• Transfer positive image of its air services to less expensive small-package
ground service
FedEx: Use of Company Name In Corporate
Design (2)
• Created “FedEx family of companies” consisting of subbrands for different
services
• FedEx Express
• FedEx Ground
• FedEx Home Delivery
• FedEx Freight
• FedEx Custom Critical
• FedEx Supply Chain Services
• FedEx Kinko’s
• Each subbrand has different color scheme for second word to create
differentiation for subbrands
• Express is red/orange
• Ground is green
EasyJet Paints Its Website Address on Each of Its More
than 200 Aircraft

Source: www.easyjet.com/EN/About/photogallery.html. © easyJet airline company limited

Integrated Marketing Communications
• IMC ties together and reinforces all communications in order to
deliver a powerful brand identity.
• The communications from different media and communications
approaches all become part of a single overall message about the
service firm and its products.