Design the Communications

about the concept of communicating and its modes. Now that we know the platforms for communicating, it’s time to talk about designing a message and put it into a mix of our communication modes to deliver our message to individuals targeted by our strategy.

Devising the communications to achieve the desired response requires solving three problems: what to say (message strategy), how to say it (creative strategy), and who should say it (message source).

Message Strategy: In determining message strategy, management searches for appeals, themes, or ideas that will tie in to the brand positioning and help establish points-of-parity or points-of-difference. Some of these may be related directly to product or service performance (the quality, economy, or value of the brand), whereas others may relate to more extrinsic considerations (the brand as being contemporary, popular, or traditional).

Creative Strategy: Communications effectiveness depends on how a message is being expressed, as well as on its content. If a communication is ineffective, it may mean the wrong message was used, or the right one was poorly expressed. Advertising creativity is the ability to generate fresh, unique, and appropriate or relevant ideas that can be used as solutions to communication problems. Those who study as well as work in advertising generally agree on these two central determinants of creativity, which are often viewed in terms of divergence and relevance. Divergence refers to the extent to which an ad contains elements that are novel, different, or unusual. And relevance reflects the degree to which the various elements of the ad are meaningful, useful, or valuable to the consumer. Creative strategies are the way marketers translate their messages into a specific communication. We can broadly classify them as either informational or transformational appeals. In summary, an informational appeal elaborates on product or service attributes or benefits and a transformational appeal elaborates on a non-product-related benefit or image. We discussed about this types of strategies in detail in next blogs.

Message Source: Messages delivered by attractive or popular sources can achieve higher attention and retention, which is why advertisers often use celebrities as spokespeople. This method has its own benefits and losses. One of the most often problems that many brands are struggling with is the future acts of the brand ambassador will impact the brand image which is out of control of the firms and may harm their brand image.

And now, after designing the communication, while putting your message into a mix of the communication modes considering their characteristics and costs, you should know about some factors influencing your mix, we have discussed about them below.

Factors in Setting the Marketing Communications Mix

Companies must consider several factors in developing their communications mix: type of product market, consumer readiness to make a purchase, and stage in the product life cycle.

Type of Product Market: Communications-mix allocations vary between consumer and business markets. Consumer marketers tend to spend comparatively more on sales promotion and advertising; business marketers tend to spend comparatively more on personal selling. In general, personal selling is used more with complex, expensive, and risky goods and in markets with fewer and larger sellers (hence, business markets which we know as B2B markets).

Although marketers rely more on sales calls in business markets, advertising still plays a significant role:

Advertising can provide an introduction to the company and its products.

If the product has new features, advertising can explain them.

Reminder advertising is more economical than sales calls.

Advertisements offering brochures and carrying the company’s phone number or Web address are an effective way to generate leads for sales representatives.

Sales representatives can use copies of the company’s ads to legitimize their company and products.

Advertising can remind customers how to use the product and reassure them about their purchase.

Advertising combined with personal selling can increase sales over personal selling alone. Corporate advertising can improve a company’s reputation and improve the sales force’s chances of getting a favorable first hearing and early adoption of the product.

On the flip side, personal selling can also make a strong contribution in consumer-goods marketing. Some consumer marketers use the sales force mainly to collect weekly orders from dealers and to see that sufficient stock is on the shelf. Yet an effectively trained company sales force can make four important contributions:

Increase stock position. Sales reps can persuade dealers to take more stock and devote more shelf space to the company’s brand.

Build enthusiasm. Sales reps can build dealer enthusiasm by dramatizing planned advertising and communications support for the company’s brand.

Conduct missionary selling. Sales reps can sign up more dealers.

Manage key accounts. Sales reps can take responsibility for growing business with the most important accounts.

Buyer-Readiness Stage: Communication tools vary in cost effectiveness at different stages of buyer readiness. The figure demonstrated below shows the relative cost-effectiveness of three communication tools. The awareness building stage is primarily affected by advertising and publicity while the advertising and personal selling have the most effect on customer comprehension. Customer conviction is influenced mostly by personal selling. Closing the sale is influenced mostly by personal selling and sales promotion. Reordering is also affected mostly by personal selling and sales promotion, and somewhat by reminder advertising. The figure below illustrates the effect of communication tools in these stages.

Figure 1- The comparative effect of communication tools in different stage of the buyer readiness

Product Life-Cycle Stage: In the introduction stage of the product life cycle, advertising, events and experiences, and publicity have the highest cost-effectiveness or as you might say the highest ROI, followed by personal selling to gain distribution coverage and sales promotion and direct marketing to induce trial. In the growth stage, demand has its own momentum through word of mouth (WOM or EWOM) and interactive marketing. Despite the general beliefs, advertising, events and experiences, and personal selling all become more important in the maturity stage. In the decline stage, sales promotion continues strong, other communication tools are reduced, and salespeople give the product only minimal attention.

Integrating the Marketing Communications

In recent years, customers are exposed everywhere and they are lost in a jungle of advertisements. This situation have made firm’s to go beyond designing the message and choosing the way to communicate with their clients. The wide range of communication tools, messages, and audiences makes it imperative that companies move toward integrated marketing communications. Companies must adopt a “360-degree view” of consumers to fully understand all the different ways that communications can affect consumer behavior in their daily lives. To better reach and deliver their message to the customers, firms have begun to integrating their marketing communications which is called IMC.

Today, large advertising agencies have substantially improved their integrated offerings. To facilitate one-stop shopping, these agencies have acquired promotion agencies, public relations firms, package design consultancies, Web site developers, and direct-mail houses. They are redefining themselves as communications companies that assist clients to improve their overall communications effectiveness by offering strategic and practical advice on many forms of communication. Many international clients such as Unilever Iran (MAAT Advertising Agency), Colgate (Young & Rubicam), and GE (BBDO) have opted to put a substantial portion of their communications work through one full-service agency (Type of agencies discussed here http://armaniads.com/a-way-to-better-understand-advertising-agencies-and-their-operations/) . The result is integrated and more effective marketing communications at a much lower total communications cost.

Integrated marketing communications can produce stronger message consistency and help to build brand equity and create greater sales impact. It forces management to think about every way the customer comes in contact with the company, how the company communicates its positioning, the relative importance of each vehicle, and timing issues. It gives someone the responsibility— where none existed before—to unify the company’s brand images and messages as they come through thousands of company activities. IMC should improve the company’s ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time and in the right place. In future blogs we’ll talk about IMC and discuss about it to realize this complex and obligatory concept of any successful marketing campaign.