Marketing communication policy is one of the four basic elements of the marketing mix. In most cases, these are messages that companies use to inform, persuade, or remind consumers about a product, service, sample, or idea. Its main objective is to stimulate and improve demand.
What Do We Understand by Communication?
Marketing communication is understood as a set of signals that an organization sends to its various target groups, its customers, distributors, suppliers, shareholders, public authorities and employees.
Marketing communication policy relies on sellers to encourage consumers to buy products. But it does not use marketing tools such as newspapers, radio, internet and television. This communication uses direct, oral, and synchronous methods to communicate with consumers.
The marketing communication policy or product promotion is a set of activities that try to spread the benefits of a product and persuade the target market to buy it from whoever offers it.
One of the main directions of the company’s activity is constant communication with all target groups.
Internal communication within the company has the purpose of:
- Motivate the members of the organization to build good relationships among themselves.
- Development through established channels, which can be incremental, descending, and horizontal.
- Facilitate coordination between people.
Objectives of the Marketing Communication Policy Applied
All types of businesses, from small retailers to large manufacturers, as well as non-profit organizations (schools, hospitals, churches, museums, symphony orchestras, etc.), are constantly promoting their activities to consumers and customers to achieve various goals. :
- Inform potential consumers about their products, services and sale’s conditions.
- Convince customers to prefer these specific products and brands, shop at these specific stores, attend specific entertainment events, etc.
- Drive Buyers to Action: Consumer behavior is driven by what the market currently offers, not by leaving it up to future purchases.
These goals are accomplished through advertising, vendors, store names, window displays, packaging, literature distribution, free samples, coupons, press releases, and other communication and promotional activities. This is called marketing communication policy or promotion management and marketing communication.
Different Channels for Different Goals: As Long as It’s a Win-Win
The marketing communication policy aims directly to sell and retain customers, and for this it is necessary to build relationships with customers to know and understand their needs, tastes and habits, and even complaints.
This is a win-win for the entire company, since in addition to having a very high probability of closing the sale, it helps to improve the rest of the external communication channels and the way in which the company interacts with the final consumer.
Among the channels used for marketing communication policy, there are personal and impersonal channels.
A personal channel is a form of communication aimed at reaching a small target group directly. One of the advantages is that the company can control them, because they are used by sellers, it can even have an expert in certain products or services that satisfy the needs of customers and convince them to stay with the brand.
Impersonal channels include means through which you can communicate with customers, such as social media, where company employees can respond to consumer needs while answering the same questions they may have from many others. You can also implement a chatbot scenario that has generic answers but also has people trained to answer questions from potential buyers.
The Levels Within the Marketing Communication Policy
The most important thing in marketing communication policy is the message, and this must correspond to the sales objective, so that there is a match between what is to be offered and what the client receives in return. Since commercial communication is the work of your sales team, it must be known and recognized by everyone, and it must be clear, concise and simple, away from technical details that customers may not understand and discourage them from making a possible purchase.
- Symbolism : If communication, as its name indicates, is of the “symbolic” type, because it is formed through the interaction of verbal and non-verbal symbols known to buyers and sellers, for example, studying faces that go from happy to sad when a sales process is being carried out, this type of communication can be a way of giving us an idea of its relevance.
- Intentionality allows the seller to create the buyer’s desire to acquire a certain product or service and thus achieve loyalty. This communication is very positive for the business as it tends to increase sales exponentially as a satisfied customer shares their experience through word of mouth.
- Interactions are a key point because the consumer needs to clearly understand the information being provided by the seller about a certain product or service.
Elements of Commercial Communication
The goal of commercial communication is to close the sale, which inevitably requires an exchange of ideas to:
- Understand the needs of our customers.
- Be able to respond to objections.
- Recognizing that customers not only heard the message, but fully understood it.
The editor is the person who opens the process and has a lot of information. They should consider:
- The content needs to be clear when communicated.
- The interests of the recipient.
- Adapt the language to the type of receiver.
Receiver: The recipient of the message. In the world of sales, it is always about the customer, since the roles as sender and receiver will change depending on who is speaking at any given time. To communicate effectively, the receiver must first have an accepting attitude.
Content: This is the message, which usually matches your sales pitch.
Codes: These are different types and styles of ads to get your message across.
Transmission channel: This is the way in which the encoded information is transmitted.
Feedback: This is a variable that measures the effectiveness of the business communication process. If the recipient responds, the communication is valid. It is at this point that the sender becomes the recipient and vice versa.
Most Common Interference Factors
It should be noted that commercial communication has some basic characteristics: it tries to inform by promoting a product or service, it tries to persuade consumers and it tries to make customers remember what the company offers.
The most common factors that interfere with good communication are:
- Perception: It is related to various psychological factors such as the values, beliefs, personality and needs of the recipient.
- Role and State: Depending on these two variables, the recipient will behave in one way or another.
- Emotions: refers mainly to the emotional state of the receiver.
- Personality traits: Knowing these traits will help the sender in their task since they will be able to give a more personalized treatment to the recipient.
- Knowledge: A person’s training and experience can also influence the communication process.
- Negativism: Refers to words, gestures or situations that can cause the recipient to have the opposite effect to that intended by the sender.
The Verbal Message in Marketing Communication Policy
Oral communication refers to the type of language used. Characteristics of the language that should be used for successful communication:
- Be clear, precise and simple: avoid jargon, idioms, sayings or words that are too technical.
- Graphics and Descriptions: Clearly the generation of mental images should be encouraged.
- Positive: You must avoid twists and turns that may cause negative thoughts in the client, you must use affirmative, positive and interesting words and phrases.
- Not redundant: avoid useless superlatives or exaggerated adjectives; use single words in place of sentences whenever possible.
- Adapt to the interlocutor.
- Avoid false confidence and false humility: It must be very clear that “if the receiver does not understand, it is the sender’s fault.” In this principle, never say “You don’t understand me”, but rather “I didn’t explain myself very well”.
- Nonverbal Communication: Nonverbal communication refers to all language produced by the body that does not depend on spoken words. In fact, when a person is described as “beautiful”, it is not so much because of the words they use, but because they can smile, wave their arms dynamically, listen and laugh, etc.
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