Integrated Marketing Communications Plan

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PLAN A. ADVERTISING Advertising refers to the paid promotion of goods and services through a sponsoring organization or company. While marketing has the objective to choose markets that have the capacity to purchase a product,  advertising, on the other hand, is the paid communication through which relevant information about the product is conveyed to potential consumers (2001). In a general sense, the author plans to use advertising in order to be able to impart to interested Christian women aged 13-45 the availability of slots in the Virtuous Woman Pageant.

In a way, advertising will also be able to provide critical information regarding the Virtuous Woman Pageant. The author believes that when the advertising campaign for the Virtuous Woman Pageant is achieved effectively, this can lead to an increased interest for Christian women to join the pageant. There are commonly three main objectives of advertisements: (1) conveying relevant information regarding a particular product or service; (2) persuading consumers to purchase the advertised product; and, (3) keep the company under the watchful eyes of the public (2002).

But in this particular case, the author plans to mix the elements of all three objectives. Since the Virtuous Woman Pageant is a relatively new event, then it must be supported with informative and persuasive ads. Evaluation of Advertising 1) Advantages The existence of Internet and the continued revolution in the world of Information Technology are certainly positive signs for the successful advertising campaign for the Virtuous Woman Pageant. For instance, the author plans to use Popup ads and email ads as a form of online advertisement. ) Disadvantages In recent years, the public opinion regarding advertising has become very negative. They view it as a medium that only promotes lies. This is of course contrary to the purpose of advertisements to encourage the target market to patronize a particular product or service. Nowadays, most advertisements are either perceived as merely stating opinions or portraying a product or service in a totally distorted idea away from reality. It is his alarming situation regarding the true objectives of advertising that could lead to an increase in the responsibilities that the author and the organizers of the Virtuous Woman Pageant would face. B. PUBLICITY Publicity is a term that is closely related to public relations. While public relations refers to the proper management of all means of communication among the companies and the people involved, publicity, on the other hand, is the careful management of a product or service’s means of communication between the company and the general public. Therefore, it is basically an informative process.

However, its main objective is the promotion of products and services being offered by a company. Thus, a publicity plan is being made along the process in order to obtain excellent press coverage for the company’s products (2003). The author and the organizers plan to issue a press release regarding the launching of the Virtuous Woman Pageant, but other methods including Internet releases are in the author’s options. However, in order for these tools and techniques to be effectively utilized by the media, they must be able to generate a great interest from the public.

For this to happen, the author and the organizers of the Virtuous Woman Pageant plans to manipulate the press release in order to be a perfect match to the Christian women. The author believes that the most successful publicity releases are often related to topics that the general public can easily relate to. Evaluation of Publicity 1) Advantages The advantages of publicity include having low costs, and its credibility. New technologies such as web cameras and convergence are gradually changing the cost-structure. ) Disadvantages The disadvantages include the lack of control over how the releases will be used, and the accumulation of frustration regarding the low percentage of releases that are being accepted by the media. C. PERSONAL SELLING Sales are an important part of any commercial transaction. The most common approach to personal selling pertains to a systematic process of continuous yet measurable methods in which the person selling describes his offered products or services in such a way that the buyer will be able to visualize ow to benefit from the offered products or services in an economic way. Selling is basically a part of the implementation procedures of marketing. It often forms a particular grouping within a corporate structure, employing independent specialist operatives known as salesmen (2003). The continued interrogation in order to understand a consumer’s goal as well as the establishment of a set of feasible solutions by conveying the necessary information that convinces a buyer to achieve his goal at a reasonable cost is the main responsibility of the sales person.

On the other hand, the main objective of professional sales is to be able to know the needs and satisfy the wants of consumers effectively, and therefore convert possible customers into actual and reliable ones (2002). Evaluation of Personal Selling 1) Advantages Some of the distinct advantages that the author sees in the use of personal selling as an IMC tool for the Virtuous Woman Pageant include the immediate access to feedback, the persuasive nature of the endeavor, the option of choosing a target audience for the sales person, and its capability to give detailed information. ) Disadvantages Personal selling may have the tendency to become extremely expensive per exposure, and the gathered information may be different among the sales persons involved. It is a well-known fact that the main objective of selling is to help a consumer achieve his / her goals in a reasonable way. However, this is not always the case. For instance, Christian women can easily be persuaded by outside factors to join the Virtuous Woman Pageant that normally does not have any interest to them.

Some sales people are being commanded by their mother companies to sell to consumers odd products that they don’t necessarily need. This anomalous behavior is being supported by incentives of sales personnel to increase their total number of sales, incentives from the companies of service providers to sales personnel to sell their products where other similar products offered by competitors are offered, and the incentive to sell a consumer a product that is in need of being wiped out.

CONCLUSION The results of the analysis carried out on the proposed IMC tools that would be used for the Virtuous Woman Pageant indicated very significant effects, even amidst the threats of unrest. Therefore, we could conclude that the IMC tools could still be expected to contribute to the successful launching of the Virtuous Woman Pageant. The review of the capabilities and resources of the IMC tools revealed very little inconsistencies regarding the overall strategies.

This is coherent with the traditional inside-out approach. However, the need to reconcile both the inside-out and outside-in approaches becomes imperative now for the author and the organizers of the Virtuous Woman Pageant. The analysis among the environment as well as the capabilities of the IMC tools revealed certain gaps, most of which are biased towards the environment.

However, these gaps paved the way towards determining a number of recommended strategic options to secure the competitiveness of the IMC tools. Also, the author and the organizers of the Virtuous Woman Pageant has to find a balance between adherence to internal forces within the management and to the changing forces of the environment in order to implement such strategic options Read more: http://ivythesis. typepad. com/term_paper_topics/2009/11/integrated-marketing-communications-plan. html#ixzz29wJi0bUf