Introduction to Business II
Chapter 16
Customer Communication
Adopted From
Bovee, J.L., and Thill, J.V. (2015), Business in Action, (7th Edition), Pearson, New
York
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
Social Communication Model: An approach to
communication based on interactive social media and
conversational communication styles.
1) Establish clear communication goals
2) Define compelling messages
3) Outline a cost-effective media mix
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
Establishing Communication Goals
I. Generating awareness
II. Providing information and creating positive emotional
connections
III. Building preference
IV. Stimulating action
V. Reminding past customers
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
The Social Model of Customer Communication
Conventional promotion: «We talk, you listen»
The Social Model: «Let’s Have a Conversation»
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
The AIDA Model of Persuasive Communication
– Attention
– Interest
– Desire
– Action
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
Defining Customer Messages
Core Message: The single most important idea an
advertiser hopes to convey to the target audience
about its products or the company.
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
Assembling the Communication Mix
Communication mix: A blend of communication
vehicles-advertising, direct markeing, personal selling,
sales promotion, social media, and public relations-
that a company uses to reach current and potential
customers.
Push Strategy: A promotional strategy that focuses on
intermediaries, motivating them to promote, or push,
products toward end users.
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
Assembling the Communication Mix
Pull Strategy: A promotional strategy that stimultes
consumer demand via advertising and other
communication efforts, thereby creating a pull effect
through the channel.
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC): A
strategy of coordinating and integrating
communication and promotion efforts with customers
to ensure greater efficiency and effectiveness.
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
Message Integration in Customer Communication
Integrated Message Integrated Message
Transmission Reception
• Friends
• Advertising • Social networks
• Direct • Peer group
marketing • Family
• Colleagues
• Personal selling • Social media
• Sales contacts
promotion • Celebrities
• Social media • Competing
marketers
• Public relations • News media
• Personal experience
Customer Communication: Challenges,
Strategies, and Issues
Communication Laws and Ethics
• Marketing and sales messages must be truthful and nondeceptive
• You must back up your claims with evidence
• Bait-and-switch advertising is illegal
• Marketing messages and websites aimed at children are subject to special
rules
• Marketing and sales messages are considered binding contracts in many
states
• In most cases, you can’t use a person’s name, photograph, or other identity
without permission
Advertising
Advertising: The delivery of announcements and promotional messages
via time or space purchased in various media
Types of Advertising
Product advertising: Promotes the features and benefits of specific
products
Comparative advertising: Applied to ads that specifically highlight how
one product is better than its competitors.
Advertising
Institutional Advertising: Advertising that seeks to create goodwill and
to build a desired image for a company, rather than to promote specific
products.
Advocacy Advertising: Advertising that presents a company’s opinions
on public issues such as education or health care.
Advertising Appeals
Advertising appeal: A creative tactic designed to capture the audience’s
attention and promote preference for the product or company being
advertised.
Advertising
Advertising Appeals
• Logic
• Emotion
• Humor
• Celebrity
• Sex
• Music
• Scarcity
Advertising
Advertising Media: Communication channels, such as
newspapers, radio, television, and the World Wide Web.
Media mix: A combination of print, broadcast, online, and other media
used for an advertising campaign.
Product placement: The paid display or use of products in television
shows, movies, and video games.
Direct Marketing
Direct marketing: Direct communication with
potential customers other than personal sales
contacts designed to stimulate a measurable
response.
Direct marketing often uses personally addressable media such as
letters and email messages to deliver targeted messages to individual
consumers or organizational purchasers.
Except for infomercials, direct marketing doesn’t involve the purchase of
time or space in other media.
Direct Marketing
Direct Marketing Techniques
– Mail order
– Measurability
– Multichannel marketing campaigns
Direct Marketing
Direct Marketing Media
– Mail
– Email
– Search engine marketing
– Direct response online
– Telephone
– Direct response television
Personal Selling
Personal Selling: One-on-one interaction between a
salesperson and a prospective buyer.
Contemporary Personal Selling
Consultative selling: An approach in which a
salesperson acts as a consultant and advisor to help
customers find the best solutions to their personal or
business needs.
Personal Selling
The Personal Selling Process
I. Prospecting: The process of finding and qualifying potential customers
II. Preparing
III. Approaching the prospect
IV. Aligning with customer needs
V. Handling objections
VI. Closing
VII. Following up
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion: A wide range of events and activities designed
to promote a brand or stimulate interest in a product.
Consumer promotions
• Contests and other audience involvement tactics
• Coupons
• Rebates
• Point of purchase
• Samples and trial-use versions
• Special-event sponsorship
• Other promotions
Sales Promotion
Premiums: Free or bargaing-priced items offered to encourage
consumers to buy a product.
Specialty advertising: Advertising that appears on various items
such as coffee mugs, pens, and calendars, designed to help keep
a company’s name in front of customers
Trade promotions: Sales-promotion efforts aimed at inducting
distributors or retailers to push a producer’s products
Trade allowances: Discounts or other financial considerations
offered by producers to wholesalers and retailers
Social Media and Public Relations
Social media
Word of Mouth: Communication among customers
and other parties, transmitting information about
companies and products through online offline
personal conversations.
Conversation marketing: An approach to customer
communication in which companies initiate and
facilitate conversations in a networked community of
potential buyers and other interested parties.
Social Media and Public Relations
Brand Communities: Formal or informal groups of people
united by their interest in and ownership of particular products.
Public relations: Nonsales communication that businesses have
with their various audiences (including both communication
with the general public and press relations).
Press release: A brief statement or video program released to
the press announcing new products, management changes,
sales performance, and other potential news items; also called a
news release.
Press Conference: An in-person or online gathering of media
representatives at which companies announce new information;
also called a news conference.