Page 245 - DMGT510_SERVICES_MARKETING

Services Marketing

Notes Coverage of the Medium

The medium to be chosen should be in a position to cover the target audience. Taking a different
perspective, the medium should be in a position to explain with verifiable facts the kind of
target audience it reaches and their detailed characteristics. If the service marketer finds that it
suits his requirement then he can choose the medium.

Example: An advertiser would like to know the type of people who would be seeing the
outdoor advertising in the form of posters or hoardings (or billboards) inside a railway station;
if they are the same as his target audience, then the medium is a good choice.

Comparative Costs

The service marketer should know the comparative costs between media in reaching a specific
target group, which is expressed in Rupees per thousand viewers or readers.

13.3.2 Public Relations

Public relations can be defined as:
“It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill between an organisation and its
‘publics’.”
— British Institute of Public Relations
The ‘publics’ constitute all those people and organisations that have a stake in the company (the
‘stakeholders’). They include shareholders, employees, governments (local or central), opinion
leaders of society, the media, customers (present and potential), financial institutions, suppliers,
etc.
Like most other communication programmes, public relations should also adhere to objective
specifications, goal settings, deciding on the mix of PR activities and implementing them in an
integrated way while evaluating results.

Public Relations vs. Advertising

A comparison between these two effective elements of the communication mix would be useful
for the service marketer in determining their respective utility.

Advertising is wholly dependent on the media to reach its target audience; PR does use the

media but can also communicate without the latter (e.g., a dinner for opinion leaders).
Advertising is a paid form of communication through the media; PR has no media cost -

but incurs substantial PR costs like salaries of PR personnel, costs of hosting dinners or
press conferences, etc.
Advertising has total control on the content and exposure of its message; PR does not. As

the media accepts payment for advertising, it has to print every part of the message and
has to display it in the place and at the time desired; if the message has to be repeated ad
nauseam, so will it be. The same is not the case with press releases arranged by PR. If a
major story breaks, the press release could be relegated to the back pages or shelved for
some other day when the message value might have lost its topical value.

Advertising seeks to change opinions by changing awareness; PR seeks to change attitudes
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by changing opinions.

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