Page 243 - DMGT408DMGT203_Marketing Management

Marketing Management/Essentials of Marketing

Notes
Did u know? Fiske and Hartley have outlined some general factors that influence the
effectiveness of a communication:
1. The greater the monopoly of the communication source over the recipient, the
greater the recipient’s change, effected in favour of the source.
2. Communication effects are greatest where the message is in line with the receiver’s
existing opinions, beliefs and disposition.

3. Communication can produce the most effective shifts on unfamiliar, lightly felt,
peripheral issues that do not lie at the core of the recipient’s value system.
4. Communication is more likely to be effective where the source is believed to have
expertise, high status, objectivity, or likability, but particularly where the source
has power and can be identified with.

5. The social context, group, or reference group will mediate the communication and
influence whether or not the Communication is accepted.

Promotional Decisions

The following promotional decisions need to be taken:
1. Identify the target audience: The audience may be:

(a) Present users
(b) Potential users
(c) Influencer
(d) Decider

After identifying the target audience, the Communicator should decide two important
things:
(a) What is to be said to them?

(b) When and where is it to be said?
Given the target audience, the communicator has to ascertain several audience
characteristics, such as:

(a) Audiences’ thinking towards the company and its product, and that of its competitors.
(b) Audiences’ cognitive process (how the target audience processes the incoming
information: “people differ in their cognitive complexity as a result of education
and Intelligence”)
(c) After identifying the target audience, communicator must decide very carefully
exactly what responses are sought from the audience.
2. What messages should be sent
(a) The ultimate (sought after) response is purchase, the targeted change in the buyer’s
behaviour but this is the end result of a long process of consumer decision making.
(b) Consumer goes through a series of stages before purchasing a product.

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