What is communication process in IMC?

Marketing communication aims at conveying a firm’s message as effectively and accurately as possible. The basic process of marketing communication, as depicted in figure 9.1, involves the following constituents:

1) Sender:

It refers to the marketing firm which is conveying the message.

2) Encoding:

Before a message can be sent, it has to be encoded. Putting thoughts, ideas, or information into a symbolic form is termed as encoding. Encoding ensures the correct interpretation of message by the receiver, who is often the ultimate customer.

Image Courtesy : thebrandingcrew.com/media/home/01.jpg

3) Message:

A message may be verbal or non-verbal, oral, written, or symbolic. A message contains all the information or meaning that the sender aims to convey. A message is put into a transmittable form depending upon the channels of communication.

4) Medium:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The channel used to convey the encoded message to the intended receiver is termed as medium. The medium can be categorized in the following manner:

i) Personal:

It involves direct interpersonal (face-to-face) contact with the target group.

ii) Non-Personal:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

These are channels which convey message without any interpersonal contact between the sender and the receiver.

The non-personal channels of communication may further be broadly classified as follows:

a) Print Media:

Newspapers, magazines, direct mails, etc.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

b) Electronic Media:

Radio and Television.

5) Decoding:

It is the process of transforming the sender’s message back into thought. Decoding is highly influenced by the self-reference criteria (SRC), which is unintended reference to one’s own culture.

6) Receiver:

It is the target audience or customers who receive the message by way of reading, hearing, or seeing. A number of factors influence how the message is received. These include the clarity of message, the interest generated, the translation, the sound of words, and the visuals used in the message.

7) Noise:

ADVERTISEMENTS:

The unplanned distortions or interference of die message is termed as ‘noise.’ A message is subjected to a variety of external factors that distort or interfere, its reception.

8) Feedback:

In order to assess the effectiveness of the marketing communication process, feedback from the customers is crucial. The time needed to assess the communication impact depends upon the type of promotion used. For instance, an immediate feedback can be obtained by personal selling, whereas it takes much longer time to assess the communication effectiveness in case of advertisements.

It is important for organizations to promote their goods and services well among the end-users not only to beatcontenders but also survive in the long run, because the promotion creates and increases awareness of products and services among the consumers and eventually leadshigh sales growth, revenue and survival of the business.

Table of Contents

To understand integrated marketing communication, let us first discussed about the promotion with the help of marketing mix:

Marketing Mix

Marketing mix is a set of tools which is used by the marketer to (for) satisfying the need and wants of the customers’. It mainly includes; Product; Price; Place and Promotion.

• Promotion: Promotion is an activity of marketing through which the marketer try to promote their goods and services among the prospective group of customers. The promotional mix of an organization includes various elements through which the products are promoted among the consumers.
  
  These elements include:
  • Advertisement
  • Sales promotion
  • Personal selling
  • Publicity
  • Public relation
  • Direct marketing

When the marketer collectively uses all the tools or elements of promotional mix to promote the goods and services is termed as integrated marketing communication. Introduction, Concept and Objectives of IMC

Concept of Integrated Marketing Communication

Marketing communications is a management process through which an organization engages with its various audiences. Through understanding an audience’s communications environment, organizations seek to develop and present messages for their identified stakeholder groups, before evaluating and acting upon the responses.

By conveying messages that are of significant value, they encourage audiences encouraged to offer attitudinal and behavioral responses.

Definition of Integrated Marketing Communication

What is IMC? In simple term, Integrated marketing communication can be defined as the integration of all the forms of communication and messages so that the marketing organization can create an impactful promotional impact on their target and prospective customer groups.

Targeted interaction with customers and prospects using one or more media, such as direct mail, newspapers and magazines, television, radio, billboards, telemarketing, and the Internet. A marketing communications campaign may use a single approach, but more frequently combines several.

In linking the all forms of communications an organization may go for;

• Horizontal Integration: the integration of the marketing mix with the functions of an organization.
  
  
• Vertical integration: whereby an organization integrates the communication objectives with the marketing objectives to support the corporate mission and objectives of the organization.
  
  
• Internal integration: it involves the internal staff of the organization, whereby they remains informed and motivated about the new development from new promotional efforts.
  
  
• External integrating: It involves the integration with all external promotional stakeholders such as advertising and personal relationship agencies in order to develop an effective promotional campaign for any product or services.

Need of Communication in Marketing

What is IMC need in marketing? To answer this question first we need to understand the simplest marketing system, through which the answer will be depicted itself.

The above figure demonstrates that an organization or a firm collects necessary information about customer needs and wants as well as demand with the help of marketing research and others means, then they produces all such goods and services to sell them to the customers in the market place. This is the stage where the communication or marketing communication takes place a vital role.

Through which the marketer inform the customers about the available goods and services and try to create an image for their product and services through positive association with customer’s feelings with their products and services.

Process of Marketing Communication

The process of marketing communication is an extension of the process of communication;

In general communication is a process of sharing idea, thoughts, message and suggestion by one person to another person, which involves following main elements :

• Idea/ Message: the idea or message is called the subject matter in the communication process because without the subject matter the process of communication cannot be initiated.
  
  
• Sender: the person who initiates the process of communication is called a sender. The sender usually send the message to the receiver.
  
  
• Encoding: is the process of converting the message into meaningful symbols is called encoding. Here the sender convert the message into words, picture, symbol or any other form, which could be easily understandable for the receiver. This element of communication is very much important for the both the sender and receiver.
  
  
• Medium: medium refers to the channels or methods through which the sender send or pass the message to the receiver.
  
  
• Decoding: the process of understanding the message from the side of receiver is called decoding.
  
  
• Receiver: the person who receive the message send by the sender is called receiver.
  
  
• Feedback: the response of the receiver on the message of sender is called feedback.

Marketing Communication Mix

Generally, marketing communication mix is an integrated term that includes personal selling, direct response marketing, sales promotion, media advertisement, and public relations.

These are the tools associated with strategic activities to communicate with the target audience. The following table illustrates the common platforms of Marketing Communication mix: