Customer

Communication

Chapter 16 Business in
Action 7e
Bovée/Thill
 Learning Objectives
1. Describe the three major tasks in crafting a communication
strategy and identify four important legal aspects of marketing
communication
2. Identify the major types of advertising, the most common
advertising appeals, and the most important advertising media
3. Explain how direct marketing differs from advertising and identify
the major forms of direct media
4. Describe consultative selling and explain the personal selling
process
5. Define sales promotion and identify the major categories of
consumer and trade promotions
6. Explain the uses of social media in customer communication and
the role of public relations

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Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
• Social Communication Model
 An approach to communication based on
interactive social media and conversational
communication styles
1. Establish clear communication goals
2. Define compelling messages to help
3. Achieve those goals, and outline a cost-
effective media mix to engage target
audiences.
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 Establishing Clear
Communication Goals
• Generating awareness
• Providing information and creating
positive emotional connections
• Building preference
• Stimulating action
• Reminding past customers

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 The Social Model of
Exhibit 16.1
Customer Communication

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 Defining Customer Messages

• Core Message
 The single most important idea an advertiser
hopes to convey to the target audience about
its products or the company

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 Communication

• Communication Mix
 A blend of communication vehicles—
advertising, direct marketing, personal selling,
sales promotion, social media, and public
relations—that a company uses to reach
current and potential customers

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 Assembling the Communication
Mix
• Push Strategy
 A promotional strategy that focuses on
intermediaries, motivating them to promote,
or push, products toward end users
• Pull Strategy
 A promotional strategy that stimulates
consumer demand via advertising and other
communication efforts, thereby creating a pull
effect through the channel
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 The AIDA Model of
Exhibit 16.2
Persuasive Communication

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 Message Integration in
Exhibit 16.3
Customer Communication

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 Assembling the Communication
Mix
• Integrated Marketing Communications
(IMC)
 A strategy of coordinating and integrating
communication and promotion efforts with
customers to ensure greater efficiency and
effectiveness

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Communication Laws and Ethics

• Marketing and sales messages must be

truthful and non-deceptive
• You must back up your claims with
evidence
• “Bait and switch” advertising is illegal
• Marketing messages and websites aimed
at children are subject to special rules

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 Advertising

• Advertising
 The delivery of announcements and
promotional messages via time or space
purchased in various media

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 Advertising

• Institutional Advertising
 Advertising that seeks to create goodwill and
to build a desired image for a company, rather
than to promote specific products

• Advocacy Advertising
 Advertising that presents a company’s
opinions on public issues such as education
or health care
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 Advertising Appeals

• Advertising Appeal
 A creative tactic designed to capture the
audience’s attention and promote preference
for the product or company being advertised

 Logic, emotion, humor, celebrity, sex, music,

scarcity

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 Advertising Media

• Advertising Media • Media Mix

 Communication  A combination of
channels, such as print, broadcast,
newspapers, radio, online, and other
television, and the media used for an
World Wide Web advertising
campaign

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 Direct Marketing

• Direct Marketing
 Direct communication other than personal
sales contacts designed to stimulate a
measurable response

 Mail, email, search engine marketing, direct

response online, telephone, and direct
response television

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 Direct Marketing Media

• Search Engine Marketing

 Automated presentation of ads that are
related to either the results of an online
search or the content being displayed on
other web pages

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 Direct Marketing Media (cont.)

• Direct Response Television

 The use of television commercials and longer
format infomercials that are designed to
stimulate an immediate purchase response
from viewers

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 Personal Selling

• Personal Selling
 One-on-one interaction between a
salesperson and a prospective buyer

• Consultative Selling
 An approach in which a salesperson acts as a
consultant and advisor to help customers find
the best solutions to their personal or
business needs
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 The Personal-Selling
Exhibit 16.6
Process

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 Sales Promotion

• Sales Promotion
 A wide range of events and activities
designed to promote a brand or stimulate
interest in a product

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 Consumer Promotions

• Coupons
 Printed or electronic certificates that offer
discounts on particular items and are
redeemed at the time of purchase

• Rebates
 Partial reimbursement of price, offered as a
purchase incentive

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 Consumer Promotions

• Point-of-Purchase (POP) Display

 Advertising or other display materials set up
at retail locations to promote products to
potential customers as they are making their
purchase decisions

• Premiums
 Free or bargain-priced items offered to
encourage consumers to buy a product
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 Consumer Promotions (cont.)

• Specialty Advertising
 Advertising that appears on various items
such as coffee mugs, pens, and calendars,
designed to help keep a company’s name in
front of customers

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 Trade Promotions

• Trade Promotions • Trade Allowances

 Sales-promotion  Discounts or other
efforts aimed at financial
inducing distributors considerations
or retailers to push offered by
a producer’s producers to
products wholesalers and
retailers

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Social Media and Public Relations

• Social Media
 Any electronic media that transforms passive
audiences into active participants in the
communication process by allowing them to
share content, revise content, respond to
content, or contribute new content

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Social Media and Public Relations

• Word of Mouth
 Communication among customers and other
parties, transmitting information about
companies and products through online or
offline personal conversations

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Social Media and Public Relations
(cont.)
• Conversation Marketing
 An approach to customer communication in
which companies initiate and facilitate
conversations in a networked community of
potential buyers and other interested parties

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Social Media and Public Relations
(cont.)
• Brand Communities
 Formal or informal groups of people united by
their interest in and ownership of particular
products

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 Public Relations

• Public Relations
 Non-sales communication that businesses
have with their various audiences (including
both communication with the general public
and press relations)

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 Public Relations (cont.)

• Press Release
 A brief statement or video program released
to the press announcing new products,
management changes, sales performance,
and other potential news items

 also called a news release

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 Public Relations (cont.)

• Press Conference
 An in-person or online gathering of media
representatives at which companies
announce new information

 also called a news conference

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