UNIT-4

101-Marketing management

Marketing Communication
The Marketing Communication refers to the means adopted by the companies to
convey messages about the products and the brands they sell, either directly or
indirectly to the customers with the intention to persuade them to purchase.
In other words, the different medium that company adopts to exchange the information
about their goods and services to the customers is termed as Marketing
Communication.
The marketer uses the tools of marketing communication to create the brand awareness
among the potential customers, which means some image of the brand gets created in
their minds that help them to make the purchase decision.

The 8 Basic Process of Marketing Communication

1) Sender:
It refers to the marketing firm which is conveying the message.
2) Encoding:

Before a message can be sent, it has to be encoded. Putting thoughts, ideas, or

information into a symbolic form is termed as encoding. Encoding ensures the correct

interpretation of message by the receiver, who is often the ultimate customer.

3) Message:

A message may be verbal or non-verbal, oral, written, or symbolic. A message contains

all the information or meaning that the sender aims to convey. A message is put into a

transmittable form depending upon the channels of communication.

4) Medium:

The channel used to convey the encoded message to the intended receiver is termed

as medium. The medium can be categorized in the following manner:

i) Personal:

It involves direct interpersonal (face-to-face) contact with the target group.

ii) Non-Personal:

These are channels which convey message without any interpersonal contact between

the sender and the receiver.

The non-personal channels of communication may further be broadly classified

as follows:

a) Print Media:

Newspapers, magazines, direct mails, etc.

b) Electronic Media:

Radio and Television.

5) Decoding:

It is the process of transforming the sender’s message back into thought. Decoding is
highly influenced by the self-reference criteria (SRC), which is unintended reference to

one’s own culture.

6) Receiver:

It is the target audience or customers who receive the message by way of reading,

hearing, or seeing. A number of factors influence how the message is received. These

include the clarity of message, the interest generated, the translation, the sound of

words, and the visuals used in the message.

 7) Noise:

The unplanned distortions or interference of die message is termed as ‘noise.’ A

message is subjected to a variety of external factors that distort or interfere, its

reception.
8) Feedback:

In order to assess the effectiveness of the marketing communication process, feedback

from the customers is crucial. The time needed to assess the communication impact

depends upon the type of promotion used.

Elements of Marketing Communication Mix

1. Advertising: It is an indirect, paid method used by the firms to inform the

customers about their goods and services via television, radio, print media,
online websites etc Advertising is one of the most widely used methods of
communication mix wherein the complete information about the firm’s product
and services can be communicated easily with the huge target audience
coverage.
 Characteristics of Advertising:

1. Tool for Market Promotion:

There are various tools used for market communication, such as advertising, sales
promotion, personal selling, and publicity. Advertising is a powerful, expensive, and
popular element of promotion mix.

2. Non-personal:
Advertising is a type of non-personal or mass communication with the target audience.
A large number of people are addressed at time. It is called as non-personal
salesmanship.

3. Paid Form:
Advertising is not free of costs.

4. Wide Applicability:
Advertising is a popular and widely used means for communicating with the target
market. It is not used only for business and profession, but is widely used by museums,
charitable trusts, government agencies, educational institutions, and others to inform
and attract various target publics.

5. Varied Objectives
Advertising is aimed at achieving various objectives. It is targeted to increase sales,
create and improve brand image, face competition, build relations with publics, or to
educate people.

6. Forms of Advertising:
Advertising message can be expressed in written, oral, audible, or visual forms. Mostly,
message is expressed in a joint form, such as oral-visual, audio-visual, etc.

7. Use of Media:
Advertiser can use any of the several advertising media to convey the message. Widely
used media are print media (newspapers, magazines, pamphlets, booklets, letters,
etc.), outdoor media (hoardings, sign boards, wall-printing, vehicle, banners, etc.),
audio-visual media (radio, television, film, Internet, etc.), or any other to address the
target audience.

8. Advertising as an Art.
9. Element of Truth

2. Sales Promotion: The sales promotion includes the several short-term

incentives to persuade the customers to initiate the purchase of the goods and
services. This promotion technique not only helps in retaining the existing
 customers but also attract the new ones with the additional benefits.Rebates,
discounts, paybacks, Buy- one –get- one free scheme, coupons, etc. are
some of the sales promotion tools.
3. Events and Experiences: Several companies sponsor the events such as
sports, entertainment, nonprofit or community events with the intention to
reinforce their brand in the minds of the customers and create a long term
association with them.
The name of the firm sponsoring the event can be seen on the playground
boundaries, player’s jerseys, trophies, awards in the entertainment shows,
hoardings on stage, etc.

4. Public Relations and Publicity: The companies perform several social

activities with a view to creating their positive brand image in the market. The
activities that companies are undertaking such as, constructing the public
conveniences, donating some portion of their purchase to the child education,
organizing the blood donation camps, planting trees, etc. are some of the
common moves of enhancing the Public Relations.
5. Direct Marketing: With the intent of technology, the companies make use of
emails, fax, mobile phones, to communicate directly with the prospective
customers without involving any third party in between.
6. Interactive Marketing: Interactive Marketing has recently gained popularity
as a marketing communication tool, wherein the customers can interact with
the firms online and can get their queries resolved online.
Amazon is one of the best examples of interactive marketing wherein the
customers make their choice and can see what they have chosen or ordered
in the recent past. Also, Several websites offer the platform to the customers
wherein they ask questions and get the answers online such as answer.com.

7. Word-of- Mouth Marketing: It is one of the most widely practiced method of

communication tool wherein customer share their experiences with their peers
and friends about the goods and services they bought recently.This method is
very crucial for the firms because the image of the brand depends on what
customer feels about the brand and what message he convey to others.
8. Personal Selling: This is the traditional method of marketing communication
wherein the salesmen approach the prospective customers directly and inform
them about the goods and services they are dealing in. It is considered as one
of the most reliable modes of communication because it is done directly either
orally, i.e., face to face or in writing via emails or text messages.
Thus, marketing Communication mix refers to the different tools that a firm
can adopt to inform, persuade, and remind the customer about the product
and services it sells

➢ Promotion Marketing

Promotion refers to making a product or service known to the customer. Its goal is to
increase brand awareness, build customer loyalty, and generate more sales.

Role of Promotion in the Marketing Mix

Mix-marketing is a concept that deals with the main components of a

marketing plan. The four main components of the marketing mix are price,
location, promotion and product.

✓ These four components work together to help create a marketing plan

for the business. Without any of the four parts, the marketing plan can
suffer and not be as effective as it could be. You could rely more on one
aspect than others, but they all play a role.

✓ All components of the marketing mix are interrelated. The marketing

manager manages the creation of a product with certain consumer
characteristics, assigns a retail price, chooses the place of sale and
delivery channels of the goods, informs the potential buyer about the
advantages of the goods and convinces them to make a purchase.

✓ In today’s highly competitive environment, companies are forced to seek

hidden reserves to create competitive advantages for their products.

✓ Promotion means all marketing communications, with which you can

draw the consumer's attention to the product, provide the necessary
information about the product and its key characteristics, form a need to
purchase goods and make repeated purchases.

✓ Promotion includes such marketing communications as advertising,

promotion in points of sales, search engine optimization, PR, direct
marketing.

➢ Sales promotion
Sales promotion can be a great tool for companies to market their products and attract
potential customers. Professionals working in the sales department can benefit from
understanding the basics of sales promotions. Learning about promotions in marketing
can help you increase sales, improve customer satisfaction and develop brand
awareness.

Essential Of Sales Promotion In Marketing

• Reduces risk

Sales promotions with the right and calculated approach can help companies to
reduce risk. Sometimes outrageous deals can be harmful to the growth of the
company. Launching a sales promotion can allow you to reduce the inventory
costs and expenses of a company.

• Creates uniqueness

One of the most significant benefits of sales promotion is that it can help
companies to introduce a different approach. Unique sales promotions may have
a greater chance of getting noticed. Multiple businesses can target the same
audience by introducing some unique features or services. For example, a
company manufacturing soaps can attract customers by making their product
environment friendly.

• Improves buyer-seller relationship

Sales promotion can provide you with a great opportunity to improve

communication with customers. Many companies implement social media
campaigning, promotions and advertising to improve customer retention and
increase engagement. Sales promotions can help in establishing a good buyer-
seller relationship and understanding the perception of a buyer towards the
product.

• Creates demand for products

Attractive sales promotion can help customers to find the best reasons to buy a
product. Sales promotion can be a great way to increase or create the demand
for a product. Many companies use two popular methods of sales promotion
which help in the creation of a reason to buy the product.

They are AIDA (attention, interest, desire and action) and PAS (problem,
agitate and solution).

• Focuses on the market

Many sales professionals develop a strategy that can help them to increase sales
with minimum effort. As the customer base may vary depending on a specific
 product, you may require different strategies to increase sales of each product.
With the help of sales promotion, you can understand a particular market and
build relevant strategies to increase sales.

• Creates a source of information

Online sales promotion can help companies to provide a source of the required
information about their products and services. Such promotions may include
texts, pictures and videos describing a specific product. Images and videos may
allow you to describe all the important specifications and benefits of a product in
a less time-consuming manner. It can be a great way to keep existing customers
engaged and attract new potential customers.

• Increases the overall revenue

Sales promotion is a great marketing tool to convince more customers to buy a

product and increase sales. More purchases may result in an overall increase in
revenue. A good sales promotion strategy can encourage customers to try a
product, which can lead to an increase in sales.

Examples Of Sales Promotions

Email marketing
Email marketing can be a great way to implement sales promotion and reach potential
customers. It can help in communicating and informing the customers about the special
offers and exclusive deals on your products and services.
Social media marketing
Social media marketing can help companies to build their brand on a global level and
encourage customers to try their products, which may increase sales. A good strategy
for social media marketing may focus on creating valuable content to increase
engagement and conversion rates.
Text messaging
This sales promotion can be effective when customers are comfortable interacting with
a seller on their cellphones. Text messaging is a form of sales promotion marketing
where businesses may send text messages focusing on promoting their products and
services. In general, only subscribed customers can get text messages from the
companies.
➢ What is bottom of the pyramid marketing?
Bottom of the pyramid marketing is when a company designs a marketing plan that
aims to provide products to low income earners. The product, price, promotion, and
place are focused on this group of consumers.
Bottom of the pyramid (BOP), also called base of the pyramid, term
in economics that refers to the poorest two-thirds of the economic human
pyramid, a group of more than four billion people living in abject poverty
This concept has been increasingly adopted by firms in different industries
(e.g., household goods, energy)

BOTTOM OF PYRAMID - C.K PRAHALAD

BOP approaches note two crucial challenges

1. governance and sustainability; neither challenge is currently well
addressed. Effective governance mechanisms and bodies are needed to
regulate, monitor, and oversee the development of markets and effective
competition (as well as police corruption), and like MNCs, they
must transcend national sovereignties.
2. Raising the consumption levels of the world’s poor dramatically requires
radically new business models and technologies to avoid disastrous impacts
on Earth’s ecosystems; governance mechanisms are needed to enforce the
adoption of radical resource efficiency measures and
clean technologies across a multinational playing field. Some researchers
have suggested, however, that the effects of pollution and other
environmental problems worldwide could be lessened by using such
underdeveloped countries as inexpensive testing arenas for environmentally
sustainable technologies.
 Features/Characteristics-
A pyr am id sc hem e ha s th e f ollowi ng char ac ter isti

• The primary focus is on Recruitment: The focus is on luring more

and more members and making them pay the entrance fees.
• Sale of Products is Secondary: Here, there is hardly any focus on
the sale of products or services. Most of the time, products serve as a
cover for the scam.
• Charges Entrance Fees: This scheme requires joiners to pay an
entrance fee, which ultimately goes to the top-level members.
• No Legal Paperwork: Often, these schemes operate illegally; they
don’t have any lawful procedure for adding the new members, nor do
they provide any valid receipts.
• Assures Impressive Returns is Short Span: These schemes attract
their targets by showing them hefty earnings and promising huge
profits instantly. Often scammers use forged documents to lure new
entrants.
• Not Publicly Listed: Usually, pyramid scheme companies are not
listed on any
• stock exchanges and therefore have no reliability.
• No Proof of Revenue: Most scheme initiators have no financial
statements to represent their retail sales revenue generated by
selling products or services.

prof.Akansha pathak