Integrated Communication Plan
Executive Summary
The main purpose of this assessment is to identify the IMC tool for the Bing lee new product i.e. Home butterfly security camera in order to increase the awareness level to 10%. For this, they targeted to the Australian working professional customers.
Moreover, Bing lee positioned their product in the mind of customers based on the quality and unique features. Besides that, advertising, sales promotion and mainly digital & social media is used by the Bing lee for creating awareness among the target audiences. Thus, Bing lee successfully achieved the high recognition through used IMC tools.
This report discusses integrating marketing communication in which communication plan is developed for Bing lee so that company develops an effective marketing campaign program. Bing Lee is one of largest retailing company which offers electronics goods and services in Australian market.
The main motive to develop an integrated marketing communication plan for Bing Lee is to target the large customer segment by creating brand awareness in the market and also in minds of the customers (Belch, et al., 2014).
On the other hand, Bing Lee decided to promote the new innovative product i.e., home butterfly security camera for creating as well as increasing the brand awareness among the customer. This new innovative product is smart camera which easily recognizes the family faces and if stranger enters home forcefully then sends alert message to mobile app by using wi-fi system.
At the same time, this report discusses different communication objectives which company needs to focus at the time of increasing the brand awareness. In this, integrated marketing communication plan (IMC) also represented the segment and target market for Bing Lee in which it will introduce the new product in target market.
In addition, this plan also state creative idea for the company through which company can market new product in the market. The positioning strategy will also help Bing lee to attract the customer towards new & existing electronic product. At last, recommendations also provided to Bing Lee for integrated marketing communication plan so that company can implement the plan and achieve communication objective efficiently.
Communication objectives are set by every organization for maintaining and developing the awareness in the Australian market. The set communication objective helps the company to promote their products and services which they offer to customer for satisfying their needs.
In similar manner, Bing Lee also developed a communication objective for promoting its new product named as home butterfly security camera. This specific product will help the company in meeting the organizational objective as well as communication objective successfully.
For implementing an effective integrated marketing communication plan, company need to fulfill all below stated communication objectives successfully.
- To increase brand awareness by 20%
- To increase target market by 15% through existing & new electronic product and services offered to customers
- To develop promotional and marketing communication strategy for new product
- To increase sales and profitability of electronic products by 10% till 2017.
For promotional campaign, the above stated communication objectives will help Bing Lee to target the customers and large market segment with new innovative product and this may lead the company to gain the competitive advantage in highly competitive market (Akbar, et al., 2017).
These all communication objectives are to be accomplished by the company for creating effective and efficient brand awareness about the new product in target segment market.
Market segmentation plays an essential role in categorizing the market in different segments on the basis of profitable, actionable, and definable and so on. For every organization, it is very difficult to target the complete market and satisfy them with offered goods and services.
Similarly, it is very challenging for Bing Lee to market the new product efficiently and create brand awareness so company decides to segment the market into different segments so that company can target each segment on different basis.
In concern to this, there are four types of market segments such as geographical, psychological, demographical and behavioral market segment.
The geographical market segmentation is done on the basis of locality, needs and preferences of the customer whereas in demographic market segmentation, market is divided on the basis of population age, gender, income, occupation, etc (Ewing &Ramaseshan, 2015).
On the other hand, psychological & behavioral market segmentation is don on the basis of activities, interest and lifestyle of the people and most important on their buying behavior. So, for Bing Lee Company, demographic market segmentation is best suitable as company introduced a new innovative product by concerning the customers who are working professionals.
Under this market segment, company (Bing Lee) can easily target customers and attract them towards the innovative product which will meet or satisfy their needs to large extent.
This segment will be selected on the basis of different variables like working professionals, age group and major concern will be safety. This demographic market segment helped Bing lee to use this segment for easily reaching to the customers who prefers to purchase such type of innovative product (Akbar, et al., 2017).
As Bong Lee is offering many other branded products like LG, Samsung, Panasonic and many more for maintaining the brand awareness in the market. But to increase that brand awareness, company decided to offer new innovative product at best price with best quality services.
The target market is considered by the company while developing an integrated marketing communication plan because there is need to specify a target market to which company wants to create brand awareness.
Bing Lee offers various electronics goods and services to customers in specific target market but for creating more brand awareness company has decided to introduce new product which meets the customer requirement as well as develop awareness for the product by effective marketing campaign.
In concern to this, the target market of the Bing Lee Company for its new innovative product is working professional customers.
Like, both husband & wife are working and child at home so they required an electronic security gadget which protect their child and keep security at home for that they can prefer to use home butterfly security camera. Now days, working professionals required to take safety measure to protect their home and child safety (Fischer, et al., 2011).
There are customers who want to purchase such security electronic item which makes them feel safe and secure. Mostly, the age group of such working professionals is 28 to 50 years as well as this new security product is highly demanded in urban places.
However, the above segment market and target market is best suitable for Bing Lee to create brand awareness with the help of marketing communication campaign of new product and for this company need to increase its target market by 15%. Creative idea
The main motive of developing an integrated marketing communication plan for Bing Lee so that it can increase the customer awareness by 20% globally. In concern to this, it is very important for the company to adopt and implement an innovative & creative idea for targeting the customers towards the brand. For this, company will add new product segment in existing products and will provide facility to the customer (Leonidou, et al., 2013).
The new product i.e., home butterfly security camera is innovative product which have unique feature of identifying and recognizing the faces of family member when they enter the house. This feature is creative idea for attracting the customers towards the product and aware about the brand. On the other side, Bing Lee can also develop different creative ideas that company need to plan a marketing plan in which graphic display must be used for attracting the interest of the customers.
The use of info-graphic is creative idea to spread information and build brand image in the minds of the customers with the help of social media. The social media is also best source of marketing communication campaign which helps in connecting the customers with the product and its benefits (Nobre & Silva, 2014).
At the same time, Bing lee can also market the product by running a contest through online and offline marketing sources so that customer develops their interest for using a product. By using these creative ideas, Bing Lee Company can easily target the customers and aware the customers about the product by sending the interested and attractive message which create affect in the minds of customers directly.
These creative ideas will help Bing Lee to understand and change the customer buying behavior to some extent.
Positioning strategy is a process which helps in determining the company’s product and service position in the highly competitive market. In like manner, Bing Lee will also target the customer with its product so that brand awareness is created in the minds of them and this will automatically create the marketing of the product through mouth publicity.
For positioning the new product, company need to use specific marketing communication strategy (positioning strategy) so that it can aware customer about the brand and its product quality.
There are different types of positioning strategy such as pricing strategy, competitor positioning strategy, product class positioning , etc (Patti, et al., 2017). These all strategies are useful for company as it will help the customer in contrasting the new products with other competitor’s product easily.
The price based positioning strategy will be best suitable for Bing Lee to build a brand image among the customers. The pricing positioning strategy is an effective strategy for the organization as this strategy help organization in creating cut throat competition in the market and this helps in increasing the brand awareness among the customer (Solomon, 2014).
From the study, it is very clearly identified that in retail market there is high competition and to meet that competition company is creating good marketing position in the market. The price of home butterfly security camera is kept high as this product is providing unique benefits to the customers in terms of their security concern.
Marketing communication Mix is considered as an essential for the companies in order to communicate their product and services information to the target audiences. Similarly, through the help of this, Bing Lee could also able to promote their new product i.e. home butterfly security camera to the local people of Australia (Kitchen & Burgmann, 2010).
Other than that, this strategy also helps the Bing lee in terms to make a product research and development. Likewise, Bing lee could able to identify the target market taste and preferences and accordingly they would design their new butterfly security camera and offer to the local people. Thus, such practices assist the company to get high recognition in Australia market.
In addition to this, Bing lee to create more awareness about their new product i.e. home butterfly security camera into the Australia market then in such case, they could use different elements of marketing communication mix for fulfilling their two purposes (Fill, 2011).
First aim is to promote their product to target audiences and secondly is to record the customer response towards their new product offering etc. there are different elements that could include into the Bing lee marketing communication mix which are mention below:-
Adverting
Advertising is proved to be an effective in terms to deliver the right message to audiences. Similarly, Bing lee could also deliver the message about their innovation called as home butterfly security camera (Castronovo & Huang, 2012). Through advertising, they would highlight about their product features and benefits which target audiences can achieve.
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion would assist the Bing lee to convince the Australian audiences in short span of time through providing rebates. It can also include point of purchase, displays and mobile vans to make the people understand about the usage of product (Gabrielli & Balboni, 2010). Thus, such tool to be considered more effective as company able to increase its sales and profit by 10% in the year 2017.
Media Mix
It involves different combination of channels and it can be digital media, social media and print media etc. This media could help the Bing lee to also cover the untapped area which is remaining under the market communication mix elements (Mirbagheri & Hejazinia, 2010). It includes the following:-
Digital Media
Digital media is the current trend in across the globe. It would also help the Bing lee to covers the wide area network in Australia (De Mooij, 2013). Company can also record the response and reaction of the audiences about the home butterfly security camera. Hence, it contributes high for the Bing lee
Print Media
Print media is the one which is widely used by every organisation to keep their customer update about new offering (Valette-Florence et al., 2011). However, Bing lee could also use the e-mails and post cards to inform their audience people about the feature of their new butterfly security camera.
Social Media
Social Media is considered to be current demand for the global target audiences. Because of this, it can contribute high for the Bing lee in regards to tap the uncovered market of Australia. This can be done through the use of facebook, twitter, Instagram, Whattsapp etc.
Basic Budget Concept
Budget is considered to be the vital plan for the company in regards to determine or estimate the revenue and expenses of the activities which is undertaken. Similarly, Bing lee also need to prepare the budget of each activity which is use to promote their new product and for creating awareness (Tiago et al., 2014).
The estimation of the budget could help the Bing lee to set their standard budget and on that basis, they measure their actual. Such practices makes easy for the Bing lee to reduce their extra expenses and perform their activities in a reliable manner within the estimated budget.
The budget helps the Bing lee to save their maximum investment and allows to making an investment in different portfolios. Thus, it can be stated that the budget estimation is the current requirement for the organisation as now-a-days, company prefer to invest in multiple activity instead of one.
Likewise, Bing lee also plan to make an invest in different element of the integrated marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, digital platform etc. So in such case, it is require to evaluate the expenses which is required to carry out in each activity.
This is because to guides the company in regards to that whether incorporating of several activities couldn’t maximise their overall cost to the product or to company. Due to this reason, it is must for the Bing lee to prepare and estimate the cost of media and creative message cost.
Preparation of Budget for Marketing Communication Media
| S. No | Media Cost | Amount (In Australia dollar) |
| 1. | Advertising | $ 8000 |
| 2. | Sales promotion i.e. point of purchase, display boards & mobile vans | $ 7800 |
| Creative media | ||
| 3. | Digital Media
|
$ 45000
$ 15000 $ 10000
$ 20000 |
| 4. | Print media (Paper Expenses) | $ 500 |
| 5. | Social Media (Message Designer)
Total |
$ 1000
$ 62300 |
The above table explains the cost of the different activities which will be use by the Bing lee for promoting their new product which is home butterfly security camera. Thus, with the allocating the cost to different media then it becomes an easy for the company to estimate their total marketing cost.
From the above table, it is identified that Bing lee should invest of total budget of $ 62300 on the marketing of home butterfly security camera (Asur & Huberman, 2010).
Evaluation Metrics for measuring the success of campaign
It is quite important for the companies to measure or evaluate their result of each media through using different evaluation metric. Similarly, Bing lee should use different measuring metrics to track the status of recognition (Shirky, 2011).
Such evaluation technique helps the company to know about the real performances such as that how adverting and sales promotion prove to be effective for company to grab the high attention and recognition in market. It makes the company to understand about their current status in the competitive environment.
In regards to Bing lee, they could measure the success through the following ways:-
Advertisement: Bing lee can estimate the benefit of adopting of advertising through measuring of number of visitors in their store. However, through recording that how many customers visit daily in the store and with this they could find the impact of advertisement.
Sales promotion: Bing lee can estimate the effect of mobile vans, display boards etc through look at the rise or decline in the customer visit (Fischer et al., 2011). It can be also evaluate by recording the reaction and action of the customer towards the product. At the same time, Bing lee can see that Is customer repeat their purchase or visit again to the store.
Digital marketing: The digital marketing impact can be calculated through record the number of individuals that visit or click the Bing lee page or individual who access the website of Bing lee. Therefore, this is best way for the company to get the idea about the awareness of the people in Australia market (Guo-li, 2010).
Print Marketing: this can be estimate through identify that how many individual replies of their sending e-mails by the Bing lee.
Social Media Marketing: it can be identified through contacting the customer or group directly on the social media such as on facebook, Whattsapp and twitter etc.
Other than that, Bing lee would also pursue towards the market research through conducting survey. It is identified that company with the help of survey can get to easily gather the customer reaction or responses on the product like home butterfly security camera.
Hence, these evaluation metrics that could guide the Bing lee about how much these promotional or communicational tool provide benefit to them (Farris et al., 2010). So it can be stated that these are best ways for the company to measure their campaign success.
There are both positive as well as negative feedback is received from the stakeholders. The positive feedback is that investors or customer are happy with the innovation which is brought by me in the form of launching of home butterfly security camera.
Customer find it unique product but costly. Due to have unique features in the product, investors provide positive response towards the product and ready to make an investment (Kitchen & Burgmann, 2010).
In addition to this, the shareholders provide both negative and satisfied feedback on IMC plan due to with the using of different tools, companies overall expenses get increase. But at the same time, they are also happy with the getting high recognition and awareness in the market.
Furthermore, staffs provide the unenthusiastic feedback as with the use of IMC, they become unclear about the responsibility and the roles and this create lot of misunderstanding. Thus, due to less management, staffs seem to be less satisfied.
Moreover, there is positive and well feedback is received from the Bing lee as the awareness about the product or brand will get increase by 10% in 2017. This leads to generate high profits or revenue to the Bing lee.
On the basis of above learning, it is recommended to Bing lee that they can satisfy their staff through conducting the training program for them so that staff could make clear about their roles and way to implement each IMC. Besides that, it is also suggested to the shareholder should adopt the sustainability in which they use the recycle or reuse method.
It could help the Bing lee company to reduce the price of product. At the same time, it is also stated that Bing lee should focuses more on the digital or social media to promote or aware the customers. It is because virtual platform has high reach comparatively to other marketing tools and it could also help the Bing lee to cover the wide areas of Australia.
Digital marketing communication would also help them to save the maximum cost to the company. Thus, it should be preferred more by the Bing lee (Fill, 2011). Other than that, it is also recommended that Bing lee should position the product in the mind of consumer on the high price.
Since, it is the product which aims to target the professional individuals or high-class group then in that case it is best suited to portray as a high quality product with high price. Therefore, the above mention recommendation contributes high for the Bing lee to successfully achieve the high recognition and awareness in the Australia market.
From the above study, it can be concluded that Bing Lee Company can implement integrated marketing communication plan for achieving the communication objectives successfully and efficiently.
For building brand awareness in the Australian market, company need to market the company’s existing product in efficient manner so that company able to achieve the objective to increase sales and profitability. On the other hand, company decided to introduced new product i.e., Home Butterfly Security Camera which satisfy the customer security needs effectively.
At the same time, company will also segment the market on the basis of demographic segmentation for which company using creative idea so that customer gets aware about the product and its features. On the other hand, it is recommended to Bing Lee to target the customer digitally so that it will reduce the cost as well as target the wide customers globally and spread more information about the new innovative product.
Thus, this integrated marketing communication plan will lead to accomplishment of organization and communication objective efficiently and effectively.
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