Marketing concepts and applications

Marketing

Discuss the aspects of the elements of the communication mix include: advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, publicity/public relations and personal selling.) Define each and discuss the pros and cons of the individual elements.

The creation of an effective integrated marketing communications strategy requires the coordination of advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, publicity and public relations (PR) and personal selling all aimed at a common goal. The greater the level of synchronization across these elements the greater the potential of strategies being effective and goals being attained (Kitchen, Kim, Schultz, 2008). The role of social media has accelerated the need for synchronizing each of these specific components together into a concerted and focused effort (Mangold, Faulds, 2009). With the high need for coordination in mind each of the elements of the communication mix are defined including their strengths and weaknesses. Advertising's strengths include being able to quickly define and sustain a brand's value proposition, be instrumental in launching a new product, define competition position and value, and define the value of products by benefits rather than just features. The cons or negatives of advertising include cost, lack of precise targeting in print-based advertising, and the need to repetitively advertising to see any long-term effects. Direct marketing's strengths include ease of tracking results (Hester, 2009), cost efficiency, control over creative messaging, and fast time to deploy. The negatives or cons of direct marketing is that consumers are beginning to view it as spam, the lack of quality in specific direct marketing programs is hurting the entire industry, and postal costs are again expected to increase which will increase the costs of this strategy. Sales promotion's strengths include the ability to directly impact the initial trial of a product, the ability to create targeted strategies across print and online channels (Wakolbinger, Denk, Oberecker, 2009) and the advantage of precisely targeting the sales promotion to specific audiences. The cons or negatives are first the costs, which can become very high if a product trail is involved. Second, the timeframes for executing sales promotions and the need to keep campaigns running continuously for this strategy to be effective is significant. Third, sales promotions must be tailored to specific audiences to be effective over time. Public relations' strengths include the ability to create a company's reputations relatively inexpensively by building relationships with key influencers, create greater brand awareness through print and online-based PR strategies, and precisely target specific audiences with messaging and key concepts. The cons or negatives of PR are that it often comes across as insincere and can cost company credibility if not done well. Second, PR needs to be genuine and promote real news, not press releases about events or programs made up just for publicity. Third, PR must be consistent as branding is to deliver its maximum effect. Many companies struggle with consistency over time with their PR. Finally, personal selling is a critical component of any integration marketing strategy. The advantages of personal selling are that companies have a chance to create personal relationships with customers and understand their unmet needs, greater trust is created through more effective communication, and the key messages of a company are more clearly communicated. The cons or negatives of personal selling include its costs, as it is very expensive to have a direct sales force in the field. Second, sales forces tend to turn over rapidly or churn which becomes problematic as new sales people need to be trained. Finally direct sales can easily turn into business development or lose focus on selling when a sales team is not held accountable for its quota.

Select and explain the most suitable method for measuring advertising or promotional effectiveness. Your decision must include research to back up the selected method. Be sure to explain why this is the most effective method to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaign.