BUS7B29 Integrated Communications Assignment Sample 2023
Introduction
Communication is essential within an organisation to convey information, thoughts, values and express feelings to internal and external stakeholders. In the context of external stakeholders, customers are the most vital. Companies use effective and robust marketing strategies and develop market campaigns to connect with customers through two-way communication (Juska, 2021). From assignment 1, it can be understood that Marks & Spencer uses McQuail’s communication model in order to communicate with customers and identify their demands and expectations from the company. In this assignment, the marketing communication plan will discuss how the organisation can implement their communication model to achieve their end-goals.
Marketing communication plan
Marketing communication plan is termed as a plan that is a strategy through which a company can reach out to target audience and inform them about product or services. When the strategy is sold, then it must incorporate the target market or the particular audience group identified for a product or services (Stoychev et. al. 2019). In an effective marketing communication plan, there are some steps which needs to be considered:
Establish mission statement
It is the very first step of the communication plan to determine the mission statement through which the firm can encourage the team to achieve end-goals. Marks & Spencer also have some mission statements like ‘quality worth paying more for’. It is the name of their brand campaign which is introduced on the occasion of M & S 125th anniversary. Such a mission statement enables the company to assert their stability, heritage and show how their brand had been there for customers through the decades (Mehmet and Nayeem, 2018). Through this statement they run a TV campaign that the company provides the best quality products and services for the last 125 years. As mentioned in assignment one, the company uses TV advertisements to visualise their product under the transmission model. Hence, they plan to use effective and attractive mission statements. Other than that, they have several statements like ‘Not just food, M&S food’, ‘Look behind the label’. and more. It enables the customer to understand the company’s objectives.
Identify business objectives
The next phase in the business plan is to classifying the business objectives. Business goals are the goal of the company which needs to be achieved to mark long-term success and get competitive advantages (Ojanen, 2018). Each goal that is determined by the teams requires in contributing to such aims. If the company is not aware of what they are aiming for, then they cannot sustain in such a competitive market. Mark & Spencer faces severe challenges in the initial stage of business due to lack of customer trust which led to low sales and revenue as customers stopped buying products from the company. Since, the main problem is the lack of trust, thus, gaining customer loyalty should be the main objective of the company. Other than that, the organisation should emphasise to earn maximum profit and increase brand equity. Therefore, it is important for M&S to determine well-defined, realistic, and achievable objectives.
Create buyer personas
After determining mission statement, and objectives, the company should focus on defining the target audience (Niemelä, 2019). The company should document who should be their target customers, what are their expectations, and problems which need to be solved by offering relevant products and services. Further, the firm should collect demographic and psychographic data of customers like the urban people or remote population, youngsters or adults, age-group, gender, married status, job or businesses, and so on.
Target audience: It is one of the main elements which needs to be considered before executing communication strategy. There are multilayers of customers like primary, secondary, and so on. These audiences have different expectations and demands for the company. Also, they have different levels of trust in the organisation. Marks & Spencer’s should define their target audience by identifying these points: Title, Industry, Employee size, Revenue size, national, local, and regional, age, and more. M&S should focus on learning more about customers through using Google Forms, to collect data from the audience (Rėklaitis and Pilelienė, 2019). They should have asked demographic style questions to collect data which can be useful. Moreover, the company can use Google Analytics and Google Trends to learn who is visiting the company’s website, and what the most searching terms are respectively. M&S can dig their participant’s social media followers that enable them in showing to attract them and compare that to their own groups. They should also note their interests like websites, LinkedIn groups and trade magazines. Through using above methods, M&S can create their market strategy by using collected information from different sources.
Identify unique selling proposition and customer value propositions
Unique selling refers to developing a unique strategy, feature, and benefits that could not be applied to anyone before and which makes them unique. Unique selling factors presented by a seller which is different from and better than other rivals. Under a unique selling proposition, M&S uses Calls on Twilio to convert its way of interaction with customers. All calls to 640 M&S stores and call middles now manage through Twilio-powered technology (Arrigo et. al. 2021). They use robust intelligent system ways voice calls with over 90% correctness to right store, department, and contact centre agent. On the other hand, customer value proposition (CVP), focuses on what the company is selling. Creating a customer value proposal is vital within any marketing communication approach. Analysing individual’s choice and values about the product and services that the company offers has to be initial considerations in marketing campaigns. Under CVP some points need to be addressed like who is customer, what needs to offer customer have value, what should be offered that is better than rivals, how can earn money through this, what would tell the customer if challenged by elevator test, and so on (Jin et. al. 2018). However, the company should not offer multiple products as it makes the customer confused. As they should use 3D parameter
- Desirable– The company should offer the most demanded or desirable product or services.
- Different– The offering product must be different from other competitors which provides actual value of each penny.
- Defensible– The product must substantiate the claim of the company through offering best quality.
M&S should create a CVP that passes such a 3D test and offer very distinctive and unique products. Since, the company deals in various food, clothing, and home improvement products, thus it is important to maintain consistency about their offering and pursue uniqueness in their products and services.
Key message and its positioning
To make special space in the target customer’s mind, constancy and recurrence are best keys. As earlier mentioned, that the company’s mission statement positions their objectives and communicates their message without including name of brand. It is known as declaratory sentence or elevator pitch (Arustamyan et. al. 2020). It can suggest to M&S that they should conduct robust market study to discriminate their technology or SaaS brand from their rivals. After finding a positioning procedure, they could use perceptual map to explore available space. However, positioning in B2B is very challenging but it can be easy if they start from the initial stage by identifying the target audience’s most persistent problem, stack-rank them, and then create placement statement in addressing those problems (Shell, 2017). The organisation should identify the uniqueness. It can be possible with the help of good research. Further, successful B2B messaging needs cruel emphasis on the profile of target audience.
At the same time, the marketing team needs to focus on a message matrix which should contain key messages, supporting quotes, proof points, and choice of three recommended straplines for the company, product, and campaign. Moreover, elevator pitches of 12,25,50, and 100 words for company (Keane, 2019). The marketing team can use complete messages as ‘copy blocks’ which can be posted in marketing resources, sales presentations, websites, and social media. It will not only save time and efforts but also, shows that the businesses are consistent about their communication.
Implement through marketing medium
After defining objectives, target audiences, and key messages, now at this last stage of marketing communication plan, the company should implement it through various mediums. For instance, Google Ads, Website, landing pages, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Off-page SEO, LinkedIn, Facebook, Email Marketing, YouTube, Events, Roadshows, TV advertisement, and blogging (Brazier, 2018). Other than these channels, M&S use Twilio to communicate with their customers. The organisation handles more than one million inbound calls per month. They further record customer’s dialogue into text by using Twilio’s speech recognition tool, M&S can evaluate customer voice in real time (Marks & Spencer, 2022). Such abundance of calls, M&S enables them to listen to their customer queries and inform them about their company’s products and services.
The above presenting marketing communication plan enables Marks & Spencer to meet their objectives to establish two-way communication with customers, and maintain their loyalty with the company. Through this communication plan the company can implement McQuail’s communication model and achieve their end-goals.
Conclusion
The present discussion concluded by presenting a marketing communication plan for Marks & Spencer. It is one of the UK’s leading retailers’ companies who deals in clothing, food, and home improvement products. The organisation faces immense loss due to lack of customer trust in their products and services. In order to overcome these challenges, they use McQuali’s communication model. The present report provides a marketing communication plan to implement the model which covers the determination of objectives, identify target audience, and key message, and choose effective marketing modes.
References
Arrigo, E., Liberati, C. and Mariani, P., (2021). Social Media Data and Users’ Preferences: A Statistical Analysis to Support Marketing Communication. Big Data Research, 24, p.100189.
Arustamyan, A., Al Taj, S. and Nasir, A., (2020). ROLE OF STRATEGIC MARKETING IN CREATING ORGANISATIONAL VALUE. Journal of Education & Humanities Research, University of Balochistan, Quetta-Pakistan, 10(2), pp.42-66.
Jin, H., Miao, Y. and Park, S.T., (2018). A Case Study of Marks and Spencer lost China. Journal of Industrial Convergence, 16(2), pp.15-23.
Juska, J.M., (2021). Integrated marketing communication: advertising and promotion in a digital world. Routledge.
Mehmet, M. and Nayeem, T., (2018). Equally Well Digital and Social Media Marketing Communication Plan.
Niemelä, H., (2019). Creating a marketing communication plan for a small B-to-B consulting company.
Ojanen, J., (2018). Marketing communication plan for OnniBus. com.
Rėklaitis, K. and Pilelienė, L., (2019). Principle differences between B2B and B2C marketing communication processes. Organizacijų vadyba: sisteminiai tyrimai= Management of organizations: systematic research. Kaunas: Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas; Sciendo, 2019, T. 81.
Stoychev, L.Y., Dimitrova, T.V. and Desev, K.V., (2019). Planning and effectiveness evaluation of marketing communication. Балканско научно обозрение, 3(1), pp.93-96.
Marks & Spencer, (2022). Marketing 2 Excellence. [Online] [Available Through]: <https://www.marketingsociety.com/sites/default/files/thelibrary/marketing%20excellence%202%20m&s%20(sustaining%20the%20brand%20promise)%20case%20study.pdf>
Brazier, R., (2018). M&S Transforms Communications with Customers. [Online] [Available Through]: <https://contact-centres.com/marks-spencer-transforms-communications-with-customers/>
Keane, R., (2019). 6 Steps to An Effective Marketing Communications Plan. [Online] [Available Through]: <https://www.ronankeane.com/6-steps-to-an-effective-marketing-communications-plan/>
Shell, R., (2017). Successful Communication Strategy: Five Elements. [Online] [Available Through]: <https://glasscock.rice.edu/blog/successful-communication-strategy-five-elements>
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