Marketing communications are how firms communicate with consumers about their products and brands. This includes advertising, sales promotions, public relations, direct marketing, and personal selling. Effective marketing communications require identifying the target audience, setting objectives, designing messages and creative strategies, selecting channels, and establishing a budget. Success is measured by evaluating how well communication and sales tasks were accomplished.

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2.  Marketing Communications are the means by
which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and
remind consumers-directly or indirectly-
about the products and brands that they sell.
In a sense, marketing communications
represent the “voice” of the brand and are a
means by which it can establish a dialogue
and build relationships with the customer.
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3.  Advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal
presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, and
services by an identified sponsor
 Sales promotion: A variety of short-term
incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a
product or service
 Events and experiences: Company-sponsored
activities and programs designed to create daily
or special brand-related interactions
 Public relations and publicity: A variety of
programs designed to promote or protect a
company‟s image or its individual product
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4.  Direct marketing: Use of mail, telephone, fax,
e-mail, or Internet to communicate directly
with or solicit response or dialogue from
specific customers and prospects.
 Personal selling: Face-to-face interaction
with one or more prospective purchasers for
the purpose of making presentations,
answering questions, and procuring orders.
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5.  Macromodel Of The Communication Process
◦ Major parties: Sender and receiver
◦ Major communication tools: Message and Media
◦ Major Communication Functions: Encoding, Decoding,
Response, Feedback
 Micromodel Of Consumer Responses
◦ Response Hierarchy Models
 AIDA Model (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action)
 Hierarchy –Of-Effects Model (Awareness-Knowledge-Liking-
Preference-Conviction-Purchase)
 Innovation-Adoption Model (Awareness-Interest-Evaluation-
Trial-Adoption)
 Communications Model (Exposure-Reception-Cognitive
Response-Attitude-Intention-Behavior)
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6.  Identify the Target Audience
◦ The first step is to measure the target audience‟s
knowledge of the object, using the familiarity scale:
 Never heard of Heard Of Only Know a Little Bit Know
A Fair Amount Know Very Well
Respondents who are familiar with the product can be asked
how they feel toward it, using the favorability scale:
Very Unfavorable Somewhat Unfavorable Indifferent
Somewhat Favorable Very Favorable
 Determine the Communications Objectives
◦ Brand Awareness
◦ Brand Attitude
◦ Brand Purchase Intention
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7.  Design the Communications
◦ Message Strategy
◦ Creative Strategy: Creative Strategies are how marketers
translate their messages into specific communication
 Informational Appeals: It elaborates on product or service
attributes or benefits (example: Excedrin stops headache
pain quickly)
 Transformational Appeals: It elaborates on a non-product
related benefit or image. It might depict what kind of person
uses a brand (E.g: VW advertises to active, youthful people
with their “Drivers Wanted” campaign)
◦ Message Source (Expertise, Trustworthiness, Likability)
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8.  Select the Communications Channels
◦ Personal Communications Channels (involves two or
more persons communicating directly face-to-face,
person-to-audience, over the telephone, or through
e-mail.)
◦ Nonpersonal Communications Channels are
communications directed to more than one person
and include media, sales promotions, events and
publicity).
◦ Integration of Communication Channels
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9.  Establish the Total Marketing
Communications Budget
◦ Affordable Method
◦ Percentage-Of-Sales Method
◦ Competitive-Parity Method
◦ Objective-And Task Method
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10.  Deciding on The Marketing Communications
Mix
◦ Advertising
◦ Sales Promotion
◦ Public Relations and Publicity
◦ Events and Experiences
◦ Direct Marketing
◦ Personal Selling
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11.  Factors in Setting the Marketing
Communications Mix
 Type of Product Market
 Buyer Readiness Stage
 Product Life-Cycle Stage
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12.  Measuring Communication Results
 Managing the Integrated Marketing
Communications Process
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13.  In the marketing context, Advertising has
been defined :
◦ „as any paid form of non-personal presentation and
promotion of ideas, goods or services by an
identified sponsor.‟
 How does Advertising Persuade the Buyer?
◦ Should be of Interest to the Audience
◦ The Audience should Interpret the Message in the
Intended Manner
◦ The Advertisement should Influence the Audience
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14.  Theories on Attitude Change
◦ The Consistency Theories
 The Consistency theories rest on the basic idea that man
seeks consistency, balance and harmony in his belief system
◦ The Congruity Theory and the Dissonance Theory
 The Congruity theory lays stress on the nature of
relationship among the elements of the cognitive structure;
the basic need is for balance, congruity and harmony. The
dissonance theory also rests on the logic of „cognitive
balance reasoning‟.
◦ The Balance Theory: Any cognitive structure has three
elements- an individual or a perceiver, another person
who tries to interact and some object- and that there is
a definite relationship among them
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15.  The source or the endorser
◦ The credibility of the source
◦ Likeability/Attractiveness of the source
◦ The source‟s approach to the views and disposition of
the audience
 The Message
◦ The Message structure
 Message sidedness
 Order of Presentation
 Stating conclusion in a message
◦ The Message appeal
 Rational appeals : It is generally woven around the
specialities of the product on offer. The intention is to use
reason and logic to convince the audience.
 Emotional appeals: They are woven around sensations
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16.  AIDA- the Four-Stage Model
 Innovation-Adoption Model
◦ Awareness
◦ Interest
◦ Evaluation
◦ Trial
◦ Adoption
 Six-Stage Model (Lavidge and Steiner)
◦ Awareness
◦ Knowledge
◦ Liking
◦ Preference
◦ Conviction
◦ Purchase
 DAGMAR (Defining Advertising Goals for Measured
Advertising Results)
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17.  Objectives and Task Approach
 Percentage of Sales Approach
 Competitive Matching Approach
 Arbitrary Approach
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18.  Main Steps in Copy Development ( The term
„copy‟ includes every single feature that
appears in the body of advertisement. In the
earlier days,‟copy‟ was used to refer only to
the written matter. In present times, copy is
an all-embracing term, covering all that
appear in an advertisement- the written
matter, pictures, designs etc
◦ The Fact-Finding Stage (What is the central issue to
be tackled)?
◦ The Idea Finding Stage (Interviewing, Synectics etc)
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19.  Developing the Copy: The term „copy‟ has a
very broad connotation: It refers to every
single element that appears in an
advertisement. However the major elements
of a copy are: the message and the source.
While developing the copy, it is essential to
understand the various dimensions relating
to these two factors.
 Testing the Copy
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20.  Media Commonly Used in Advertising
◦ Outdoor Media (Hoardings, Posters, Neon Signs,
transit advertising, Fairs and exhibitions, etc)
◦ The Print Media
◦ Direct Mail
◦ Audio/Visual/Audio-Visual/Electronic Media
 TV
 Radio
 Cinema
 Cable TV
 The internet
 Cassetes-audio, video and CDs
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21.  Considerations in Media Selection
◦ Who are You Trying To Reach?
◦ What are your Communication Objectives?
 Media Characteristics
◦ Exposure
◦ Reach and Frequency
 Reach denotes the total number of persons exposed to the
given media vehicle at least once during the period under
reference.
 Frequency denotes the number of times the audience is
exposed to the media vehicle during this period
◦ Weighing Reach and Frequency Against Costs
◦ Measuring TV Viewership
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22.  Impact of the Media
◦ Media Class-Source Effect and Media Vehicle-Source
Effect
 Media Scheduling (Media category, media
vehicles, programme choice, timing etc)
 Evaluating Advertising Effectiveness
◦ Evaluating How Far the Communication Task has been
Accomplished
◦ Evaluating How Far the Sales Task has been
Accomplished
 Advertiser-Ad Agency Relation
◦ The advertising job has become so complex and large
that normally no business firm chooses to handle the
function directly. They employ advertising agencies.
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23.  Communication-effect Research: it seeks to
determine whether an ad is communicating
effectively
◦ Consumer feedback method asks consumers for
their reactions to a proposed ad.
◦ Portfolio test ask consumers to view or listen to a
portfolio of advertisements.
◦ Laboratory tests use equipment to measure
physiological reactions- heartbeat, blood pressure,
pupil dilation etc- to an ad; or consumers may be
asked to turn a knob to indicate their moment-to-
moment liking or interest while viewing sequenced
material.
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24.  Sales-Effect research:
◦ A company‟s share of advertising expenditures
produces a share of voice (i.e., proportion of
company advertising of that product to all
advertising of that product) that earns a share of
consumers‟ minds and hearts and, ultimately, a
share of market.
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25.  Public Relations is one of a firm‟s corporate
affairs activities. The goal of public relations
is to track public attitudes, identify issues
that may elicit public concern, and develop
programs to create and maintain positive
relationships between a firm and its
stakeholders.
 It can be used to promote the firm, its
people, its ideas, and its image and can even
create an internal shared understanding
among employees.
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26.  Public relations involves a variety of programs
designed to promote or protect a company‟s
image or its individual products
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27.  Publications: Companies rely extensively on
published materials to reach and influence
their target markets. These include annual
reports,brochures,articles, company
newsletters and magazines etc
 Events: Companies can draw attention to new
products or other company activities by
arranging special events like news
conferences, seminars, trade shows etc that
will reach the target publics
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28.  Sponsorships: Companies can promote their
brand and corporate name by sponsoring
sports and cultural events and highly
regarded causes
 News: One of the major tasks of PR
professionals is to find or create favorable
news about the company, its products, and
its people, and get the media to accept press
releases and attend press conferences.
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29.  Speeches: Increasingly, company executives must
field questions from the media or give talks at
trade association or sales meetings, and these
appearances can build the company‟s image.
 Public- Service Activities: Companies can build
goodwill by contributing money and time to good
causes
 Identity Media: Companies need a visual identity
that the public immediately recognizes. The
visual identity is carried by company logos,
stationery, brochures, signs, business cards,
buildings, uniforms, dress codes, etc.
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30.  “ A sales person is an individual acting for a
company by performing one or more of the
following activities: prospecting,
communicating, servicing, and information
gathering.” (Philip Kotler)
 Personal selling is the direct personal
presentation by company sales force for sales
and building customer relationship.
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31.  Personal selling is paid personal communication
that attempts to inform customers about
products and persuade them to purchase those
products.
 The goal of Personal Selling typically involves
finding prospects, informing prospects,
persuading prospects to buy, and keeping
customers satisfied through follow-up service
after the sale. To effectively deliver on these
goals, salespeople have to be not only competent
in selling skills but also thoroughly trained in
technical product characteristics.
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32.  It enhances the customer‟s confidence in the
seller
 It promotes long-term business relations
through personal intimacy
 It provides a human touch to business
transactions
 It helps facilitate the seller to understand each
customer‟s needs and preferences more clearly
 It helps satisfy a customer by modifying the
product as per the customer‟s choice and
preference
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33.  Personal selling followed by personal service helps build
long-term relations between the business and the
customer
 It helps keep up the competition in the market, based
on product customization as per customer‟s
preferences
 It is a powerful and effective tool in convincing the
customer about the product
 Through personal selling the time lag between
introducing a product through the media and actual
selling is reduced
 It provides prospective customers with a better
understanding of the product and an interactive
opportunity to liaise with the sales personnel
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34.  Salesmanship is one of the skills used in
personal selling. It is the art of successfully
persuading prospects or customers to buy
products or services from which they can
derive suitable benefits, thereby increasing
their total satisfaction. Salesmanship is a
seller-initiated effort that provides
prospective buyers with information and
other benefits, motivating or persuading
them to decide in favour of the seller‟s
product or service.
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35.  Know the Product
 Know the Company
 Know the Competition
 Know the Customers
 Know the Process Of Selling
 Know Own Self
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36.  Enthusiasm
 Patience
 Initiative
 Self-confidence
 Job commitment
 Customer orientation
 Independence
 Self-motivation
 Excellent listening skill
 Friendliness
 Persistence
 Attentiveness
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37.  Honesty
 Relationship orientation
 Discipline
 Hardworking nature
 Team spirit
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38.  According to the AIDAS theory, during the personal
selling interview, the prospective buyer‟s mind
passes through the five successive mental stages
shown below. The buyer goes through these stages
consciously, so the sales person should lead the
buyer through them in the right sequence if a sale
is to result
◦ A-Attention
◦ I-Interest
◦ D-Desire
◦ A-Action
◦ S-Satisfcation
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39.  Prospecting and Qualifying: Prospecting is the process of identifying
prospects or potential buyers and eliminating non-prospects. Success in
selling depends on approaching the right potential buyers. The sales person
may have to approach many prospects to get just a few sales. The sales
person should also know how to qualify the leads, i.e., identifying the good
ones and screening out the unwanted ones. Qualifying the prospects can be
done by studying their financial background, volume of business, special
needs, location and scope for growth.
 Pre-approach: The sales person has to do his homework before meeting
the prospect. He should learn as much as possible about the organization
and its buyers, as a pre-approach. The salesperson should set call
objective. Another task is to decide on the best contact approach, which
might be a personal visit, a phone call, or a letter. Finally, the sales person
should plan an overall sales strategy for the account.
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40.  Approach: The sales person should know hoe to meet and greet the buyer
appropriately and get the relationship off to a good start. His appearance,
opening lines of conversation and the follow up remarks are important in
this step
 Presentation and Demonstration: The sales person presents the product
to the buyer through the ‘product story’, explaining its attributes, customer
benefits and how the product could solve the customer’s problems.
 Overcoming Objections: Customers typically pose objections during the
presentation or when asked for the order. Psychological resistance includes
resistance to interference, preference for established sources or brands,
reluctance to giving up something, predetermined ideas, dislike of making
decisions etc
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41. Logical resistance might consist of objections to the price, delivery
schedule, or certain product or company characteristics.
The sales person should handle objections with a positive approach,
seek out hidden objections, ask for clarifications, convert the
objections into opportunities to explain more about the product and
its benefits, and turn objections into reason for buying.
 Closing: Once the objections are handled properly, the sales person
tries to persuade the prospect to take the buying decision, i.e.,
closing the sale. Sales persons should know how to recognize
closing signals from the buyer, which includes body language,
comments and questions. The sales person can ask for the order,
summarise points of agreement, offer to help to write the purchase
order, ask whether the buyer wants this model or that one, etc
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42.  Follow –Up and Maintenance: This is necessary if the
salesperson wants to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat
business. The sales person should follow up the sales and
ensure that there is proper installation, instruction on usage
and servicing arrangements. Such follow up actions would
reveal any problems, assure the customer of the sales person’s
interest, and reduce any dissonance that might have arisen in
the buyer’s mind, after the purchase.
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43.  According to American Marketing
Association, Sales promotion can be defined:
◦ „ In a specific sense, sales promotion includes those
sales activities that supplement both personal
selling and advertising, and coordinate them and
make them effective, such as displays, shows,
demonstrations and other non-recurrent selling
efforts not in the ordinary routine.‟
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44.  According to Philip Kotler, “Sales promotion
consists of short-term incentives to
encourage purchase or sales of a product or
service. Whereas advertising and personal
selling offer reasons to buy a product or
service, sales promotion offers reasons to
buy now.”
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45.  For facilitating introduction of new products
 For overcoming a unique competitive
situation
 For unloading accumulated inventory
 For overcoming seasonal slumps
 For getting new accounts
 For retrieving lost accounts
 As a support and supplement to the
advertising effort
 As a support and supplement to the
salesmen‟s effort
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46.  For persuading salesmen to sell the full line
of products
 For persuading the dealer to buy more/
increase the size of the orders
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47.  Sales promotion aimed at consumers is
termed Consumer Promotion
 Sales promotion in business markets is
known as Trade Promotion. By targeting
channel intermediaries with promotional
activities, manufacturers hope to push their
products through the channel by increasing
sales and encouraging increased effort
among their channel partners.
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48.  A Push Strategy involves the manufacturer
using its sales force and trade promotion
money to induce intermediaries to carry,
promote, and sell the product to end users. A
Pull Strategy involves the manufacturer using
advertising and promotion to persuade
consumers to ask intermediaries for the
product, thus inducing the intermediaries to
order it.
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49.  Demonstrations
◦ Demonstration at retail store
◦ School demonstration
◦ Door-to-door demonstration
◦ Demonstrations to key people
 Trade Fairs and Exhibitions
 Coupons, Premiums, Free Offers, Price-Offs, etc
◦ Coupons are certificates which offer price reductions to
consumers for specified items.
 Free samples (Free samples are offered to persuade
consumers to try the product)
 Joint promotion (Two or more firms from different
industries, but with shared markets and values, join
together and conduct sales promotion programmes)
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50.  Contests
 Display
 Gifts ( Companies also distribute gifts to
customers, dealers and influential and key
people. These gifts include pen, calendars,
diaries, table decorations, etc. gifts normally
carry the company‟s name and logo).
 Sales promotion on the Internet
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51.  Direct marketing is the use of consumer-
direct channels to reach and deliver goods
and services to customers without using
middlemen. These channels include direct
mail, catalogs, telemarketing, interactive TV,
kiosks, Web sites, and mobile devices.
 Direct marketing is defined as direct
communications with carefully targeted
individual consumers to obtain an immediate
response and cultivate lasting customer
relationships.
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52.  Direct marketing requires a sound customer
database- an organized collection of
comprehensive data about individual
customers or prospects, including
geographic, demographic, psychographic and
behavioural data. Such database is used to
locate good potential customers, tailor
products and devices to the special needs of
target buyers, and maintain long-term
customer relationships.
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53.  Direct marketing has different forms like tele-
marketing, direct mail, catalogue sales, direct-
response TV marketing, kiosk marketing and
online marketing. Tele-marketing uses the
telephone to sell directly to customers. Direct
mail consists of the company sending an offer
through mail to buyers at their address.
Catalogues are sent through mail to buyers in
catalogue marketing. TV is used as medium in
direct response TV marketing. Kiosks are
information and ordering machines placed in
stores, airports, etc. Online marketing is done
through the Internet.
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54.  Advantages Of Direct Marketing
◦ Focused Approach
◦ Cost Effective
◦ Measurable and Attributable
◦ Immediate and Flexible
◦ Ability to Test, Retest and measure the Impact of
Variables
◦ Easy International reach
◦ Tailored Messages
◦ Opportunity to Build a Database
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55.  Disadvantages Of Direct Marketing
◦ Competition to existing Intermediaries
◦ Intrusive marketing : Many customers perceive
direct marketing as an intrusion in their life and
work. Especially tele-marketing practices are often
found to be intruding into the life of customers and
creating irritation among customers.
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56.  Electronic business, commonly referred to as
"eBusiness" or "e-business", or an internet business,
may be defined as the application of information and
communication technologies in support of all the
activities of business. Commerce constitutes the
exchange of products and services between
businesses, groups and individuals and can be seen
as one of the essential activities of any business.
Electronic commerce focuses on the use of ICT to
enable the external activities and relationships of the
business with individuals, groups and other
businesses.[
 The term "e-business" was coined by IBM‟s marketing
and Internet teams in 1996.
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57.  M-commerce (mobile commerce) is the buying
and selling of goods and services through
wireless handheld devices such as cellular
telephone and personal digital assistants (PDAs).
Known as next-generation e-commerce, m-
commerce enables users to access the Internet
without needing to find a place to plug in. The
emerging technology behind m-commerce,
which is based on the Wireless Application
Protocol (WAP), has made far greater strides in
Europe, where mobile devices equipped with
Web-ready micro-browsers are much more
common than in the United States.
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