Chapter 15 Marketing Communications

1. The role of promotion in the marketing mix

a. Promotion: Communication by marketers that informs, persuades, and reminds
potential buyers of a product in order to influence an opinion or elicit a response
i. Must have for a product to survive
ii. How we POSITION products
b. Promotional Strategy: A plan for the use of the elements of promotion: Advertising,
Public Relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and social media
1. Overall marketing objectives, marketing mix, target market go into the
promotion mix (advertising, PR, Sales promotion, personal selling,
social media)-> combine to make a promotion plan
c. Competitive Advantage: One or more unique aspects of an organization that cause
target consumers to patronize that firm rather than competitors
i. Promotion must show a product’s competitive advantage
ii. High quality, Low prices, Excellent service, featured not offered by comp.
d. Target markets are getting more difficult to reach
2. Marketing Communication
a. communication: the process by which meaning is exchanged or shared through a
common set of symbols.
i. Syntax Symbols: arranging the order of the symbols. His example was the
letters “IELV” can rearrange them to mean Evil, Live, Vile, etc. One you
rearrange the elements or set of symbols a different meaning is taken away.
ii. Interpersonal Communication: Direct, face-to-face communication between
2 or more people
1. See reactions and responses immediately
iii. Mass Communication: The communication of a message to large audiences
1. Television or newspapers
2. Company cannot respond immediately to consumer reactions

b. sender the originator of the message in the communication process

 i. marketers attempt to inform, persuade, and remind the target market to take
actions compatible with the need to promote the purchase of goods and
services
c. encoding the conversion of a sender’s ideas and thoughts into a message, usually in
the form of words or signs
d. channel a medium of communication—such as a voice, radio, or newspaper—for
transmitting a message
e. noise anything that interferes with, distorts, or slows down the transmission of
information
f. receiver the person who decodes a message
i. marketers listen to the target market in order to develop the appropriate
messages, adapt existing messages, and spot new communication
opportunities.
g. decoding interpretation of the language and symbols sent by the source through a
channel
h. feedback the receiver’s response to a message
i. Verbal or nonverbal
ii. Can occur over the internet
iii. Indirect Feedback: Analysis of viewer responses provides feedback
1. Percentage of TV views, etc.
iv. Web analytics can tell what sites people view and for how long
i. Internet has impacted Communication in 2 ways:
i. Consumers can now be senders
1. Senders can make recommendations about products
ii. Customers can comment publicly on marketing efforts through social media
1. Businesses can have direct communication with customers
3. Goals of promotion
a. Promotion can perform one or more tasks
i. Inform the target audience
1. seeks to convert an existing need into a want or to stimulate interest in
a new product
2. products in introductory phase
ii. Persuade the target audience
1. Designed to stimulate a purchase or action
2. Important for very competitive mature product categories
iii. Remind the target audience
1. Used to keep the product and brand name in the public’s mind
2. Prevails during the maturity stage
iv. Connect with the audience
1. Form relationships with customers and potential customers
2. Social media
4. The promotional mix
 a. promotional mix the combination of promotional tools—including advertising,
public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and social media—used to reach
the target market and fulfill the organization’s overall goals
i. advertising impersonal, one-way mass communication about a product or
organization that is paid for by a marketer
1. Cost per contact is low, but total cost is very high
2. Can reach the masses and still microtarget small groups
3. Tends to restrict advertising on a national business
ii. public relations the marketing function that evaluates public attitudes,
identifies areas within the organization the public may be interested in, and
executes a program of action to earn public understanding and acceptance
1. use to maintain a positive image, educate the public about the
company’s goals and objectives, introduce new products, and help
support the sales effort
2. publicity public information about a company, product, service, or
issue appearing in the mass media as a news item
iii. sales promotion marketing activities—other than personal selling,
advertising, and public relations—that stimulate consumer buying and dealer
effectiveness
1. short run too used to generate immediate increases in demand
2. ex free samples, contests, trade shows, vacation giveaways, & coupons
3. Marketers often use sales promotion to improve the effectiveness of
other ingredients in the promotional mix, especially advertising and
personal selling
a. Sales promotion complements advertising by yielding faster
sales responses
iv. personal selling a purchase situation involving a personal, paid-for
communication between two people in an attempt to influence each other
1. Relationship selling emphasizes a win-win outcome and the
accomplishment of mutual objectives that benefit both buyer and
salesperson in the long term
b. Promotional tactics can be categorized based on media type
i. paid media a category of promotional tactic based on the traditional
advertising model, whereby a brand pays for media space
ii. earned media a category of promotional tactic based on a public relations or
publicity model that gets customers talking about products or services
iii. owned media a new category of promotional tactic based on brands becoming
publishers of their own content in order to maximize the brands’ value to
customers
5. Promotional Goals and the AIDA Concept
a. AIDA concept: a model that outlines the process for achieving promotional goals in
terms of stages of consumer involvement with the message
 i. Attention: get by training a salesperson to use a friendly greeting and
approach or by using loud volume, bold headlines, movement, bright colors,
and the like in an advertisement.
1. Advertising
2. Public relations, greatest impact here
3. Social media
ii. Interest: a good sales presentation, demonstration, or advertisement creates
interest in the product
1. Personal selling
2. Social media
iii. Desire: by illustrating how the product’s features will satisfy the consumer’s
needs, arouses desire
1. Sales promotion
iv. Action: a special offer or a strong closing sales pitch may be used to obtain
purchase action.
1. Sales promotion

b.
6. Integrated Marketing Communications
a. integrated marketing communications (IMC) the careful coordination of all
promotional messages for a product or a service to ensure the consistency of
messages at every contact point at which a company meets the consumer
i. Timing of promotions are coordinated
b. The mass market has fragmented. More selectively segmented markets and an
increase in niche marketing has replaced the traditional broad market
i. Companies have cut their advertising spending to increase direct marketing
7. Factors Affecting the Promotional Mix
a. There are 6 Factors:
i. Nature of the Product
ii. Stages in the Product Life Cycle
iii. Target Market Characteristics
iv. Type of Buying Decision
v. Available Funds
vi. Push and Pull Strategies
b. Nature of the Product
 i. Characteristics of the product can influence the promotional mix
i. Business Product or Consumer Product
ii. Business Products are custom-tailored for exact specifications
i. Use personal selling
iii. Consumer products aren’t custom-made, made for an entire market
i. Use advertising
ii. Sales promotion, brand name are twice as important than for business
products
iv. Costs and risks associated with a product influence the promotional mix
i. When there is more risk, more salespeople are used
c. Stages in the Product Life Cycle
i. The product’s stage in the product life cycle is a big factor in making the
promotional mix
ii. Introductory Stage: Goal is to inform the target audience that the product is
available
i. Advertising and PR
iii. Growth Stage: Emphasize the product’s differential advantage over the
competition
i. Build and maintain brand loyalty
ii. Sales promotion, social media, comparative advertisements
iv. Maturity Stage: Competition becomes fiercer, so persuasive and reminder
advertising are emphasized
v. Decline Stage: Everything stops besides personal selling and sales promotion at
retail
d. Target market characteristic
i. A target market characterized by widely scattered potential customers, highly
informed buyers, and brand-loyal repeat purchasers generally requires a mix with
more advertising and sales promotional and less personal selling
e. Type of Buying Decision
i. Routine Decision: Advertising and sales promotion
i. Remind the customer about the brand
ii. Complex Decision: Personal selling, print advertising, online resources
i. Requires a large amount of information to reach a purchase decision
f. Available funds
i. Money is the most important part of the promotional mix
i. Can try to get free publicity, PR and online strategies
ii. Try to minimize cost per contact
i. Higher: Personal selling, PR, sales promotion
ii. Low: national advertising and social media
g. Push/pull strategies
a. Companies usually use a mix and emphasize one of these strategies
b. push strategy a marketing strategy that uses aggressive personal selling and trade
advertising to convince a wholesaler or a retailer to carry and sell particular
merchandise
c. pull strategy a marketing strategy that stimulates consumer demand to obtain product
distribution
i. social media and content marketing
ii. heavy sampling, introductory consumer advertising, campaigning