INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION FOR BEGINNERS

INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATION

FOR BEGINNERS

Penulis:

Marlia Binti Marzuki
Didi Reena Binti Matzen
Mohd Hasrul Nizam Bin Hamsani

Perdagangan

Writer

Marlia Binti Marzuki
Didi Reena Binti Matzen
Mohd Hasrul Nizam Bin Hamsani

Reviewer
Sharifah Mahani Binti Syed Assimie

Designer
Marlia Binti Marzuki

JABATAN PERDAGANGAN
POLITEKNIK KUCHING SARAWAK
MINISTRY OF HIGHER EDUCATION
KM22, JALAN MATANG,
93050 KUCHING, SARAWAK.

Phone No. : (082) 845596/7/8
Fax No. : (082) 845023
E-mail : [email protected]
Website : http://www.poliku.edu.my/

Copyright © 2021 Politeknik Kuching Sarawak

e ISBN 978-967-2953-21-0

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be copied, stored in form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying and recording or otherwise or by any means for reproduced without the prior
permission of Politeknik Kuching Sarawak.

National Library of Malaysia Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Marlia Marzuki
INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION FOR BEGINNERS / Author:
Marlia Binti Marzuki, Didi Reena Binti Matzen, Mohd Hasrul Nizam Bin Hamsani.
Mode of access: Internet

eISBN 978-967-2953-21-0

1. Communication in marketing
2. Marketing--Management
3. Government publications--Malaysia
4. Electronic books

III. Title.
658.802

Published by:
Politeknik Kuching Sarawak
Ministry Of Higher Education

ii

PREFACE

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS plays a very important role in
communicating the brand message to potential and existing customers. This
eBook aims to help readers especially students obtain detailed information
related to the Integration Marketing Communication. This is one of the topics in
the Principles of Marketing course. This eBook is adopted according to the needs
and the suitability of Diploma Level studies in Polytechnic. This eBook can also
be read by anyone who wants to gain knowledge related to the promotion mix
elements in marketing. It provides knowledge on promotions and the elements
involved in the IMC activities.

Hopefully this eBook can help readers gain more knowledge in this field. As
authors, we have strived to impart our diverse marketing knowledge within our
limitations as humans. We apologize for any shortcomings, in due course.

Marlia Binti Marzuki
Didi Reena Binti Matzen
Mohd Hasrul Nizam Bin Hamsani

Jabatan Perdagangan
Politeknik Kuching Sarawak

iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

~In the name of Allah who Most Graceful and Merciful~

With great pleasure, we would like to express our sincere gratitude and
appreciation to our Head of Commerce Department, Puan Normala Binti Jaya
for her guidance and support throughout the whole process of completing this
e-book. Furthermore, we would like to take this opportunity to express our
abundance of appreciation and big thanks to our Program Coordinator, Puan
Sharifah Mahani Binti Syed Assimie.

We are also thankful from the bottom of our heart for those who have been
involved in this writing either directly or indirectly by giving a hand.

Last but not least, we thanked our family and friends for their full support and
encouragement. We wish may God bless all of us forever.

Once again, thank you!

Marlia Binti Marzuki
Didi Reena Binti Matzen
Mohd Hasrul Nizam Bin Hamsani

iv

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATION
FOR BEGINNERS

Marlia Binti Marzuki 1, Didi Reena Binti Matzen2,
Mohd Hasrul Nizam Bin Hamsani3

Politeknik Kuching Sarawak

ABSTRACT

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) is an approach used by
organizations to brand and coordinate their marketing communication efforts
across multiple communication channels. This eBook aims to equip readers,
especially students with the fundamentals of IMC knowledge. IMC is one of the
important topics in Principles of Marketing. This eBook enabled readers to
understand the promotion mix elements effectively. This eBook mainly addresses
the introduction of IMC and the promotion mix elements such as advertising,
sales promotion, personal selling, public relations and direct marketing. At the
end of each chapter, readers can answer practice questions provided to test their
understanding. It is hoped that this eBook will help readers to improve their
knowledge to make right decisions in relation to IMC.

Keywords: Integrated Marketing Communication, promotion mix.

v

Table of Contents INTEGRATED
MARKETING

COMFMorUBNe
IgCinnAerTs ION

Cover Page .....................................................................i
Copyright Declaration...............................................ii
Preface ............................................................................iii
Acknowledgement .....................................................iv
Abstract ..........................................................................v
Table of Contents .....................................................vi
Chapter 1: Introduction to Integrated

Marketing Communication ...........1
Chapter 2: Advertising ...........................................10
Chapter 3: Sales Promotions ...............................17
Chapter 4: Personal Selling ..................................27
Chapter 5: Public Relations ..................................34
Chapter 6: Direct Marketing ................................40
Successful Story of Integrated Marketing
Communication: Emirates.....................................50
References ..................................................................53

vi



WHAT IS INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATION?

Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is the integration by the company
of its communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling
message about the organization and its brand.

Integrated marketing communications also define as coordination of all
promotional activities such as advertising, personal selling, sales promotion,
direct marketing and public relations to produce a unified, customer focused
promotional message.

2

1. What is Marketing Communications?

Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform,
persuade, and remind consumers, directly or indirectly, about the products and
brands they sell. The company used marketing communications to pursue its
advertising and marketing objectives.

A company’s total promotion mix also called its marketing communications mix
consists of the specific blend of advertising, public relations, personal selling,
sales promotion, and direct marketing tools that the company uses to engage
consumers, persuasively communicate customer value, and build customer
relationships.

The five major promotion mix tools are defined as follows:

1) Advertising - Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of
ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.

2) Sales promotion - Short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of
a product or service.

3) Personal selling - Personal customer interactions by the firm’s sales force for
the purpose of engaging customers, making sales, and building customer
relationships.

3

4) Public relations (PR) - Building good relations with the company’s various
publics by obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and
handling or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories, and events.
5) Direct marketing - Engaging directly with carefully targeted individual
consumers and customer communities to both obtain an immediate response
and build lasting customer relationships.
Under this concept, as illustrated in Figure 1, the company carefully integrates
its many communication channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling
message about the organization and its brands.

Figure 1: Integrated Marketing Communications

Each category involves specific promotional tools that are used to communicate
with customers. At the same time, marketing communication also goes beyond
these specific promotion tools. Although the promotion mix is the company’s

4

primary engagement and communications activity, the entire marketing mix
promotion and product, price, and place must be coordinated for greatest
impact.
Nowadays, the explosion of online, mobile, and social media marketing presents
tremendous opportunities but also big challenges. It gives marketers rich new
tools for understanding and engaging customers. At the same time, this
situation also complicates and fragments overall marketing communications.
The challenge is to bring it all together in an organized way. So marketers need
to understand the whole concept of Integrated Marketing Communication.

2. Objective of Integrated Marketing Communication

As major goal of IMC is to send a consistent message to customers. Therefore,
the objective of IMC as illustrated in Figure 2 are to inform, persuade and remind
the market about the new product or brands.

Figure 2: Objectives of Integrated Marketing Communications
5

1. To Inform

Telling the market about a new product.
Suggesting new uses of a product
Informing the market of a price change
Explaining how the product
Describing available services
Correcting false impressions
Reducing buyer’s fears
Building company image

2. To Persuade

Building brand preference
Encouraging switching to your brand
Changing customer perceptions of product attributes
Persuading customers to purchase now
Persuading customers to receive a sales call

3. To Remind

Reminding customers that the product may be needed in the near future.
Reminding customers where to buy the product
Keeping the product in customers’ minds during off seasons
Maintaining top of mind product awareness

6

3. The Benefits of Integrated Marketing
Communication (IMC)

1. IMC build trust

Marketing strategies revolve around the concept of trust. Customers are bored,
skeptical, and ready to tear brands apart at the first sign of a mistake when it
comes to modern advertisement. Company will gain a better level of trust from
their target audience if they integrate their brand or product messages across
all media and maintain consistency. “Customers are more likely to buy from you
if they trust you.”

2. IMC are effective

Using an IMC to connect brand or product campaigns can help the company
improve the effectiveness of their approach. When the brand or product
communicating consistently across several media, message is reinforced to a
larger audience. The consistency of the brand or product image boosts trust and
awareness.

3. IMC save money

Any firm can spend a lot of money on graphics, photography, and content.
However, integrating all the campaigns eliminates any unnecessary repetition
and allows the company to share across several platforms. The company not
only save money on campaign creation, but can also avoid budget waste caused
by fragmented and unclear efforts. As a result, the company will get a higher
return on their investment.

7

4. IMC are efficient

The ability to streamline the process is one of the most obvious advantages of
developing an integrated marketing communications plan. Once the company
settled on the method they want to use across each channel, their campaign will
become much easier to manage. The company may reuse language and visuals
throughout the brand or product campaign.

5. IMC improve morale

Finally, an integrated campaign will establish brand loyalty and increase
awareness, it can also benefit the company’s corporate culture. Using integrated
campaigns forces diverse members in the team to collaborate in order to
achieve the same, unified goals. This can improve the company workers'
consistency and understanding, which can boost morale and production.

Conclusion

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the coordination and
integration of all marketing communications tools, avenues, and sources in a
company into a seamless program designed to maximize the impact on
customers and other stakeholders. IMC enables a unified and consistent
experience for customers to interact with a brand, product or company.

8

https://quizizz.com/join?gc=42755422
https://forms.gle/LosKCkmpZBh2xSfM9

9

10

WHAT IS ADVERTISING?

Advertising is any paid of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas,
goods or services by an identified sponsor. Advertising also is a good way to
inform and persuade.
Marketing management must make four important decisions when developing
an advertising program such as setting objectives, budget decision, advertising
message and media, finally evaluating advertising.

11

1. Advertising Objectives

An advertising objective is a specific communication task to be accomplished
with a specific target audience during a specific period of time. Advertising
objectives can be classified by primary purposes – whether the aim to inform,
persuade or remind.

2. Budget decisions (money)

The company will set its advertising budget for each product after determining
its advertising objectives.

Some specific factors that should be considered when setting the advertising
budget are stage in product life cycle, market share, and competition,
advertising frequency and product differentiations.

3. Creating the Advertising Message

A large advertising budget does not guarantee a successful advertising
campaign. Two advertisers can spend the same amount on advertising, yet have
very different results. No matter how big the budget, advertising can succeed
only if commercials gain attention and communicate well.

No matter how big the budget, advertising can succeed only if commercials gain
attention and communicate well with customers. Just to gain and hold attention,
today’s advertising messages must be planned, more imaginative, more
entertaining, and more rewarding to consumers.

12

One advertising executive points out that they have to entertain and not just
sell, because if the advertising comes off as boring or obnoxious, people are
going to press the remote.

Now, many companies use humor advertisement to attract customer to stay on
the ads. For example, Digi and U Mobile. Some advertisers even create
intentionally controversial ads to break through the clutter and gain attention
for their products.

The advertiser must use memorable and attention getting words in the ads such
as KFC, Mc Donald’s etc.

4. Selecting Advertising Media

The media planner has to know the reach, frequency and impact of each media
types.

Media (medium), advantages and limitations

1. Medium : Newspapers
Advantages: Flexibility, timeliness, good local coverage, broad
acceptability, high believability
Limitations: Short life, poor reduction quality, small pass- along audience

2. Medium : Television
Advantages: Good mass-market coverage, low cost per exposure,
combines sight, sound, and motion, appealing to senses

13

Limitations: High absolute costs, high clutter, fleeting exposure, less
audience selectivity.

3. Medium : Direct Mails
Advantages: High audience selectivity, flexibility, no ad competition
within the same medium, allows personalization Limitations: Relatively
high cost per exposure, junk mail image.

4. Medium : Radio
Advantages: Good local acceptance, high geographic and demographic
sensitivity, low cost.
Limitations: Audio only, fleeting exposure, low attention, fragmented
audiences.

5. Medium : Magazines
Advantages: High geographic and demographic selectivity, credibility and
prestige, high quality reproduction, long life and good pass-along
relationship. Limitations: Long advertisement purchase lead time, high
cost, no guarantee of position.

6. Medium : Outdoor
Advantages: Flexibility, high repeat exposure, low cost, low message
competition, good positional selectivity. Limitations: Little audience
selectivity, creative limitations.

14

7. Medium : Internet
Advantages: High selectivity, low cost, immediacy, interactive
capabilities. Limitations: Small, demographically skewed audience,
relatively low impact, and audience controls exposure.

5. Evaluating Advertising

The advertising programs should evaluate both the communication effects and
the sales effects of advertising regularly. Measuring the communication effects
on ad- copy testing – tells whether the ad is communicating well, Copy testing
can be done before or after an ad is printed or broadcast. Before the ad is placed,
the advertiser can show it to consumers, ask how they like it, and measure recall
or attitude changes resulting from it. After the ad is run, the advertiser can
measure how the ad affected consumer recall or product awareness,
knowledge, and preference.

One way to measure the sales effect of advertising is to compare past sales with
past advertising expenditures.

The Nature of Advertising as Promotion Tool

Advertising reaches masses of geographically dispersed buyers at a low cost
per exposure, and it enables the seller to repeat a message many times.

15

https://quizizz.com/join?gc=56911198
https://forms.gle/b4ssSn13cqwPaBjS8

16

17

WHAT IS SALES PROMOTION?

Sales promotion consists of short term incentives to encourage purchase or
sales of a product or service. Sales promotion offers reason to “buy now”.
Examples of sales promotion - a freestanding insert in the Sunday newspapers
contains a coupon offering cheap breakfast at Mc Donald’s. Padini offers a
rebate of 50% for next item purchased. Sales promotion includes a wide variety
of promotion tools designed to stimulate earlier or stronger market response.

Sales promotions can be directed at either the customer, sales staff, or
distribution channel members (such as retailers). Sales promotions targeted at
the consumer are called consumer sales promotions. Sales promotions targeted
at retailers and wholesale are called trade sales promotions. Some sale
promotions, particularly ones with unusual methods, are considered gimmick by
many.

18

Major Sales Promotion Tools

There are many tools can be used to accomplish sales promotion objectives such
as consumer, trade, and business promotion tools.

Consumer Promotion tools

Consumer sales promotion tools used to boost short term buying and
engagement ore enhance long term customer relationship. Below are the
consumer promotion tools.

`1. Samples
Offers of trial amount of product. Sampling is the most effective but
most expensive way to introduce new product. About 84% of consumer
packaged goods marketers use sampling as a part of their promotion
strategy.

Some samples are free; for others, the company charges a small amount
to offset its cost. The sample might deliver door-to-door, sent by mail,
handed out in a store, attached to another product or featured in an ad.
Sometimes, samples are combined into sample packs, which can then be
used to promote other products and services.

2. Coupons
Certificates that give buyers a saving when they purchase specified
products. Coupons can stimulate sales or promote early trial of a new
brand. Coupons are another, very versatile, way of offering a discount.
Consider the following examples of the use of coupons:

19

a. On a pack to encourage repeat purchase
b. In coupon books sent out in newspapers allowing customers to redeem

the coupon at a retailer
c. On the back of till receipts

The key objective with a coupon promotion is to maximize the
redemption rate. This is the proportion of customers actually using the
coupon. However, the limitation of coupon is that they may simply
encourage customers to buy what they would have bought anyway.
Another problem occurs when retailers do not hold sufficient stocks of
the promoted product – causing customer disappointment.

Use of coupon promotions is, therefore, often best for new products or
perhaps to encourage sales of existing products that are slowing down.

3. Cash refund offers (rebates)
Same as coupons except the price reduction occurs after the purchase
rather than at the retail outlet. The consumer sends a “proof of purchase”
to the manufacturer, who then refunds part of the purchase price by mail.

4. Price packs (also called cents off deals)
Offer consumers savings off the regular price of a product. The reduced
prices are marked by the producer directly on the label or package. Price
packs can be single packages sold at a reduced price (such as two for the
price of one), or two related products banded together (such as
toothbrush and toothpaste). Price packs are very effective – even more
so than coupons – in stimulating short term sales

20

5. Premiums / Gift with Purchase
The “gift with purchase” is a very common promotional technique. It is
also known as a “premium promotion” in that the customer gets
something in addition to the main purchase. Goods offered either free or
at low cost as an incentive to buy a product. For example, Mc Donald’s
promotion campaign selling Snoopy figures were highly successful in
promoting sales. Many consumers actually went to McDonald to eat
because of the figurines.

6. Advertising Specialties
Useful articles imprinted with an advertiser’s name that are given as gifts
to consumers. Typical items include pens, calendars, key rings, matches,
shopping bags, T-shirt, caps and etc.

7. Patronage Rewards
Cash or other awards offered for the regular use of certain company’s
products or services such as membership club.

8. Point-of-Purchase (POP)
Promotions include displays and demonstrations that take place at the
point of purchase or sale. Research into customer buying behavior in retail
stores suggests that a significant proportion of purchases results from
promotions that customers see in the store. Attractive, informative and
well-positioned point-of-sale displays are, therefore, very important part
of the sales promotional activity in retail outlets. An example of five-foot-
high cardboard display of Colonel Saunders at some KFC outlets.

21

9. Contents, Sweepstakes, and Games
Another popular promotion tool with many variants. Give consumers the
chance to win something, such as cash, trips, or goods, by luck or through
extra effort. For example Colgate ran a contest to promote its oral care
products – The Sweetest Smile Contest.

Trade-promotion tools

Manufacturers direct more sales promotion dollars toward retailers and
wholesalers. Sales promotion tools used to persuade resellers to carry a brand,
give it shelf space, and promote it in advertising. Manufacturer use several
trade promotional tools to attract their wholesaler and retails.

1. Trade Allowance
Promotional money paid by manufacturers to retailers in return for an
agreement to feature the manufacturer’s products in some way.

2. Contest and dealers incentive
Used to achieve sales targets. The rewards can be prizes or cash which
can be designed for various channel members. Manufacturers may offer
free goods, which are extra cases of merchandise, to resellers who buy a
certain quantity or who feature a certain flavor or size. They may also
offer push money—cash or gifts to dealers or their sales forces to “push”
the manufacturer’s goods.

22

3. Point-of-Purchase (POP) Displays
POP Displays free to the retailer in order to promote a particular brand
or group of products. -include special racks, display cartons, banners,
signs, price cards and mechanical product dispensers

4. Discount Off
A straight reduction in price on purchases during a stated period of time.
Manufacturer may offer a straight discount off the list price on each case
purchased during a stated period of time (also called a price-off, off-
invoice, or off-list).

5. Dealer loader
An incentive given to induce a retailer to purchase and display a product.

6. Training Programs
Dealer employees are trained in selling the product.

7. Push money
Also known as "spiffs". An extra commission paid to retail employees to
push products.

23

Business Promotion Tools

Business promotions tools are used to generate business leads, stimulate
purchases, reward customers, and motivate salespeople or dealers.

1. Sales Contest
Is a contest for salespeople or dealers to motivate them to increase their
sales performance over a given period? Sales contests motivate and
recognize good company performers, who may receive trips, cash prizes,
or other gifts.

2. Trade shows or conventions
Many companies and trade associations organize conventions and trade
shows to promote their products. Firms selling to the industry show their
products at the trade show.

Vendors at these shows receive many benefits, such as opportunities to
find new sales leads, contact customers, introduce new products, meet
new customers, sell more to present customers, and with publications
and audiovisual materials. Trade shows also help companies reach many
prospects that are not reached through their sales forces.

24

The Nature of Sales Promotion as Promotion Tool

Sales promotion includes coupons, contests, cents-off deals, and premiums that
attract consumer attention and offer strong incentives to purchase, and can be
used to dramatize product offers and to boost sagging sales.
Another sales promotions tools are trade promotion tools (from discounts and
allowances to free goods and push money), and business promotion tools
(conventions, trade shows, and sales contests). These trade and business
promotion use when Incentives members of the trade channel want to influence
another member to purchase goods for eventual resale.

25

https://quizizz.com/join?gc=60843358

https://forms.gle/iTejQpMpq5jYcojTA

26

27

WHAT IS PERSONAL SELLING?

Personal selling is oral communication or personal presentation by the firm’s
sales force with potential buyers for the purpose of making sales and building
customer relationships. The personal selling may focus initially on developing a
relationship with the potential buyer, but will always ultimately end with an
attempt to "close the sale.”

Personal selling is one of the oldest forms of promotion. It involves the use of a
sales force to support a push strategy (encouraging intermediaries to buy the
product) or a pull strategy (where the role of the sales force may be limited to
supporting retailers and providing after-sales service).

28

The salesperson might spend their time by doing:
• Service calls
• Face to face selling
• Waiting/traveling
• Telephone selling
• Administrative tasks

Steps in the Selling Process

The selling process consists of several steps that salespeople must know and
master it. These steps focus on the goal of getting new customers and obtaining
orders from them.
Figure 3, the selling process consists of SEVEN (7) steps: prospecting and
qualifying, pre approach, approach, presentation and demonstration, handling
objections, closing, and follow-up.

Figure 3: Personal Selling Process
29

Step 1: Prospecting and qualifying

In this step, a salesperson or company identifies likely new customers. From this
step, a salesperson develops lists of potential customers. The salesperson can
search for prospects in the directories or on the internet by using telephone,
email, or social media. They also can make an unannounced visit or phone call
that also known as cold calling. However, the best source is referrals.

Step 2: Pre approach

The sales step in which a salesperson learns as much as possible about a
potential customer before making a sales call. They also learn all about
organization and its market’s needs and wants. Pre approach begins with good
research and preparation.

The salesperson will find and analyse information about their prospects. The
salesperson should set call objectives, evaluating a prospect’s potential which
may be to qualify the prospect, gather information, or make an immediate sale.

Step 3: Approach

During this step, the salesperson will meet and greet the buyer and get the
relationship off to a good start. The meetings can be offline or online.

Step 4: Presentation and demonstration

By using persuasive communications, the objectives for this steps is to hold the
attention of the prospects that can stimulate their interest. The salesperson
tells the “product story” to the potential buyer.

30

Step 5: Handling objections

Objections normally occurs during the presentation time or when the
salesperson asked the prospects to place an orders. It is very important for the
sales person seeks out, clarifies and overcomes any customer objections to
buying.

In handling objections, the salesperson should use a positive approach, seek out
hidden objections, ask the buyer to clarify any objections, take objections as
opportunities to provide more information, and turn the objections into reasons
for buying. Therefore, every salesperson needs training in the skills of handling
objections.

Step 6: Closing

The salesperson next tries to close the sale after handling objection from the
prospects. There are several closing techniques such as ask for the order, review
points of agreement, offer to help write up the order and ask whether the buyer
wants this model or that one, or note that they will lose out if the order is not
placed now.

The salesperson may offer the buyer special reasons to close, such as a lower
price, an extra quantity at no charge, or additional services.

Step 7: Follow up

The final step in the selling process is follow up that occurs after the sales
process. This is to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business.

31

The Nature of Personal Selling as Promotion Tool

Personal selling is the most effective method at certain stages of buying
process, particularly in building buyer’s preferences, convictions, actions, and
developing customer relationship.

32

https://quizizz.com/join?gc=66037086
https://forms.gle/TP55g5DoXXmgnef68

33

34

WHAT IS PUBLIC RELATIONS?

Public Relations (PR) is building good relations with the company’s various
publics by obtaining favorable publicity, building up a good corporate image and
handling, or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories and events. PR also refers
to existing relationships between the organization and the social environment.

The primary objective of PR is to establish and enhance a positive image of the
company as a whole among its environment. Another major promotion tool,
public relations, consists of activities designed to engage and build good
relations with the company’s various publics.

35

1. Functions of Public Relations

Public Relation (PR) is used to promote brands, products, peoples, places,
activities, organizations, and even nations. PR may include any or all of the
following functions:

1. Press relations or press agency
Creating and placing newsworthy information in the news media to
attract attention to a person, product, or service.

2. Product and brand publicity
Publicizing specific products and brands.

3. Public affairs
Building and maintaining national or local community relationships.

4. Lobbying
Building and maintaining relationships with legislators and government
officials to influence legislation and regulation.

5. Investor relations
Maintaining relationships with shareholders and others in the financial
community.

6. Development
Working with donors or members of nonprofit organizations to gain
financial or volunteer support.

36

2. Major Public Relations Tools

1. News - story about the company and its products or people. PR person
can suggest events or activities that would create news.

2. Speeches – create product and company publicity. Company executives
may give talks at trade association or sales meetings.

3. Special Events – ranging from news conference, press tours, grand
opening and fireworks displays to laser shows, hot air balloon releases,
multimedia presentations and educational programs.

4. Written Materials – prepare annual reports, brochures, articles and
company newsletters and magazines to their target market.

5. Audio Video Materials – Audio visual materials, such as videos, are being
use increasingly as communication tools.

6. Corporate Identity Materials – help create corporate identity that the
public immediately recognizes such as logo, brochures, stationery, signs,
business cards, buildings, uniforms, and company cars and trucks. All
become marketing tools when they are attractive, distinctive, and
memorable.

7. Public Service Activities - companies can improve public goodwill by
contributing money and time to public service activities.

37

The Nature of Public Relations as Promotion Tool

Public relation is a believable form of promotion that includes news stories,
features, sponsorship and events.
Nowadays, the web and social media are also important public relations
channels. Websites, blogs, and social media such as YouTube, Facebook,
Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter are providing new ways to reach and
engage people.

38

https://quizizz.com/join?gc=14001502
https://forms.gle/TETKMFrgXymKHwc5A

39

40

WHAT IS DIRECT MARKETING?

Direct marketing involves making direct connections with carefully targeted
individual consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate
lasting customer relationships.

Companies use direct marketing to tailor their offers and content to the needs
and interests of narrowly defined segments or individual buyers. In this way,
they build customer engagement, brand community, and sales.

For example, Amazon.com interacts directly with customers via its website or
mobile app to help them discover and buy almost anything and everything

41

online. Similarly, GEICO interacts directly with customers—by telephone,
through its website or smartphone app, or on its Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube pages—to build individual brand relationships, give insurance quotes,
sell policies, or service customer accounts.

1. The New Direct Marketing Model

In the early direct marketers, catalogue marketing, direct mail marketing, and
telemarketing are the tools in direct marketing. The marketers gathered
customer names and sold goods mainly by mail and telephone.

Today, direct marketing has seen a drastic transition as a result of the rise in
internet usage and purchases, as well as quick improvements in digital
technology such as smartphones, tablets, and other digital devices, as well as a
slew of online social and mobile media.

2. Traditional Direct Marketing Forms

Traditional direct marketing techniques are still much alive and still heavily
employed, despite the fast-growing digital marketing tools grabbing the most of
the headlines recently. On the right side of Figure 4, we'll look at typical direct
marketing forms.

Face-to-face or personal selling, direct mail marketing, catalogue marketing, and
telemarketing are the most common traditional means of direct marketing. In
Chapter 4, we looked at personal selling in depth.

42

Figure 4: Digital and Traditional Direct Marketing

Here, we look into the other forms of traditional direct marketing

1. Direct Marketing Mail

Direct marketing mail is marketing that occurs by sending an offer,
announcement, reminder, or other item directly to a person at a particular
address. By using highly selective mailing lists, marketers send out mail that
consists of letters, catalogues, ads, brochures, samples or videos to their
targeted customer. Direct mail is very suitable for one-to-one
communication.

Even though new digital forms of direct marketing are now become more
popular, traditional direct mail is still heavily used by most marketers for
example to send samples. Traditional direct marketing can create an
emotional connection with customers.

Traditional direct mail also can be an effective media of a broader integrated
marketing campaign. For example, GEICO insurance company used direct
mail offers that invite carefully targeted customers act immediately to save

43

money on their auto insurance by visiting their company website, contact
free toll number and agents.

2. Catalogue Marketing

Catalogue marketing is direct marketing through print, video, or digital
catalogues that are mailed to select customers, made available in stores, or
presented online.

With the advances in technology, catalogue marketing also become digital.
The traditional catalogue magazine is define as “a printed, bound piece of at
least eight pages, selling multiple products, and offering a direct ordering
mechanism.” However, in today’s situation, the definition must be
revamped to meet the changing times.

With the usage of the internet and digital marketing, more and more
catalogues are going digital. Most of print catalogues have added web-based
catalogues and mobile catalogue shopping apps to their marketing mixes.

Even though digital catalogues can eliminate printing and mailing costs,
interactive and allow real-time merchandising, printed catalogues are still on
demand because of their ability to create emotional connections with
customers. Somehow, turning actual catalogue pages engages consumers in
a way that digital images simply can’t. Many businesses are updating their
catalogues to make them more than just large booklets with product images
and prices. Anthropologie, for example, refers to their catalogues as
"journals" and fills them with lifestyle photos. Their goal is for their target
audience to be inspired and engaged with the brand.”

44