Description
To market a product successfully, it is not enough to ensure that it is the right product available at the right place at the right time; information about its availability, utility, and price must also be effectively communicated to prospective buyers.
For the communication process to be effective, the marketer must be able to create the right message and deliver it to the right prospect at the right time, using the right media. Although this may sound simple, in a competitive environment with increasingly similar products and services, the proliferation of media options, and complexity in segmenting audiences, it is very difficult to get all the elements of the communications process right.
In order to differentiate their brands in such an environment, marketers must constantly refine and fine-tune their marketing communications strategies.
Marketing communication has undergone drastic changes over the last few years. In the past, marketers communicated using a limited number of marketing communication tools like advertising, sales promotions, or sales personnel; the number of media options – like radio, television, or print media – at their disposal was also limited. In the last couple of decades, though, fragmentation of traditional media such as television and print, and the emergence of new or non-traditional media such as the Internet, have made marketing communications much more complex.
Today, marketers can no longer rely completely on a single marketing communication tool like advertising, personal selling, or publicity. Instead, recognizing that each element of the communication mix is effective in achieving a specific communication objective, they must choose the right mix of communications tools that will help them best achieve their overall marketing objectives.
Marketing Communications examines the subject from various perspectives and discusses the strategies that a marketer can use while interacting with different stakeholders through marketing communications mix elements like advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, and direct marketing. The book also highlights the need for integrating the different marketing communications mix elements to present a single consistent image for a company or a brand.
