Marketing Communications

What are marketing communications?

Marketing communications is a subset of the overall subject area known as marketing. Marketing has a marketing mix that is made of price, place, promotion, product (know as the four P's), that includes people, processes and physical evidence, when marketing services (known as the seven P's). How does marketing communications fit in? Marketing communications is 'promotion' from the marketing mix. Why are marketing communications 'integrated?' Integrated means combine or amalgamate, or put simply the jigsaw pieces that together make a complete picture. This is so that a single message is conveyed by all marketing communications. Different messages confuse your customers and damage brands. So if a TV advert carries a particular logo, images and message, then all newspaper adverts and point-of-sale materials should carry the same logo, images or message, or one that fits the same theme. Coca-Cola uses its familiar red and white logos and retains themes of togetherness and enjoyment throughout its marketing communications. Marketing communications has a mix. Elements of the mix are blended in different quantities in a campaign. The marketing communications mix includes many different elements, and the following list is by no means conclusive. It is recognized that there is some cross over between individual elements (e.g. Is donating computers to schools, by asking shoppers to collect vouchers, public relations or sales promotion?) Here are the key of the marketing communications mix. The Marketing Communications Mix
• Personal Selling
• Sales Promotion
• Public Relations (and publicity)
• Direct Marketing
• Trade Fairs and Exhibitions
• Advertising (above and below the line)
• Sponsorship
• Packaging
• Merchandising (and point-of-sale)
• E-Marketing (and Internet promotions).
• Brands
Integrated marketing communications see the elements of the communications mix 'integrated' into a coherent whole. This is known as the marketing communications mix, and forms the basis of a marketing communications campaign.

7things about product pricing

Here are 7 things I have learnt about product pricing.

#1 If price is your ONLY product differentiator, you are selling a commodity. And if your competitor is much larger than you, you may not have a prayer – they can run you out of town by giving the product away for free.

#2 There is nothing called perfect price. You will either overprice or underprice your product. The key is to test quickly to see what the market can bear, quickly iterate and arrive at your final price. Pick test markets, learn and manage, so that if you do not get it right, you do not have a customer backlash to deal with.

#3 Never roll out pricing increase to existing customers all at once. Why? – see #2.

#4 You cannot increase price without adding additional value for your customers. Customers don’t care about your expenses especially when they have choices.

#5 You do not have to drop prices if your competitors do. If price is all you have to talk about, see #1. Refocus the discussion to customer value you provide and why the value is worth the additional price. If the customer will not, assess if the customer is worth acquiring. Not all customers are.

#6 You do not have to have single pricing. Promotions to attract new customers, rebates for large volume customers are things to consider only if it makes business sense. Don’t do any of this unless you have a sales strategy in place – what is the end goal for promotions and rebates – new customer acquisition? Customer retention?

#7 If you want to price products based on value, think about packaging. Car companies do it – EX, LX, RX; consumer products do – large, medium, small; online services do – Basic, Pro, Premium.

What are your learnings about pricing based on your experience? Please share with me and other readers.

Top 20 Risers

This Top 20 risers chart lists the brands
that gained the most in brand value
year-on-year. It includes a diverse range
of brands.
The list includes financial, mobile, spirits,
technology, retail, beer, fast food, coffee and
cigarette brands, proving that you can build
a strong brand in any category.
While each of the brands has its own
particular story, the top 20 risers can be
split neatly into four groups:
Value
ALDI, Auchan, McDonald’s and Wendy’s.
Brands fulfilling an increasing shopper
desire for good value for money – due to a
cheap price or high quality product. These
brands successfully executed well-considered
strategies to benefit from changing consumer
behavior in today’s difficult economy.
BRICs
China Merchants Bank, BBVA, Chivas,
ICBC, Johnnie Walker, Marlboro, Nivea
and Rolex
While European and North American
markets suffered from economic disruption,
these brands rose in value primarily because
they are based in, or trade in, one of the
fast-growing BRIC economies.
Technology
AT&T, BlackBerry, Movistar, O2 and Vodafone.
The stories vary, but each of these brands has
exhibited a level of innovation and leadership
that has resulted in substantial appreciation
of brand value. A few of the mobile operator
brands share one other thing in common –
exclusive country deals with Apple’s iPhone.
At Home
Nespresso, Amazon and Kronenbourg 1664
As consumers try to save money in the
downturn, there has been a resulting growth
in brands that can be enjoyed at home.
By negotiating the current economic climate
better than the competition and through
product and marketing innovations,
the brands listed here were well positioned
to catch the prevailing winds. They are by
definition leaders whose experience offers
important lessons in building brand value.
# Brand Brand Value
Growth
1 China Merchants Bank 168%
2 BlackBerry 100%
3 Amazon 85%
4 Wendy's 72%
5 AT&T 67%
6 ALDI 49%
7 Auchan 48%
8 Vodafone 45%
9 Johnnie Walker 42%
10 Kronenbourg 1664 41%
11 O2 36%
12 ICBC 36%
13 Rolex 35%
14 Movistar 34%
15 McDonald’s 34%
16 BBVA 33%
17 Marlboro 33%
18 Chivas 30%
19 Nespresso 27%
20 Nivea 24%

Marketing Plan

Marketing plans are vital to marketing success. They help to focus the mind of companies and marketing teams on the process of marketing i.e. what is going to be achieved and how we intend to do it. There are many approaches to marketing plans. Marketing Teacher has focused upon the key stages of the plan. It is contained under the popular acronym AOSTC.

ANALYSIS

OBJECTIVES

STRATEGIES

TACTICS

CONTROLS

Stage One - Situation Analysis (and Marketing Audit).

• Marketing environment
  
• Laws and regulations.
• Politics.
• The current state of technology.
• Economic conditions.
• Sociocultural aspects.
• Demand trends.
• Media availability.
• Stakeholder interests.
• Marketing plans and campaigns of competitors.
• Internal factors such as your own experience and resource availability.

Also see tools for internal/external audit:

• SWOT
  
• PEST
  
• Porter's 5 Forces
  
• Marketing environment
  

Stage Two - Set marketing objectives.

SMART Objectives:

• Specific - Be precise about what you are going to achieve.
• Measurable - Quantify you objectives.
• Achievable - Are you attempting too much?
• Realistic - Do you have the resource to make the objective happen (men, money, machines, materials, minutes)?
• Timed - State when you will achieve the objective (within a month? By February 2010?).

If you don't make your objective SMART, it will be too vague and will not be realized. Remember that the rest of the plan hinges on the objective. If it is not correct, the plan may fail.

Stage Three - Describe your target market

• Which segment How will we target the segment? How should we position within the segment?
• Why this segment and not a different one? (This will focus the mind).
• Define the segment in terms of demographics and lifestyle. Show how you intend to 'position' your product or service within that segment. Use other tools to assist in strategic marketing decisions such as Boston Matrix, Ansoff's Matrix, Bowmans strategy clock, Porter's competitive strategies, etc.

Stage Four - Marketing Tactices

Convert the strategy into the Marketing Mix (4Ps) These are your marketing tactics.

• Price Will you cost plus, skim, match the competition or penetrate the market?
• Place Will you market direct, use agents or distributors, etc?
• Product Sold individually, as part of a bundle, in bulk, etc?
• Promotion Which media will you use? e.g sponsorship, radio advertising, sales force, point-of-sale, etc? Think of the mix elements as the ingredients of a 'cake mix'. You have eggs, milk, butter, and flour. However, if you alter the amount of each ingredient, you will influence the type of cake that you finish with.

Stage Five - Marketing controls

Remember that there is no planning without control. Control is vital.

• Start-up costs.
• Monthly budgets.
• Sales figure.
• Market share data.
• Consider the cycle of control.

Finally, write a short summary (or synopsis) which is placed at the front of the plan. This will help others to get acquainted with the plan without having to spend time reading it all. Place all supporting information into an appendix at the back of the plan.