Blog Eight: Integrated Marketing Communications and Direct Marketing

Although this Blog reflects on chapters that are going to be reviewed in our future classes, I felt that these marketing techniques would be useful in creating a strong marketing department.Marketing teams must create proper communication and promotional tools,"tools used by a company to communicate with consumers: advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing"(Kerin, Ch.17). This type of communication is used to inform and persuade consumers that you are the right choice. The video above is given by Brian McCarthy, who informs us on the overview of marketing communications. 

In this video, McCarthy informs us with the basics marketing communications framework. You first want to start by determining a target audience, meaning marketers need to decide who to aim for in order for them to analyze whether or not the market is efficient. Next, you need to develop a communication objective"The process of conveying information to others utilizing these elements: a source, a message, a channel of communication, a receiver, and the processes of encoding and decoding"(Kerin Ch. 17). The next step is to develop a message. A message is critical for marketings because it is the vital information given to the source, which can be controversial. According to McCarthy, one must next pick their channels of communication,"this means (a salesperson, advertising media, or public relations tools) of conveying a message to a receiver during the communication process"(Kerin Ch. 18). With the last two, you must determine frequency and operate within a budget to be successful. These two final steps are only adequately efficient if the marketing team has successfully completed its precedent frameworks.

This brings us to Direct Marketing: "to provide a consistent message across all audiences. The communication process conveys messages with six elements: a source, a message, a channel of communication, a receiver, and encoding and decoding. The communication process also includes a feedback loop and can be distorted by noise"(Kerin, Ch. 18). 

Direct Marketing adds value to is consumers and sellers: "The value of direct marketing for consumers is indicated by its level of use. For example, 68 percent of them have made a purchase by phone or mail, and 12 million people have purchased items from a television offer. The value of direct marketing for sellers can be measured in terms of three types of responses: direct orders, lead generation, and traffic generation"(Kerin, Ch. 18).

Direct Orders: "the result of direct marketing offers that contain all the information necessary for a prospective buyer to make a decision to purchase and complete the transaction"(Kerin, Ch. 18).

• There are usually twelve types of responses given by consumers generated from direct marketing activities: "they are direct orders, lead generation, and traffic generation"(Kerin, Ch. 18).These forms of responses help marketers decipher what needs to be done in order to draw them closer.

This strategy helps marketers develop a strong organization-consumer bond, while also giving them the ability to use customization messages. With this, we can see that direct marketing helps make the five promotional alternatives. 

Have a great day. Thanks a lot for reading!