The American Marketing Association (AMA), which represents marketing professionals, defines marketing as “The process of planning and executing the conception, pricing, promotion, and distribution of ideas, goods, and services to create satisfying exchanges. individual and organizational goals.
Effective marketing requires managers to recognize the interdependence of activities such as sales and promotion and how they can be combined to develop a marketing program. In marketing, sharing is a central concept. For exchange to occur, there must be two or more parties with something of value to each other, the desire and ability to give that something away to the other party, and a way to communicate with each other.
Marketing facilitates the process of exchange and relationship building by carefully examining the needs and wants of customers, developing a product or service that meets these needs, offering it at a certain price, making it available through a location or distribution channel in and develop a promotional or communication program to create awareness and interest. The focus of market-driven companies is on developing and maintaining relationships with their customers. This has led to a new emphasis on relationship marketing, which involves creating, maintaining, and enhancing long-term relationships with individual customers and other stakeholders for mutual benefit.
The task of the marketer is to champion marketing activities and fully integrated marketing activities and assemble fully integrated marketing programs to create, communicate, and deliver value to customers.
Advertising and promotion play an important role in the exchange process by informing consumers about an organization’s product or service and convincing them of its ability to satisfy their needs or wants. The American Association of Advertising Agencies developed the definition of Integrated Marketing Communication as “A marketing communications planning concept that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that assesses the strategic role of a variety of communication disciplines: advertising, response direct, sales promotion and public”. relationships – and blends these disciplines to deliver clarity, consistency, and maximum impact in communications.” Integrated Marketing Communication involves the coordination of various promotional elements. The six main promotional tools are advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing, advertising/public relations, and internet marketing.
The Integrated Marketing Communication approach helps companies identify the most appropriate and effective methods to communicate and build relationships with their customers, as well as with other stakeholders such as employees, suppliers, investors, interest groups and the general public. . Companies send messages to customers and other stakeholders through all aspects of their marketing mixes, not just promotion. Consumers make inferences about a product based on things like its design, appearance, performance, price, service support, and where and how it is distributed. For example, a high price can symbolize quality to customers, such as the shape or design of a product, its packaging, its brand, or the image of the stores in which it is sold.
The integrated marketing communication approach to marketing communications planning and strategy is being adopted by businesses large and small and has become popular with companies that market consumer products and services, as well as business marketers. to company. By coordinating their marketing communication efforts, companies can avoid duplication, take advantage of synergy between promotional tools, and develop more efficient and effective marketing communication programs.
Moving to Integrated Marketing Communication also reflects an adaptation of marketers to a changing environment, particularly with respect to consumers, technology and media. Major changes have occurred among consumers with respect to demographics, lifestyles, media use, and shopping and purchasing patterns. Media strategy involves determining which communication channels will be used to deliver the advertising message to the target audience. The two most important aspects of the advertising program are message development and media strategy. Message development, called creative strategy, involves determining the basic appeal and message the advertiser wants to convey to the target audience. Once the message and media strategies have been determined, steps must be taken to implement them. Most large companies hire advertising agencies to plan and produce their messages and to evaluate and buy the media that will carry their ads. Marketing communication can tell or show consumers how and why a product is used, by what kind of person, where and when. They can learn about who makes the product and what the company and brand stand for; and they can get an incentive or reward for trying or using. Marketing communications allow companies to link their brands to other people, places, events, brands, experiences, feelings, and things.
