Integrated Communication in Marketing

Posted on Sep 16, 2024 in Other subjects

D. Communication

We all know that communication is a strategic tool in any company that wants to be well-positioned in the market. This does not mean that communication is the key to success, but it is a part of it. Of course, without communication, we are doomed to fail more easily. In fact, through integrated communication, we will bring to market the image we want for our company, which will allow us to position ourselves in an increasingly competitive world.

It is obvious, therefore, that a good communication strategy is important. We can create a strategy from the various tools that marketing offers, and that we will see, but where there is always one common element: the message that we convey to the market. This message is what will position us and differentiate us from the competition. Therefore, choosing the right message is essential for an effective communication strategy.

Integrated communication includes the following main areas:

  • Advertising
  • Sponsorship
  • Promotion
  • Merchandising
  • Direct marketing
  • Internet

Because of the importance it holds for our industry, we will focus on the study of advertising.

1. Advertising

Advertising is defined as how to present ideas, products, or services in a non-personal way, paid for by the issuer, and whose purpose is to influence the behavior of individuals.

The importance of advertising lies in four key features:

  • Its mass character. You can get the message you want to give to most of the target audience it is addressed to.
  • Speed. Their actions have immediate results.
  • Its cheapness. While advertising may seem initially expensive, the truth is that the cost per useful impact is small.
  • Their effectiveness. Its shares get an immediate response no matter what the stated goal: increase sales, brand recognition, or reputation of the company.

The figures involved when performing advertising are:

  • The Advertiser is the one who needs to communicate or make something known and will usually pay for it. They will determine what the market wants to communicate, how and when to communicate it, and how much budget they have.
    • Advertising Agency is the specialist who should create the ads and charge for it.
    • The channels through which to transmit the advertising will be responsible for disseminating it and charging you. The most common are television, press, radio, and magazines, but there is another channel that is new and emerging: web pages.
    • The receiver of the message will be the recipient. The receiver does not pay or charge.

Channels or advertising media used are:

1. Mass Media

These are: the press, radio, and television, although we can start counting the Internet as a medium of communication used by more and more people.

  • TV = The cost is high, but it has possibilities that other media do not, because it can add image, movement, sound, and color to the word. It is the advertising that gets faster to create a desire for the advertised product.
    • Radio = It is cheaper than television. A phenomenon to consider is the role that broadcasters are becoming. Issues that the target does possess a very definite and tasty advertising at a very clear example of what we Intereconomía Radio.
    • The press and magazines = The reading public is usually more concentrated than those watching or listening to television or radio because reading does not allow other activities at the same time. In this regard, as this medium is based on reading and still, this fact turns out to be an advantage. Its price is quite affordable.
    • Internet = has made concepts such as interactivity, personalization, globalization, information society, knowledge management… and, above all, has created an environment of new opportunities for businesses and professionals. You have defined the field of play, mixing communication with marketing, sale, and distribution. There is a new media; it is a new way to understand communication and marketing, is creating new values and new patterns of behavior, and creating new business models.

Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and the costs they create for companies that use them to advertise their products are very different.

The most expensive of the three is also television, depending on the program that is sanded to advertise, vary their rates. The same applies to the press and radio. In the press, it depends on where the page appears, either in the most important pages or in the least. The radio has different rates depending on the slots.

The mass media have certain characteristics:

  • The communication goes in one direction, transmitter-receiver, and the latter usually cannot intervene with an instant response to reach the sender and cause feedback.
  • These media have to a large number of receptors, with similar characteristics so you think you can get it to them. This is not always the case, and the receivers are also increasingly crowded, so sometimes they overlook the ads.
  • Some of these media give added value to the message, its degree of credibility and acceptance in front of the receiver.

2. Outdoor Advertising

Outdoor advertising is an advertising medium itself, in its own right, using, in turn, a series of supports that make them valuable when publicizing the message. Regularly, new media, since, despite its development, remains an evolving one.

We stand out from existing ones:

Advertising hoardings are those carriers stationed in the cities and non-national roads since it is prohibited (currently only the Osborne bull, because they were considered belonging to the national landscape.) Such supports include very short advertising messages, in order to be captured in just seconds. They are a support of great interest, and very easily aroused the attention of the public also can watch repeatedly.

Advertising on public transport: it is all advertising that takes place both inside and outside of public transport such as buses, subways, trains, taxis… either graphic or digital.

And semi-mobile Mobile advertising: all advertising is being done on billboards carried by authorized vehicles, as well as being on a vehicle is set in any urban place. With regard to mobile advertising, are now widely used active screens controlled via modem from a central computer, changing everything about daily local news and inserting and removing ads that are high or low.

Aerial advertising: it is all that done by planes that carry signs with slogans.

Advertising on sports grounds: it is all a matter of static advertising that is placed on the sports grounds, both football stadiums, racing circuit, tennis courts, racetracks… the days held a competition or sporting event.

Other forms of static advertising: covers the various forms of advertising still we have not mentioned before, usually located in urban centers. We refer to advertising on bus shelters, phone boxes, litter bins, clocks on public roads, streetlights, newspaper kiosks, subway platforms, digital displays, the new public waste containers polluting or likely to be recycled at the corners indicators shopping and entertainment venues, the now famous “gizmos” in Madrid…

The profitability of each of the supports mentioned is very variable, depending on the objective that we are looking for in any case, the main feature of this medium is to prevent the message is mixed with its support within the urban landscape, so that creativity takes a strong role.

3. The Mailings

The advertising that is done by selecting a specific audience and depositing it in the mailbox at his home. It has the advantage that it can deliver the message to the specific group desired. Its cost is low, but not always effective because, for that to happen, the message should receive the desired person and not any other family member. In addition, they should not only receive it but also read it.

In the tourism sector, channels used are:

  • Specialized magazines
    • Fairs and exhibitions
    • Sponsorship
    • The new information highway
    • Brochures

The company, whether you’re launching a new product to market as if it would draw attention that you have, you should consider clear objectives with regard to the communication of it:

It should give information about the product in relation to:

  • If a new product = what characteristics and needs can be covered.
    • If you are an old product = if improvements have been made or is likely to new uses
    • Must communicate the distribution channels through which it can be obtained.
    • It should help the sellers to do their work

Communication Plan

The steps to draft a communication plan are:

A. Setting Goals

The head of the advertising department is thoroughly familiar with the objectives of the company. The only way to establish a needs-based campaign seeking are covered. In principle, for information indicated that today’s businesses want:

  • Proportionately Keep current market share. The goal is that if the market grows, the company grows in proportion.
  • Facilitate the management of the sales team.
  • To inform the target company developments.
  • Attracting new customers to the outlets.
  • Subtract customers to competition.
  • Reaching potential consumers.
  • Sell the company’s image.
  • Loyalty of current customers.

In general, we can establish four types of advertising according to the objectives we have set:

  • Informative advertising. As its name suggests, its mission is to inform. For one thing, being put into the market new products or services, and secondly, recommending the use of existing ones.
  • Persuasive advertising. Its purpose is to create a selective demand. It is decanted to users by our brand through the features and the added value offered by our products or services.
  • Advertising reminder. His goal is clear: to remind consumers of the existence of product qualities, and told how it can meet your needs. In this case, we speak of a product already fully consolidated in the market.
  • Advertising reinforcement. Total customer satisfaction is complemented, not purchasing the product, but when he discovers that his election has been fully successful because it meets their needs. The aim, therefore of this type of advertising is to influence the right choice and reassure customers and successful as has been his decision.

B. Creation of Briefing

The Briefing is a document that defines the characteristics of each of the measures envisaged in the communication plan. If the plan will go to several people, it must be delivered to all partners involved in the implementation as it contains instructions and basic information to ensure that actions are consistent with the objectives and marketing strategies.

Allows you to define what is needed and what has been done. It must be short and concise, but complete. The briefing must be composed of at least the following elements:

  • Definition of the target or target in the most explicit possible: demographic location, their psychology, their purchasing habits, age… and even his role as a consumer, prescriber, or purchaser.
  • Product Definition. Differentiation, added value, and the benefits to the consumer always treated from the point of view of their use, profitability, and life cycle.
  • Characteristics and potential market conditions. Current status, conditions of sale, total market volume, trends…
  • Competitive environment. Know competition is essential. Not only are the brands and their market share, but trends and marketing strategies, advertising and promotion, as well as the differences between leading products, pricing, image, and design…
  • Details of the company. Your mission, culture, principles, and rules governing its corporate identity strategy…
  • Indication of the channels. It should be noted marketing channels, both our own and those of competitors.
  • Experiences and historical analysis of advertising. It is important to take into account the communication activities carried out before, its objectives, and what were the results.
  • Objectives we want to accomplish. Like I said earlier in the setting of targets is essential to communicate the objectives and marketing strategies of our company to determine the objectives of different communication strategies.
  • Key data about the budget. Although clients are often reluctant to communicate the budget, the truth is that it is essential to know which economic parameters should move the agency.

C. Base Proposal

The briefing will be the starting point that will allow the agency to begin work on the basis of the campaign proposal, which must be selected product benefits, service (both rational and emotional) on which you turn the campaign. Once prepared, the basic proposal is submitted to the client company.

D. Message Processing

Once you know the benefits of which will turn the campaign and made the basic proposal is to develop the message. Its design is crucial because it is the end that reaches the public and, above all, that will allow us to achieve our goals. Therefore, the message should make clear what are the benefits of the product or service, as well as the reasons for this and their evidence. However, to avoid surprises later, to achieve the objectives and therefore have a financial loss, there should be a campaign pretest through group meetings.

E. Media Development Plan

We know what to say, how to say it, and how we budget, therefore we can only be established through which carriers are going to reach the target audience in the most cost-effective and efficient way for the company. To this end, we analyze the media that is our target. It is useful to know your roll, GRP, hearings, cost per…, data are provided by the medium itself and can also be obtained by means of control: OJD, EGM, Sofres…

According to these data, we developed a work plan by selecting the most appropriate means for transmitting the message of the campaign, specifying the format, number of occurrences, and dates. It is, in short, to make an assessment and distribution, both in space and in time, all media and means that we will use for the campaign.

F. Message Adaptation to Environment

Clearly communicate a message is different depending on the communication medium we use. Therefore, although the central message is the same, will be adapted to each of the media, different formats, and different audiences. This will enable us to maximize the advantages of each, which will result in a benefit for our campaign. While television will have to seize the opportunity offered to give us pictures and great ratings, on billboards have to take into account the size, color, location… radio and the message itself.

G. Start

It is the litmus test of any campaign. Once in the market, quickly began to receive feedback from the market, i.e., the acceptance that is causing our message. However, due to the high cost, it is never advisable to stop a campaign, the truth is that if you have a misunderstanding of the message or a deterioration of corporate image because of some external event or influence that distorts the message, it is better to proceed with its cessation.

H. Systems Control

Normally, the result of an advertising campaign is measured by net sales. If it increases, it is considered that the campaign has been successful. However, at times, thanks to the institutes of view, we know that it covers the objectives set out initially in the briefing, without which translates into increased sales. It is then necessary to analyze the other variables of marketing to try to find the causes. In any case, we must seize the different results for this experience.