INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is a process that helps companies to manage customer relationships through the use of various communication tools to increase brand value and boost sales. This process usually combines the efforts of many departments, which target the achievement of good and profitable relations with customers and shareholders. Such relations could be achieved through control of messages and stimulation of deliberate dialog with them.

IMC is the coordinated and integrated use and implementation of various communication tools and sources within a company, with the aim to optimize the influence on consumers or end users at the lowest possible cost, as defined by Clow, Kenneth E & Donald Baack in " Integrated Advertising Promotion and Marketing Communications" (2007). IMC has four components: foundation, advertising tools, promotional tools and integration tools.

The foundation involves the corporate image, brand management, buyer behavior and promotions opportunity analysis. The advertising tools include advertising design and management, theoretical frameworks of appeals, message strategies and advertising media selection. Promotional tools are trade and consumer promotions, personal selling, database marketing and customer relations management as well as public relations and sponsorship programs. Integration tools, in turn, comprise Internet marketing, IMC for small businesses and integrated marketing programs.

Given the growing use of Internet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, companies have been trying to adapt to the changing marketing environment and the totally different way in which consumers are choosing and buying products. Experts started addressing segmentation and targeting with new methods. Such method is the so called " marketing mix".

Marketing mix includes promotional activities like advertising, sales promotion and personal selling activities. It also combines Internet, sponsorship, direct and database marketing with public relations. The implementation of marketing mix helps companies gain priority over rivals.

Whatever type of integrated marketing communications strategy is chosen by a company it has to be strictly planned and maintained among employees and customers. Marketing plans usually contain three basic elements, namely situation analysis, marketing objectives and marketing budget.

IMC could use both offline and online marketing channels to guarantee the smooth delivery of its message. Offline marketing channels include newspapers, magazines, mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio and TV.

Among the online channels are e-marketing campaigns or programs like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner, webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS, podcast, Internet radio and Internet TV.

An IMC program is developed with the use of all marketing mix elements: the four Ps, product, price, place and promotion, which correlate to the four Cs, consumer, cost, convenience and communication.

To sell a product a company has to understand consumer needs and try to meet them. It also must be able to understand consumer's cost as price is not always critical for consumers, but the time they have spent in driving, for instance, can lead them in their decision-making process. Convenience is more important for consumers than the place and delivery mechanism for a product, while communication with feedback also gains privilege over promotion.

Communication elements have to be selected very carefully in order to achieve the targets of the planned integrated marketing communications program. Marketing experts can choose whatever elements they like for their marketing campaign, although most of them mainly use advertising methods. The bulk of the marketing budget is spent on the creation and distribution of advertisements as well.

Developing a promotions opportunity analysis is a crucial part of the process of setting-up an integrated marketing communications plan. Promotions opportunity analysis is a process that helps marketing experts to define a target audience for specific products and services. The quality analysis leads to the more effective achievement of the set targets. This process consists of five stages.

The first step of the promotions opportunity analysis is the accomplishment of a communication market analysis of competitors, opportunities, target markets, customers and product positioning. What follows is the establishment of communication objectives. These objectives include developing brand awareness, increasing category demand, changing customer attitude, encouraging purchases, bolstering market share and sales.

During the third stage marketers should create communications budget, while the next step is the preparation of promotional strategies. Last but not least in the process is the coordination of tactics and strategies. The whole analysis process should enable marketers to review the actions of their competitors.

The idea of the integrated marketing communications is to communicate the essence of a message in such a way that the audience gets it without doubt and confusion.

http: //www.questia.com/library/communication/business-and-organizational-communication/integrated-marketing-communications

 

ADVERTISING EFFECTIVENESS

Advertising is aimed at motivating and affecting consumers' behavior in a way that is beneficial to the company or brand being advertised. However, there are different perceptions of what advertising effectiveness is and how it can be measured.

One of the criteria that may be used in measuring advertising effectiveness is sales response. Companies usually expect that the marketing effort will eventually result in sales revenue that exceeds the cost of advertising. However, there are many other factors that influence a consumer's decision to buy a product so it is quite difficult to measure to what extent this decision is influenced by advertising.

According to Christine Wright-Isak, Ronald J. Faber and Lewis R. Horner in Measuring Advertising Effectiveness (1997), there is a difference between short-term advertising effects and long-term advertising effectiveness. In contrast to effects, effectiveness accumulates over time and affects feelings, attitudes and behaviors. The short-term effects of an advertising campaign can be assessed in time periods ranging from a few minutes to a year, while measuring long-term effectiveness should cover a period of ten years or longer. Evaluation of effectiveness should involve multiple exposures to adverts and multiple executions within campaigns in a complex environment, which includes other marketing activities and competitive actions.

Consumers are said to pass through a cognitive and affective phase before adopting and showing certain behavior. The first thing marketers should do in order to make an advertisement effective is to attract people's attention, meaning they have to make consumers process the advertising message consciously. According to a study by Bylon Abeeku Bamfo in Advertising likeability and its effectiveness published in the Indian Journal of Economics and Business in 2011, some 55% of the respondents in the research said they processed advertising messages consciously. However, the remaining 45% admitted that they did not have time to pay attention to advertisements or they thought adverts were fabricated, exaggerated, repeated or outdated.

If an advertisement manages to catch consumers' attention, it has an opportunity to motivate and affect their behavior, which is ultimately the goal of advertising. There are various factors that can make people pay attention to an advert, for example if it includes entertainment, sports, celebrities, humor, animation or music. However, the most important factor is considered to be information – people expect to get valuable information about a product. In addition, whether or not a particular advert will evoke interest in people actually depends on the characteristics of every individual consumer.

Another important thing to be considered when speaking about advertising effectiveness is the likeability of an advertisement, or the extent to which it is liked by consumers. Advertising likeability is closely related to the kind of media selected for the advertisement. For example, TV commercials are considered to be most liked by consumers as they are active and include both audio and visual messages. Naturally, not all advertisements are liked by all people. There are various reasons why a consumer may not like an advert – some adverts are considered to be noisy and irritating, not informative enough and even deceptive, exaggerated, boring and/or difficult to understand.

The conscious processing of advertising information is also dependent on the type of product being advertised as in many cases consumers already have preferences for some products before even viewing/hearing/reading the advert. For example, if consumers have already made their minds whether or not they like a certain type of product, it would be difficult to get them to pay attention to the advertisement. The opposite is also valid.

Another important factor linked to the processing of the advertising message and its likeability is the language of the advert. In marketing communication there must be a common understanding between the sender (advertiser, ) and receiver (customer, ) so marketers should consider which will be the language preferred by the target market. Choosing the most appropriate language may not always be an easy task in multilingual countries.

It may seem natural that adverts liked by consumers would directly lead to increased brand preference and therefore decisions to buy the product or service being advertised. However, according to Bamfo's research, over half of people (57% of the respondents in the research) buy products whose advertisements they disliked. At the same time 43% of the respondents said they did not buy some products although they actually liked their advertisements. These results show that the link between advertising likeability and advertising effectiveness is not that direct.

http: //www.questia.com/library/communication/advertising-and-public-relations/advertising-research/advertising-effectiveness

 

PSYCHOLOGY AND ADVERTISING

Advertising, the action of calling something to the attention of an audience, is an old practice, having its starting point in ancient times. Egyptians used papyrus to create sales messages, while in ancient Rome and Greece, lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common. Notices of events and displays would also be posted around Roman towns and cities.

Advertising in English magazines dates back to the end of the 17th century. In America, the first newspaper estate advertisements were placed in the early 18th century. The first advertising agency was set up in the U.S. in 1841. Since then, advertising has taken many forms: from newspaper, radio and television adverts, billboards, hoardings, leaflets, printed flyers and web banners.

Advertising methods differ depending on the medium used. Newspaper commercials should focus on theme and space, radio advertisements should focus on words and sound, TV advertisements should focus on the emotions they create, while Internet commercials should focus on colors and visuals.

People react differently to different stimuli. Creating advertisements based on the assumption that people think and act in the same way is flawed. People reach different conclusions under apparently similar circumstances. Some people think in terms of sight, their thinking being a rapid succession of pictures. For example, when they think of a musical instrument, they think how it looks, rather than how it sounds. On the other hand, there are people think in terms of sound, their thinking being a succession of sounds. Consequently, advertisements should appeal to as many senses as possible to make the consumers aware of sights, sounds, tastes and feelings at the same time in order to be effective.

However, in order to be effective, advertisements should be based on the principles of psychology and sociology. The principles of advertising are often based on cognitive psychology, on the processes of perception, attention, mental imagery, association and memory.

First, advertisements should draw the audience's attention. Advertisers use strong messages and visuals with vivid colors to capture the consumers' interest. Once attention is captured, the next step is to help consumers make associations. Certain companies use a certain color to promote certain products or brands. Company logos and symbols have a strong associative value, too. The association should be made such that it is retained in the consumers' minds for a long time.

Brands are effective methods to make consumers develop associations. People retain brands and associate images with certain products or services. Branding is vital in advertising as they give products a distinct identity. Research has shown that consumers remember brands rather than products.

In early advertisements, used in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s, repetition and jingles were used to make advertisements memorable. But from the 1990s onwards, it was found that there is too much musical and visual competition on the market and the consumers' attention was not captured so easily. For a commercial to be effective, it should contain brief suggestions, declaratory statements worded in a positive direction. Negative suggestions are not recommended as they imply logic and thus a more complex activity of the brain.

Another way to make an advert memorable is through repetition. Suggestions won't penetrate the consumers' minds unless they are repeated. This can be expensive if a campaign requires the booking of a long series of ads. Studies have shown that the use of visuals in commercials is very effective and will make adverts easy to remember.

When creating an advert, it is very important for advertisers to understand the way people make decisions. They should base their advertising campaigns on the assumption that consumers must have a logical reason to make a purchase, they must remember what they saw based on the mnemonic aspects of the message and they must have an emotional reason to buy the product. Most consumer decisions are based upon emotion, not reason. If these three steps are not involved, the advert will lack impact and power.

Psychology has always been used as an effective method in advertising. Understanding the human mind can help companies sell their products much easier. At the same time, the concepts of human psychology will help consumers develop critical thinking when it comes to advertising and avoid unnecessary purchases.

http: //www.questia.com/library/communication/advertising-and-public-relations/advertising-research/psychology-and-advertising

 

CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer behavior is the study of the way individuals, groups or organizations make decisions with respect to the purchase, consumption and disposal of goods and services. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people's wants. Consumer behavior study also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends and society in general.

The term consumer behavior describes two different kinds of consuming entities: personal consumers and organizational consumers. The personal consumers buy goods and services for final consumption that can be their own use, for the use of the household or as a gift. Personal consumers are also called end-users or ultimate consumers.

Organizational consumers include companies and charity organizations, government agencies and various institutions (including schools and hospitals). All these organizations must buy products, equipment and services necessary for their functions.

The consumer behavior study has its roots in a marketing strategy that evolved in the late 1950s when companies started realizing they could sell more if they produced goods only after determining that the consumer would buy. This consumer-oriented marketing philosophy is called marketing concept. The main idea in the marketing concept is that a company can be successful if it determines the needs and wants of a targeted market and satisfies this demand better than the competition.

A customer may decide to buy a product or service based on many factors. Among the most important reasons are the ways in which the offered product meets consumers' needs, values or goals. Marketing experts also try to understand the reasons why consumers do not want to buy or use a specific product or service. Consumer behavior study also focuses on the ways people acquire and use things as well as the time and place that clients select.

Consumers also make their choices after deciding how much of the product or service they need, how often they need it and how much time will be necessary to buy, use and dispose of it. Another key factor is emotions. According to consumer behavior study, the factors that affect decisions for purchase, usage and disposal of goods and services can be classified into four main groups: the psychological core (the source of knowledge and information), the process of making a decision, the consumer's culture and consumer behavior outcomes. The social class, personal values, lifestyle and household influences also affect the selection of goods or services. People's desire to belong to a certain group and their sense of self determine the external signs they use to express identity.

There are four main applications of the consumer behavior study. The best known is in the preparation and improvement of marketing strategies of companies worldwide. A second application is public policy, and the third is social marketing that involves getting ideas across to consumers rather than selling something. As a final benefit, studying consumer behavior is expected to help the consumers themselves to make better decisions.

Experts have noticed the move towards a global consumer culture, in which people are united by their common devotion to certain brands. The development of technologies has helped cultures worldwide to start mixing, resulting in a significant effect on the globalization of consumer culture. With the growth of the internet, consumers now have easy access to the opinions of other users, which they often trust more than advertisements.

The most common way to define what the potential clients want is by conducting market research. It can be done through a survey, focus groups, personal interviews, projective techniques, observations, online research and scanner data. Surveys are used when the market researchers want to get specific information, while focus groups are useful when the marketer wants to launch a new product or modify an existing one.

Personal interviews help researchers to get in-depth information. Projective techniques are used when a consumer may feel embarrassed to admit to certain opinions, feelings or preferences. Observation of consumers helps to understand how they make decisions. Online research is becoming more popular as most people have computers and access to the Internet. The scanner data method shows the exact behavior of specific consumers.

http: //www.questia.com/library/sociology-and-anthropology/social-issues/consumers/consumer-behavior

 

WHAT MAKES AN " EXCELLENT" PRESENTER?

By Ian Brownlee

 

There are many factors that make a presenter " Excellent" and an even greater number of discussions about this topic. Here is a brief & concise new perspective for your consideration based on over 25 years of experience & observation.

The comments in this article are applicable to all " excellent communicators"; trainers, public speakers, etc whether they be male or female!

Excellent presenters:

- First and foremost, are ALWAYS prepared beforehand to deliver the best presentation possible.

- Know that Communication Channels have changed over the past 60 years and that the world is now a much more visual place than at the end of the last century. They also recognizes that it is necessary to include much more visual input carefully & elegantly linked to auditive and kinesthetic elements to reach both the conscious & subconscious brain of each of his audience members so that each person can process, and understand, the information in the way most appropriate for them!

- Use psychology to structure the presentation in such a way that they takes the audience from the known to the unknown; from the general to the specific and from the simple to the complex in a logical & structured way and ALWAYS on the basis of the needs, wants and lacks of the audience and not their own!

- Anticipate, and think deeply about, the possible doubts and worries that the audience might have and how they, in the time available, can elegantly and effective resolve them during his presentation. This is what is known a part of the " previous preparation". Many presenter make a presentation to " Cover the basics" which is often just a fast " cut & paste" from previous presentations and obviously does not require much preparation. This is often due to a lack of knowledge & /or training or, more commonly, a lack of time (which is the most common excuse).

- Ensure that the attendees feel implicated / involved in the presentation because the topic is designed specifically to resolve THEIR problems, worries and doubts on the basis of THEIR REAL Situation today! NOT what the presenter wants to sell them! Let's be honest, who is going to feel involved when the presentation has little, or nothing, to do with the real problems of the audience and their need to find practical and real solutions?

- Synthesize information for the audience so that no time is wasted with unnecessary or redundant information.

- Carefully, and continually, OBSERVE the audience to identify how they are responding to, and mentally processing, the presentation and adapt their presentation accordingly - while maintaining FULL control! In my experience, a great many presenters do their presentation without paying much attention to the audience's non-verbal reactions - they do their own thing in their own way and then complain when they have problems later.

- Understand and pay attention to the very clear differences between an " Oral Presentation" and a reading lesson.

- Have a very high degree of linguistic competence and understand how the use of language, or misuse of language, can affect the reception of their presentation. Communication affects both mind & body!

- Recognize the vital importance of their Non-Verbal Communication and are able to consciously control the visible manifestations of their mental state. They are aware that their NVC can provide the audience with indicators about their degree of security, certainty vs uncertainty, truthfulness, etc., and knows that it is their responsibility to ensure that this does not happen.

- Control the audience using verbal and non-verbal techniques designed to work on the subconscious as well as the conscious levels & do not let the audience take control of their presentation. A presentation is NOT a " round table", discussion forum, or a chat - it is a communicative activity was a specific purpose and objective to achieve. Remember: Power is given. Control is taken!

- Always ask the audience to " keep their questions until the end of the presentation to avoid getting sidetracked and that it is very possible that their question will be answered during the presentation". Then they ensure that there is time for the audience members to ask their questions at the end of the presentation.

- Are creative and elegant in all areas of their presentation and are capable of showing this creativity in relating the content of their presentation to the appropriate attendees.

- Are realistic about the distribution of power in the room and knows how best to use it. (See below).

- Understand clearly that there is no second opportunity to give the same group the same, possibly improved, presentation. It is one-shot, hit-or-miss! If you lose control of the group or the presentation... all is lost!

- Use psychology, N.L.P., and the latest techniques to ensure that their message arrives in the way which they intended without being diluted or changed by the behaviour of the audience. " The meaning of your communication is the result you obtain, NOT the results you want to get! " (NLP presupposition)

- Are prepared to take " calculated" risks to achieve their objectives. They also have great abilities and are not afraid to use them. The problem is that this type of person is rare and hard-to-find. How many presenters have actually bothered to take the time to obtain, and stay up-to-date with, the necessary knowledge and skills required to give them the self-confidence to adapt to & use the constantly changing information? From what I have seen, very few!

What a great presenter DOES NOT DO:

- They do NOT buy a book and/or course written by the current " Guru of the Month" and published by " A leading Business Publisher" and follow it blindly, without considering any, or all, of the elements indicated above.

- They do NOT do exactly the same as everyone else who has purchased the same book / course or one of the thousands of similar books/ courses all professing to be the one, true solution!

- They do not look for, or use, simplistic formulaic mnemonics to answer every situation or element in the presentation.

- They do NOT reject out-of hand anything which conflicts with what they are currently doing: They evaluate it carefully based on the ideas outlined above.

- They NEVER gives a presentation which is just a " Master's Class" reading lesson. They knows the audience members know how to read so do not insult their intelligence by reading aloud to them

- They do NOT let the audience interrupt them verbally (questions, comments, etc) during the presentation because it is not important for them to be seen as " Mr. Nice Guy" and they know that questions, etc., do NOT help stimulate participation; being " politically correct" or " likeable" is less important than achieving his objectives; they are not worried about being seen as too " controlling"; and are not afraid that the audience will get angry or feel bad if they prevents interruptions! However, the " Power" in the room tend to interrupt the presenter whenever they want to because they are used to doing so. Since they are the principal decision-maker, it is logical that the presenter pay attention to the " Power" - what they do afterwards is important: they do not get into a dialogue with the " Power" - they postpone the answer / discussion until later during the presentation. (see my article Direct vs rhetorical question for more information).

- They do NOT try to please everyone in the audience. They knows that there are " Powers" who make decisions; " Influences" who directly, or indirectly, influence the " Powers" and there are " Hot Bodies" who are there to make the room look full and have absolutely NO influence over the " Powers" & " Influences" or the decisions made later. So the pays more attention to the " Powers" and " Influences" and less to the " hot bodies". To paraphrase George Orwell " Everyone is equal but some are more equal than others! " (Animal Farm. 1945).

They are NOT afraid to move into the 21st century using techniques designed for NOW, and refuse to stay hooked on the techniques from the last century

As a psychologist, I realize that almost everyone feels threatened when they discover that the world has changed; the logic and reality of the world today goes against everything that they have been doing for the last few years - their perceptions & techniques are no longer as cutting-edge as in the last century (literally). Many people refuse to accept that change is necessary, for them, because it means that they will feel uncomfortable. The fact that the world has changed does not motivate THEM to change so they spend more time looking for reasons NOT to change than actually doing the changes! There are none so blind as those who refuses to see!

Each person has to make their own decisions, and accept the consequences, about how to act in a presentation; Do it like they did in the 20th century or like they should do in the 21st century!

http: //ezinearticles.com/? What-Makes-an-Excellent-Presenter? & id=7457682

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