Download free eBooks at bookboon.comMarketing Communications
Fundamentals Of Communication In Marketing
- PRODUCT SAMPLING: Sending a sample of a product to a group of potential consumers
to an effective means of generating interpersonal communications concerning the product.
Instead of using a random sampling, a marketer should attempt to send the product to a
group of individuals likely to be opinion leaders. - RETAILING/PERSONAL SELLING: Numerous opportunities exist for retailers and
sales personnel to use opinion leadership. For example, they can encourage their current
customers to pass along information to potential new customers. - ADVERTISING: Advertising attempts to both stimulate and simulate opinion leadership.
Stimulation involves themes designed to encourage current owners to talk about the product
or prospective owners to ask current owners for their impressions. Before such a campaign
is used, the firm needs to be certain that there is a high degree of satisfaction among existing
owners. Simulating opinion leadership involves having an acknowledged opinion leader
to demonstrate and endorse the product. It can also involve an apparent opinion leader
recommending the product in a commercial advertisement.
Opinion leaders are product-category or activity-group specific. They tend to have greater product
knowledge, more exposure to relevant media and more gregarious personalities than their followers.
They tend to have similar demographics with their followers.
Marketers attempt to identify opinion leaders primarily through their media habits and social activities.
Identified opinion leaders then can be used in marketing research, product sampling, retailing or personal
selling and advertising. It is also possible to create opinion leaders. Groups, because of their interpersonal
interaction and influence, greatly affect the diffusion of product innovations.
The adopter categories start from innovators, the first purchasers of any innovation. This category is
followed over time, by early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. Each of these groups
differs in the time of adoption of an innovation and in terms of personality, age, education and reference
group membership.
These characteristics help marketers identify and appeal to different classes of adopters at different stages
of a product innovation’s diffusion.
THE ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN MARKETING COMMUNICATION
Public relations is that aspect of communication which evaluates public attitudes, identifies the policies
and procedures of a person or an organization with the public interests, and executes a programme of
action to earn public understanding and acceptance. Its objective is to create mutual understanding and
goodwill; it can as well be a supplemental form of communication useful to the effective implementation
of marketing communication and marketing strategies.