Utilization of Different Marketing Channels for Promotion

Marketing communication plays vital role in promoting organizational products and services amongst the target audience. Along with this, marketing communication is also useful in conveying organizational messages to its stakeholders. It helps the organization to stay connected with its stakeholders in relation with providing them updates regarding their products and services, introduction of new products and services and for other updates such as discount offers introduced by the organization in the market, etc. There are number of marketing communication methods are available in the market and in relation with this, it is the duty of whole marketing team of an organization to select one of the best amongst the available options so that desired goals could be attained along with approaching to the target audience in an effective manner. Spreading awareness is an essential task for an organization in relevance to its existing as well as new products and services. In this relation, marketing communication plays vital role and it has various aspects which needs to be analysed so that desired goals and objectives could be attained easily (Armstrong, et. al., 2015).

Primary aim of this report is to encouraging usage of marketing communication channels for promoting organizational products and services. First section of the report will include utilisation of different marketing channels and effectiveness of those channels in terms of attainment of desired objectives of organization. Further, report will aim on designing communication objectives based on organizational current situation and along with this; this section will focus over the selection of most appropriate marketing communication channels concerning the organizational products and services. Next section of the report will include an effective marketing communication plan concerning the attainment of communication objectives such as spreading awareness, approaching to the target audience and gaining or maintaining the acquired position in the marketplace. The last section of the report will aim over evaluation of marketing communication plan in relation with the communication strategy, channel choice as well as based on utilisation of creative content for attracting target audience towards the organizational products and services.

In this report, marketing communication plan will be discussed in relation with the Amazon Inc. It is the leading company in electronic commerce industry with its operations in more than 188 countries across the globe along with the registered offices in 12 countries across the globe. Currently, organization has also set up its physical presence in the market in the name of Amazon Go. This store is a hi-tech grocery store in Seattle, Washington (Amazon Inc., 2018). Highlights of this store are that it is a partially automated store in which consumers could purchase products as per their requirements without using a cashier and checkout stations. Apart from this, Amazon has recently introduced a revolutionary product in the name of ‘Alexa’ in the market, which is a masterpiece of artificial intelligence. This is currently used in Amazon Echo and in the Amazon Echo Dot, which are smart speakers (Alexa, 2018). For the motive of spreading awareness amongst the target audience, this report will focus over the usage of marketing communication techniques.

Designing Communication Objectives Based on Organizational Current Situation

Integrated marketing communication is a simple concept and it ensures that all forms of communication are linked together. Primary objective of communication is the act of transferring intended meanings from one group, entity to another group or entity. Individual use communication tools such as mobile applications, carrier network and social media platforms for transferring information amongst each other. While companies’ communication tools are majorly used for marketing its products and services. Marketing channel include people, organization, and all necessary activities which are required for transferring ownership of goods from the production point to the consumption point. The end users also know this as way through which products and services reaches. Marketing channel is an effective tool for management of organization and act as one of the most effective marketing strategy. Distribution channel also act an important part of the marketing channel and these channels are mainly used for transferring products from the manufacturer to the consumer for the purpose of consumption (Belch, et. al., 2014). 

Roles of marketing channel in marketing strategy are:

• Develops a path between producer and consumer;
• Pricing strategy of organization gets influenced;
• Promotes products in the target market which results in generating demand for the product; and
• Helps the organization to attain its desired goals and objectives along with enhancing profitability and revenues (Luxton, Reid & Mavondo, 2015).

Mainly, there are four types of marketing channels, which are used by the organizations in terms of attaining the communication objectives, which are as follows:

• Producer to Consumer: In this channel, producer directly sells its products and services directly to the consumers without involvement of intermediaries. Intermediaries are wholesalers, retailer, agent or reseller and producer directly connects with the consumer in terms of trading of goods and services. Consumer could directly meet producer and purchase products and services as per their requirement without involving any other channel. The farmers mainly use this type of marketing channel so that they could set prices for their crops by their own without involving any other person in between the process (Petersen, Kushwaha & Kumar, 2015).
• Producer-retailer-consumer (one level channel): This is a three tier-marketing channel under which products and services reaches to the end consumers via retailer from manufacturer. Consumer could not reach directly to the manufacturer. Manufacturers of shoes, cloths, furniture, etc mainly use this type of marketing channel. As consumer will purchase these products in small quantities, thus, retailer helps them to purchase in small quantity. In relation with developing and maintaining brand loyalty, organizations uses various communication channels such as social media platforms to stay connected with the consumers. With these channels, organization could also take feedback from the customers in relation to their products and services. This also helps the organization to develop a reliable and positive image amongst target audience, which result in development of brand loyalty.
• Producer-wholesaler-retailer-consumer (two level channels): Functioning of this channel flows from producer to wholesaler to retailer and then finally product reaches to the consumer. This is a wide channel and manufacturer sells products in bulk quantities, thus, wholesalers are involved. Further, product reaches to the retailer from where consumer gets the products and services as per their requirements (Kozlenkova, et. al., 2015).

Amongst these channels, Amazon executes on the producer to consumer channel, although, Amazon was producing until the Alexa was introduced in the market but still they act as the agent between retailers, wholesalers, manufactures and consumers. When consumer purchase anything from Amazon, it is considered a Amazon’s product and in relation with this, they also provide appropriate support to the consumers with regards to their queries and issues with the products and services purchased from Amazon. Communication objectives of Amazon are spreading awareness amongst the target audience so that the demand of the particular product and service could be enhanced. Increased demand will lead the organization towards increasing its revenues, profitability as well as sales (Johansson & Kask, 2017). Thus, organization could easily attain its desired goals and objectives. In relation with promoting the products and services, following are Amazon’s objectives in consideration to the communication:

• Creating awareness: Awareness creation is the most primary objective for every organization about their products and services. Amazon’s product offering is huge and they introduce new and revolutionary products and services in regular intervals with the objective of maintaining the acquired position in the target market. In relation to spreading awareness amongst the public about their products and services, organization uses both traditional as well as contemporary mediums of marketing. In order to enhance the demand of a product, it is necessary for the organization to promote and market it in the target market in such a manner so that effective image could be established amongst the consumer’s mind-sets (Skarmeas, Zeriti & Baltas, 2016).
• Imparting knowledge: Apart from spreading awareness amongst the target audience, another objective of communication is imparting knowledge concerning the organizational products and services. When a new product or service is introduced in the market, it is required for the organization to generate the demand for the same irrelevance to its need amongst the target audience. In relation with this, organizational marketing team creates effective and attractive advertisements so that target audience could be influenced with the specifications, benefits and utilisation of product. This helps the organization to generate demand for the particular product in the target market and amongst the target audience.
• Projecting an image:Amazon is using multiple advertisement and promotional platforms for promoting its new product Alexa in the global market. In this scenario, organization has generated demand for the artificial assistant rather producing a product, which is in demand. With the help of various advertisement and marketing platforms, organization is continuously promoting its products with creative content in order to project an image in the target audience so that they could also feel the necessity of the product. This has helped organization to enhance the demand for their new product along with defending its leading position in the global online industry (Watson, et. al., 2015).

Amazon is an American electronic commerce and cloud computing Multinational Corporation. Jeff Bezos founded it in 1994 and in a short of time; organization has attained the position of the largest retailer in the world in terms of revenues and market capitalisation. Primary reason behind this is its huge product offering and effective communication channels for promoting those products amongst the target market. Along with this, market entry strategy is another effective strategy for the organization in terms of attainment of success, growth and sustainable development. Recently, organization has introduced Alexa in the global market which is a revolutionary product and primary aim of this product is to provide an artificial assistant to the public who will play music, tell weather conditions, news, sport updates and many more (Kotabe & Helsen, 2014).

With regards to this, organization is promoting their new product through every possible medium of advertisement and promotion in order to target large area the marketplace. Currently, Alexa is available in English, French, German, and Japanese language and soon it will be launched in other languages in order to target more people. In order to promote Alexa, organization has mainly focused over digital media strategies, television marketing, and certain effective traditional modes of marketing such as newspaper advertisement, board hoardings, etc. (Charter, 2017).

Selection of Most Appropriate Marketing Communication Channels

Amazon has introduced Alexa as an artificial assistant in Echo and Echo Dot products. In relation with their promotion in the market, organization has adopted various marketing and promotional services. Marketing and promotional strategies are adopted with the objective of generating the demand for the product in the target market. Every organization set up certain expectations from every product and Amazon’s expectations from Alexa is huge as it is the core product of Amazon and it is first step towards artificial intelligence. Success and development of Alexa will help the organization to create an effective image in the artificial intelligence industry. This will expand organizational business along with the attainment sustainable development in the global market.

In relation with Alexa, organizational communication objectives are as follows:

• Along with the common objectives such as enhancing profits, revenues, and sales, organizational communication objectives are advanced as well as unique. Amazon is a customer centric organization in relation with maintaining their customer centric approach, organizational main objective is increasing customer satisfaction (Tarhini, Ammar & Tarhini, 2015).
• Amazon allows its users to access a personalised homepage in relevance with their history of purchases and the items viewed. This develops a personal interaction between organization and customer, which is an essential element in terms of development of organizational positive image amongst the target audience.
• Communication objectives of Amazon also include development as well as maintenance of personal relations with the existing and potential customers. This is a form of customer retention strategy, which helps the organization to defend its acquired position in the market.
• Amazon also allows its customers to post reviews, feedbacks and their opinion after purchase and consumption of product and service respectively. Along with this, marketing team also takes care for the feedbacks given by the customers. Strict and quick actions are taken so that the desired goals could be attained as well as by developing a reliable and customer centric image in the target market (Wang, Pauleen & Zhang, 2016).
• Organization regularly launches discounted prices offers, festivals offers, etc. and markets the same amongst the target audience through multiple advertising channels in order to spread awareness amongst the existing as well as amongst the new customers.
• In terms of advertisement and promotion, primary motive is to build appropriate relations with the consumers, thus, content of advertisement is also designed by analysing the customer’s latest requirements, trending topics, consumer behaviour as well as based on purchasing power of consumers.
• It is the strategy of Amazon that while promoting their products and services, they focuses on portraying the real picture of the product rather highlighting the irrelevant features just for the purpose of sales promotion. This has helped the organization to set up its brand loyalty in global market along with gaining leading position in terms of marketing capitalisation and revenues across the globe (Mamic, 2017).
• Apart from the above objectives, organizational other communication objectives are meeting target customer’s demands. Concerning this, organization invests a huge amount into R&D and market research analysis so that target audience’s demand could be analysed. This helps the organization to design the same sort of products and services, which are required amongst them, and it helps the organization to increase customer satisfaction along with imparting an effective image in the target market.
• Amazon creates advertisements and promotional campaigns in such as ways so that it could be an eye-catching event for the target audience. Along with this, they also use eye catching images and colours in their website so that consumer could spend as more as possible time due to consumers start feeling the necessity of unwanted products.

Primary motive behind these communication objectives are also attracting target audience towards organization and its products, developing brand loyalty amongst the target audience, generating demand for the organizational products through highlighting their USPs, etc. In terms of attainment of these objectives, Amazon uses traditional as well as non-traditional media. Each form of media has its own unique advantages. In terms of traditional forms of marketing, television, radio, magazines, newspaper, etc. are the primary sources through which organization promotes as well as communicate with the target audience in relevance with the products and services. Whereas, non-traditional forms of media used by organization are display advertising, social media, search marketing, email marketing, etc. for the motive of attaining its desired communication objectives (Turban, et. al., 2017). 

Communication channels are adopted for transferring information as well as for spreading awareness amongst the organizational stakeholders. Stakeholders for the organization are employees, board of directors, shareholders, customers, suppliers, investors, etc. In relation with every update or any new action taken by organization irrelevance to its nature, it is necessary to communicate amongst these shareholders in order to avoid glitches in organizational functionality. Thus, when marketing team develops and forms marketing strategies with the objective of promoting products and services of organization, it is necessary to provide information regarding the marketing strategies to every other party that will get affected after implementation of strategies (Turban, et. al., 2015). Apart from this, communication channels also help the organization to develop interaction amongst the teammates, employees and workers through which the desired goals and objectives could be attained. With the effective communication channels, employees could remain on the same page as expected and directed by the top-level management, which becomes the appropriate method for the purpose of attainment of desired goals and objectives.

With the help of effective communication mediums within the workplace, employees could easily confront the challenges as well as the issues, which arise due to various reasons such as shift in consumer demands, perception, taste and their behaviour. Effective communication methods helps in developing a n interactive workplace environment which promotes employees to share their feedbacks, views and opinions while forming benchmarks for the product’s quality, customer satisfaction and in relation with other aspects (Gregory, Ngo & Karavdic, 2017). Effective communication method also promotes an employee to reach to the top-level management without facing barrier in between the reaching process and without any fear; complaint or any type of suggestion for improving the organizational functionality could be communicated to the top-level management. Regular communication amongst the management and employees helps them to remain on the same page in relation with the accomplishment of tasks of the organization along with the attainment of goals and objectives.

An Effective Marketing Communication Plan

The communication channels selected and implemented by organization concerning the marketing and promotion of its products and services are effective as well as efficient. Organizational marketing team has analysed the market conditions, consumer behaviour and the demand of target audience in relevance with the selection of marketing strategies. In relation with targeting every type of customer, integration of traditional as well as non-traditional form of communication channels have been adopted. With the help of these channels, organization could easily spread awareness amongst the products and services of organization in the target market along with effectively approaching to the target and potential customers. Every media method has its own unique advantage and to gain the maximum outcomes from the implementation of strategies of the organization, marketing team of the organization creates effective advertisements with simple and clear messages with the aim of targeting right audience concerning the particular product (Laudon & Laudon, 2016). Amazon offers millions of products, thus, it is not possible to promote every product, hence, organizational marketing team has segregated the products and formed certain categories such as grocery, fashion, electronics, etc. Then these products are promoted in the target market with the appropriate medium of media.

As Amazon is using both traditional as well as non-traditional forms of media in terms of communicating with the target audience, it is required for the organization to fulfil target audience’s demand by serving them with their required products and services. Every media form has its own effectiveness and it contributes to the omnipresence of the company. Organizational media mix contains various tools and techniques and one of the effective tools in organizational media mix is newspaper. Newspaper is one of the necessity goods and it is one of the great sources of transfer of information. Thus, Amazon also utilises this platform in order to reach out to the large customer group (Nica & Potcovaru, 2015). Amazon has diverse customer base and for targeting every group of customers, its marketing team has adopted different media mix. Social media platforms are also used widely and wisely in order to approach to the target customers. Social media techniques help the organization to cover the large area of the target market, which ultimately helps in building brand reputation amongst the target audience. In this whole scenario, every media mix has its own capacity of targeting the selected audience group. For example, newspaper advertisements are only effective when one of the target customers reads the newspaper; otherwise, it will not be effective. But in the scenario of social media and email marketing, those people could be targeted who had showed certain level of interest amongst the particular products and services along with targeting the new customers by offering them attractive deals such as discounted prices, and many other offers (Benbasat, 2014).

The foremost objective of adopting and implementing a promotional strategy is spreading awareness amongst the target audience along generating demand for the products and services sold by organization. Thus, communication channels adopted and implemented by the marketing team of Amazon are appropriate because it has helped the organization to attain positive outcomes along with acquiring the leading position in the electronic commerce industry with millions of product offerings (Strauss & Frost, 2016).

Evaluation of Marketing Communication Plan

Integrated marketing communication integrates all the promotional tools in order to promote organizational products and services in the selected marketplace. Concerning to this, organization could easily promote its products and services in an appropriate manner. Along with this, organization could easily spread awareness amongst the target audience. Primary objective of organization with relevance to the promotion are enhancing demand, revenues and the profitability of the organization.

Advantages are many in relation with IMC plan such as it creates competitive advantage, boost profits and sales along with saving time and money. IMC helps the organization to stay around the customers in all stages of buying process. It is also essential in terms of building relationship with the customers along with developing a positive image of the organizational products’ image. It stretches message across all communication tools in terms of spreading awareness amongst the customers along with generating demand amongst them.

IMC plan is an essential element of marketing as well as for whole business plan. It is typically a six-step plan, which is implemented with the objective of utilising all the marketing activities in order to execute same idea in an appropriate manner. Following are the crucial steps of IMC plan:

• Know you target audience
• Executing situational analysis
• Determining marketing objectives
• Determining the budget for promotion and advertisement activities
• Developing strategies and tactics to execute the plan in an appropriate manner
• Evaluation and measurement techniques so that the positive outcomes could be attained

Every step has their own importance and effectiveness in terms of execution of the plans in order to enhance organizational performance. The first step helps the organization to determine its target audience in the new market and then situational analysis is executed so that target audience could be targeted along with analysing organizational internal and external strengths and weaknesses. The third step determines the plans and strategies for accomplishing marketing communication objectives through which the desired objectives could easily be accomplished. Further, budget needs to be determined so that the marketing activities could be allocated with required budget. Next step is implementation of marketing strategies and tactics followed by the evaluation and monitoring control activities in order to accomplish the desired goals along with determining the errors and challenges faced during the implementation of tactics.  

Primary objective of a marketing plan is to enhance and generate demand for the organizational products and services in the target market. Apart from this, marketing communication plan also invites customers to share their feedbacks and views regarding organizational products and services. With this regard, organization creates attractive messages, tag lines and slogans for developing an effective image in the target audience’s mind-sets. Amazon uses bright colours and images in its website so that customers’ interest could be developed. Along with this, organization also uses creative content in its advertising strategies so that customers could easily be targeted. Effective advertising and promotional strategies helps the organization to develop its unique image in the market along with segregating it from its competitors (Cornelissen & Cornelissen, 2017).

Marketing communication plan is developed for highlighting the USPs of the products and services offered to the target audience. Another primary objective of a marketing communication plan is to analyse the target audience’s needs, demands, and wants so that appropriate products and services could be offered to them in relation with gaining positive outcomes. Marketing communication plan is also effective in terms of analysing the level of competition in the target market along with determining the strategies adopted and implemented by the competitors (Kotler, 2015). With the help of this, organization could easily develop its strategies more effective through which desired goals could be attained along with the attainment of competitive advantage. Apart from this, it is essential for the organization to adopt dynamic strategies, which could generate positive outcomes irrelevance to the circumstances of situations along with meeting with the challenges and the issues, which may arise while performing organizational functions (Fill & Turnbull, 2016).

Amazon has adopted two ways communication techniques through which flow of communication amongst the target audience and organization could pass in an effective manner. Major objective of communication plan used by an organization is to spread awareness amongst the target audience with relevance to its products and services so that desired outcomes such as enhancing revenues, sales and profitability could be attained. Two ways communication process helps organization to communicate with its target audience in an effective manner in relevance with the sharing information to them in terms of introduction of new products and services and regarding any other updates. This communication process also offers customers to directly connect to the organization and could get resolved their queries, issues faced by them with the usage of product, etc. (Verhoef, Kannan & Inman, 2015).

Marketing communication plan of Amazon focuses on both modes of media mix i.e. traditional as well as non-traditional forms of media. Both the mediums have its own advantages, which lead the organization towards success, growth and sustainable development in the target market. Traditional forms of marketing channels used by Amazon are newspaper, magazine, radio, television, etc. Recently, organization is using traditional forms of marketing channels much more in comparison to the non-traditional forms of marketing mediums for promoting their new product i.e. Alexa (Smilansky, 2017). Main aim behind this is approaching to large group of customers in the target market through which the demand could be generated by making the target audience feel the demand for the product. Television marketing is one of the tools, which are mainly used for promoting Alexa amongst the target audience. Amazon is a customer centric organization, thus, they regularly update their marketing messages and the promotional campaigns in such a manner so that brand loyalty could be maintained along with the utilisation of available resources of marketing. The biggest reason Amazon selected TV was its ability to drive action and see a measurable difference. Company always tries to develop certain level of curiosity amongst the customers regarding the upcoming offers, products by displaying them a teaser for the same.

While moving towards the non-traditional mediums used by organization in terms of promoting its products and services in the target market, it could be analysed that, Amazon majorly focuses over artificial intelligence and big data analysis to collect the data regarding the customer who showed certain level of interest amongst the organizational products, services, etc. Further, organization targets those customers personally through email marketing and social media platforms. For example, if a customer is searching for casual shoes over Amazon’s website and he showed interest in two or three pairs of shoes but did not purchased. From that point, organizational approaching activity starts and as soon as possible, that consumer will surf social media platforms and email, he will found suggestions and ways to purchase the particular product. Organization believes that when the same product or service comes in front of a consumer’s eye, after a certain point of time, need for the product generates along with developing an effective image in the customer’s mind-set in relation with the product. Apart from this, display advertisements have also become the major factor for organizational success and growth. These advertisements are shown on other websites i.e. third party websites and are typically in the form of banner ads near the top of the page. This also helps the organization to develop an effective image amongst the target audience along with imparting knowledge amongst them for the products and services promoted by the organization (Ashley & Tuten, 2015).

With the help of these platforms, organization could easily attain its communication objectives. Currently, Amazon is one of the largest electronic commerce company and ruling the whole industry in terms of market capitalisation across the globe. With more than millions of products, organization has been able to target large group of customers. Along with this, organization also believes in the customer satisfaction, thus, organizational main motive is to satisfy consumer’s needs by providing them the products as per their requirements (Kumar, 2015). 

In terms of evaluation of communication plan of Amazon, ten out of ten marks could be given, as it is the mixture of all elements available in the market in terms of marketing and promotion. Every marketing medium has its own significance and in relation with this, organizational marketing team has analysed each medium’s effectiveness and implemented at the right spot from where the maximum outputs could be generated. All elements of marketing mix used by organization are consistent and congruent across all the communications to its customers. Thus, it could be said that Amazon’s integrated marketing communication plan is superior as well as effective in terms of other marketing communication plans (Blakeman, 2018).

Marketing communication plan of Amazon include both traditional as well as non-traditional mediums, which are as follows:

• Newspaper
• Magazine
• Radio
• Television

• Email marketing
• Display advertisements on third party websites
• Social media platforms
• Sales promotions
• Direct marketing
• Public relation campaigns

In terms of evaluating, the effectiveness of these mediums adopted and implemented by the organization in terms of attainment of the desired goals and objectives. Motive of marketing communication plan is to develop some sort of relationship between organization and its customers. This relationship helps the organization to retain its customers along with targeting new ones through which the common objectives of every organization such as increasing demand of the organizational products and services, increased revenues as well as development of an effective image in the target market along with gaining competitive advantage. As, Amazon is one of the largest online retailer across the globe and in relation with maintaining the acquired position because the close competitors are also adopting unique measures in terms of marketing and promotion for the purpose of attainment of leading position (Parente & Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, 2014).

Apart from this, two ways communication process adopted by the organization is another major highlight of Amazon’s marketing communication plan. This communication process helps the organization to take feedbacks and opinions of the target and potential customers through various mediums of marketing used by organization in their IMC plan (Batra & Keller, 2016). Primary sources of through which organization obtain feedbacks and opinions from the customers in relation with the products’ quality, services and related to other queries are social media platforms, email marketing and the organizational official website under customer feedback section. Customers could also interact with the organization through the customer care representative appointed by organization especially for handling customer’s queries, and for providing them regular updates regarding the offers, discounts, etc. These measures are especially adopted for building positive interaction with the consumers along with developing an effective and positive image in the customer’s mind-sets (Killian & McManus, 2015).  

Conclusion:

From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that integrated marketing communication plan is an effective approach in terms of approaching to the target audience in an effective manner. Apart from this, primary objective of marketing communication plan is to spread awareness amongst the target market in relevance with the products and services of organization. With the help of above discussed marketing strategies, organization could easily attain its desired goals and objectives along with developing an effective image in the market. IMC also helps the organization to impart the unique features, KRAs of organization, and other specialities amongst the target audience. In this report, marketing communication plan of Amazon has been discussed as well as evaluated. From evaluating the marketing channels, communication objectives, selection and integration of communication channels to the discussion of marketing communication plan and its evaluation has been covered in this report. Concerning this, it could be said that all promotional mix elements discussed above are effective as well as consistent in terms of communicating with the customers as well as in terms of targeting new customers.

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