20 May, 2008
Purpose
An integrated communications marketing plan makes all aspects of an organisation’s communications work together. This combines the obvious advertising, promotions, public relations and marketing components aimed at customers with other less obvious communications tools directed at all stakeholders.
The goal is to create and maintain a consistent brand and message and use them in all communications to leverage marketing efforts. Thus all communications are used to help market the organisation’s products or services.
Method
How does this work? To be effective your marketing must:
- capture the consumer’s attention from your competitors;
- motivate the consumer to purchase; and
- emphasise brand so that the consumer only purchases your product or service.
Your brand is how your organisation, products or services are recognised and, with your key messages, how your organisation is perceived. Your brand symbolises, and should represent, your unique selling proposition.
To leverage your marketing, every opportunity should be used to promote and emphasise your brand. This supports your marketing and promotes sales. The better your brand is recognised the easier it is to sell your product or service.
Supporting your brand and your unique selling proposition
The effects of good practice are subtle and can be hard to attribute to components of your plan but the effects of bad practice are very obvious.
For example, I did some marketing work for a small business in trouble. I soon realised why it was in trouble. Each week I met with the proprietor he wanted to sell a different product using a different business name. He had a sign over the door that was different to his trading name, different again to his website and different to how he answered the phone. All efforts in his marketing were unrelated and therefore undermined by the others. If buyers were uncertain about buying from this business, that lacked a clear unique selling proposition, they would go to a competitor.
An extreme case? Yes! But many of the businesses I see show similar symptoms. Some of their promotional material says they are the cheapest – some says they are the best. Some have said they are both when they are neither.
Businesses need to focus all their communications on supporting and strengthening their unique selling point. For assistance in developing an integrated communications marketing plan contact Madrigal Communications.
20 May, 2008
Framework
An integrated communications marketing plan makes all aspects of an organisation’s communications work together. A simple theoretical framework underlies the integrated communications marketing plan:
Who (says) What (to) Whom (in) What Channel (with) What Effect (for) How Much
The who
The who, the COMMUNICATOR (your organisation or business) needs to properly identify itself using image and branding to give it visibility.
Emphasis must be placed on establishing brand identity so that customers derived from your advertising and marketing efforts come to you and not to your competitors.
In building brand identity we use a step-wise process for researching an organisation. We use site visits, simple observation of service, staff interviews and possibly surveys of the organisation’s staff and customers. Once the organisation’s identity has been established a branding strategy is proposed and put in place. Design of livery, stationery and logos are agreed.
The what
The what, the MESSAGE, is the set of ideas about you, your services or products that you want out in the market place.
You can take several approaches or use a combination:
- a rational appeal to the economic person – e.g. quality, performance, economy, value for money;
- an emotional appeal to the intuitive person – e.g. fear, love, pride, shame, guilt; or
- a moral appeal to the citizen – e.g. a fair go, equality.
Many businesses want to tell their customers everything about themselves – bare their very souls. Forget it! Keep it simple: you are one small voice in a crowd – what you want to say has to be clear, concise and stand out.
Your key messages must support your business plan. What you want to emphasise comes from there. If you don’t have a business plan, we have to create a defacto one or encourage you to write one.
Once developed, your key messages are woven into all your communications: for instance if you are providing quality over price you need to emphasise quality in all your communications.
The whom
The whom, the RECEIVERs of your messages, are your organisation’s stakeholders. Focus on your stakeholders not just your customers. Your staff is a stakeholder that is often neglected.
Good communications with all people with a legitimate interest in your business helps to strengthen your reputation and reduce risks of conflict, for instance with neighbours, regulatory bodies, even competitors.
That said stakeholder research is recommended and invaluable; but customer research is necessary. To understand your customers you have to ask them or track them. We can provide simple surveys for you designed for simple analyses and clear conclusions.
Many organisations make the wrong assumptions about their customers’ motivations (their needs and wants). Some focus on the wrong segment of their customer-base and miss the potential for market growth. Others don’t understand what their customers really want.
The channels
The CHANNELS you use to communicate are determined by what you need to say and to whom you need to say it.
Placement of advertising and promotions and use of direct marketing are the most costly of decisions. Before you decide undertake some research. Local newspapers for instance have different readerships with different demographics. Radio can be a viable alternative.
Public relations uses a soft-sell approach in similar channels to the hard-sell of advertising. It can be more persuasive because it has media legitimacy but is less certain of getting picked up. A well placed media story can be very beneficial.
The effect
The obvious EFFECT of your communications should be getting purchases (and ultimately engagement with your customers). How ready are your customers to buy? The readiness levels move along from:
- Awareness
- Knowledge
- Liking
- Preferring
- Convinced
- Purchase
You need to know your customers readiness levels and set your communications tactics to appropriately respond.
Measuring the effect
Monitoring success can be the hardest of all aspects of a communications plan. It is, however, necessary to determine where your budget is best spent. How do you do it?
Benchmarking is important. What level of readiness are your customers at? You need to measure where on the readiness level they are and then where they have moved to. Methods include customer surveys, focus groups, media monitoring etc.
The how much
Working out how much to spend on your marketing and communications is covered in another post!
For assistance in developing an integrated communications marketing plan contact Madrigal Communications.
20 May, 2008
An integrated communications marketing plan makes all aspects of an organisation’s communications work together. Small to medium businesses should start using a plan as a way of building their business.
A simple plan will cost you nothing above what you pay now but leverages your existing activities. Once the plan is developed you need to start assessing how much you should spend at the next step.
Here are the key steps in making a plan:
1. Develop a business plan
You first need a business plan to provide the foundation for your communications. You need to define your business and what it sells before you can start telling everyone about it.
2. Set objectives
Objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-bound).
3. Determine your stakeholders
The stakeholders are persons or organisations that have a legitimate interest in your organisation. All stakeholder groups need to be considered.
4. Review existing communications
This involves reviewing everything you do that interacts with people, your stakeholders. In a large organisation this is a communications audit. Have a look at the list of possible communications tools.
5. Assess your branding/image/identity
Is your businesses image and branding truly reflecting what you do and how you do it? Are you portraying yourself properly? If not improve it, now!
6. Key messages
Develop some key messages and slogans. Develop the facts or ideas that you want to convey.
7. Budget
Once you have a basic plan you need to start looking at your marketing budget for the future.
For assistance in developing an integrated communications marketing plan contact Madrigal Communications.
20 May, 2008
Fixed percentage of sales
An integrated communications marketing plan budget based on percentage of sales will work if sales are always proportional to advertising. However, other elements of the promotional mix will affect sales as will external factors such as interest rates.
If this method is used when sales are declining, the result will be a reduction in advertising just when greater sales are required!
Same as competitors
Basing the communications marketing budget on industry norms also only works if sales are predictable against advertising. Be careful as this approach hinders businesses with competitive advantages from increasing market share.
Residual (or affordable)
Here the communications marketing budget is what the business can afford after all other expenditures. In a good year it will “waste” money; in a bad year it “fails” to help. It is the least preferred method of developing a communications marketing budget but unfortunately the most common in small businesses.
Objective-based
An objective-based approach sets the communications marketing budget based on targets. These objectives could be financial or related to the marketing activity (e.g. number of enquiries received). This is the preferred method as it is a return-on-investment approach.
For assistance in developing an integrated communications marketing plan contact Madrigal Communications.
20 May, 2008
These are elements of your communications activity that should be included in an integrated communications marketing plan.
Customer service
- phone management – message-bank
- reception – meet and greet
- customer databases (CRM)
Visual image
- font and typography
- livery – colours
- logo
- design
- uniform
- décor
- signage
Public relations
- media liaison
- media releases
- media notices
- newspaper or magazine articles
- events
- conferences
- launches
- competitions
- awards
- display, exhibition, model
- multimedia demonstration
Publications
- Style guide
- Newsletters (customer and staff)
- Promotional brochures
- Annual report
- Staff handbook
Images
- photographs in publications
- symbolic representations of the organisation
Electronic media Â
- Internet
- Organisational website
- Intranet/extranet
- Emails – disclaimers and content
Stationery
- Christmas cards
- Birthday cards
- Staff recognition certificates
- Business cards
- Letterheads
- With compliments slips
- Fax cover sheets
Advertising
- Print advertising
- Radio advertising – scripts
Multi-media
- Slide layout for presentations
- Audio CD/ CD ROM
For assistance in developing an integrated communications marketing plan contact Madrigal Communications.
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