What is Communication?
Communication is the act of conveying meanings from one entity or group to another through the use of mutually understood signs, symbols, and semiotic rules. Every communication involves at least one sender, a message and a recipient. The transmission of the message from sender to recipient can be affected by a huge range of things. These include our emotions, the cultural situation, the medium used to communicate and our location. An effective communicator understands their audience, chooses an appropriate communication channel, tailors their message for this particular channel and encodes the message effectively to reduce misunderstanding by the recipients.
Marketing Communication:
Marketing communications (MARCOM) uses different marketing channels and tools in combination with various Marketing communication channels to focus on ways a business communicates a message to its desired market.
Marketing communications are those techniques that the company or a business individual uses to convey promotional messages about their products and services. The sole purpose of marketing communications is to increase the volume of sales by persuasive, informative, and positive messages. Marketing communication provides new facts through encouraging messages about products and services.
There are different tools used to attract the target audience. However, which tool to use depends on various factors such as geographical location of target audience, popularity of products & services, etc. The following factors affect the Effective marketing communication process.
Persuasive Message: Different customers have different requirements and expectations. Therefore, it is very important to customising persuasive messages accordingly.
Design: Every medium of communication such as magazine, newspaper, TV, digital media, or brochure has its own design and requirements. Hence, every company need to plan and design their messages accordingly.
Feedback: Must collect feedback from the audience. It will help the company to improve its marketing communication.
Following are the important tools popularly used for marketing communications:
Pamphlets
Brochures
Emails
Advertisements
Websites
Sales Promotions and Campaign
Exhibitions
Personal Selling
Press Release
Persuasive Communication:
Almost every communication in our life bears the element of persuasion. Persuasion is an important element of any business communication. Persuasive communication is any message whose sole purpose is to get the listener to support and transform their thinking in favour of the presenter's perspective. It is about creating an attitude change to influence social behaviour. Persuasion alongside with good negotiating skills will ensure that one gets the best possible deal negotiating terms and contracts with clients and suppliers.
Persuasion skills help a marketing and sales professional to actually win over the hearts of clients who not only become their loyal customers but also bring in more clients along with them.
The following are the important steps involved in persuading customers:
Know Your Audience
Get the Audience's Attention
Establish Credibility
Tailor the Message to the Medium
Convey Benefits
Persuasion Marketing:
Persuasion marketing applies what we know about human psychology to develop techniques to market products or services. It specifically applies to the promotions aspect of the marketing mix, and builds on a customer's impulsive behaviour to lead them to purchase.
In terms of Internet commerce, persuasion marketing includes how a web page is designed. Applying human psychology to web design, focusing on the part of the decision-making process that’s not consciously controlled. Elements such as layout, copy, and typography, combined with the right promotional messages encourage website visitors to follow pre-planned pathways on the website and take specific actions.
There are four primary elements of persuasion marketing. They are:
Structured communication: The goal is to move a customer along his or her impulse curve, initially encouraging a customer’s impulse, and making a call to action after that impulse level has been raised to its highest point.
Storytelling: It uses a narrative framework to invoke a customer’s emotional and subconscious responses, so that they join their more analytical responses. Use of particular words and images evoke habitual emotional responses, such as affection, familiarity, empathy, and desire for triumph/resolution.
Copywriting: It is using the right words and phrases for headings, captions, product descriptions, and other text. The persuasion marketer tests different kinds of copy, in order to determine which is most likely to produce the emotion or answer he or she’s looking for.
Neuromarketing: It is perhaps the most important component of persuasion marketing, applying psychology to the marketing message.
Effective public Communication also plays a major role in persuasion. It can inform an audience, persuade them to embrace the company’s point of view and challenge them to take action. It's so effective that a wide range of businesses have invested in public relations firms to promote their companies. Public communication is an incredible tool to promote brand awareness and maximise a company’s business's exposure.
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