Those who practice advertising, branding, direct marketing, marketing, packaging, promotion, publicity, sponsorship, public relations, sales, sales promotion and online marketing are termed marketing communicators.
The communication process is sender-encoding-transmission device-decoding-receiver, which is part of any advertising or marketing program. Encoding the message is the second step in communication process, which takes a creative idea and transforms it into attention-getting advertisements designed for various media such as television, radio, magazines, and others. Massages travel to audiences through various transmission devices.
The third stage of the marketing communication process occurs when a channel or medium delivers the message. Decoding occurs when the message reaches one or more of the receiver’s senses. Consumers both hear and see television ads. Others consumers handle or touch and read a coupon offer. One obstacle that prevents marketing messages from being efficient and effective is called barrier. Barrier is anything that distorts or disrupts a message. It can occur at any stage in the communication process.
Marketing Communications are messages and related media used to communicate with a market. Marketing communications is the promotion part of the “Marketing Mix” or the four Ps: price, place, promotion, and product. The primary goal of marketing communication is to reach a defined audience to affect its behavior by informing, persuading, and reminding. Marketing communication acquires new customers for brands by building awareness and encouraging trial.
Marketing communication also maintains a brand’s current customer base by reinforcing their purchase behavior by providing additional information about the brand’s benefits. A secondary goal of marketing communication is building and reinforcing relationships with customers, prospects, retailers, and other important stakeholders.
Successful marketing communication relies on a combination of options called the promotional mix. These options include advertising, sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing, and personal selling. The Internet has also become a powerful tool for reaching certain important audiences.
The role each element takes in a marketing communication program relies in part on whether a company employs a push strategy or a pull strategy. A pull strategy relies more on consumer demand than personal selling for the product to travel from the manufacturer to the end user. The demand generated by advertising, public relations, and sales promotion “pulls” the good or service through the channels of distribution. A push strategy, on the other hand, emphasizes personal selling to push the product through these channels.
Traditionally, marketing communications practitioners focused on the creation and execution of printed marketing collateral; however, academic and professional research developed the practice to use strategic elements of branding and marketing in order to ensure consistency of message delivery throughout an organization. Many trends in business can be attributed to marketing communications; for example: the transition from customer service to customer relations, and the transition from human resources to human solutions.