The Role of Promotion in Integrated marketing communication4
Background4
Discussion5
Market Review5
Literature Review7
Marketing Communicational Approaches8
Dell vs. Apple8
Critical Analysis10
Market Message10
Recommendation12
Conclusion14
References15
Executive summary
The study entails the report which involves the comparative analysis of two companies Apple and Dell. Apple is the market leading company in technology and has a range of various products. The company has unique business approaches and leads the market of top manufacturers of laptop industry and other products as well. Similarly, Dell is the leading market in computer industry since a long time. It has been a topper among many technology based industries. The company has also a strong market share and it deals with the growing industry of technology. The report is a discussion on the integrated marketing communicational strategies they both follow, along with the change in their market approach.
Marketing Communication
Introduction
Integrated marketing Communication (IMC) is a combination of all the marketing promotional activities including advertising, sales promotions, personal selling, public relations, and other direct-marketing tools which companies use to adapt the advertising and marketing objectives (Katrandjiev, 2000: 87). The five major tools of IMC strategy mix are;
Advertising; it is a paid form of promotion of ideas products or services through an identified sponsor.
Personal selling; the presentation of the sales force that involves the purpose of building customer relationships and making high sales.
Sales Promotions; these are the short term rewards that managers get in return to the purchase and sale of product or services.
Public relations; it is the building of relations with public belonging to company by maintaining outstanding corporate Image and favourable publicity along with handling of all the rumours and stories.
Direct Marketing; it involves targeting of the immediate customers by building direct connections with the customers, and maintains long lasting relations with them. This is done through, e-mails, telephone calls, internet, fax and other tools of direct communication.
All of these communication categories possess various tools of communication, examples are, and advertisement involves broadcasting, print and outdoor promotional activities and many other ways. Incentive programs, trade offers and shows, sales presentations are included in personal selling tools. Similarly, point of purchase, discounts and premiums, special advertising are the tools of sales promotions. Whereas, direct marketing involves telemarketing, kiosk, fax, catalogues and many other tools. Companies are now using mass communication tools with new technology and doing one to one communication.
The communication does not limit the promotional tools all features of product including its design, price, shape colour and packaging, all communicates with the buyer. Thus all of this marketing mix must also get coordinated. They study will be discussing the rapid change in communication s environment along with the concept of integrated marketing communication.
Integrated Marketing Strategy
Through observations, the studies shows that companies did efforts in improving their art of mass marketing techniques which is, selling of high standard products to many customers. During this process, companies using mass- media advertising in order to cushion their mass-marketing strategies (Katrandjiev, 2000: 90). These companies are investing millions on mass-media and communicating billions of customers with ...