Marketing Communication Methods
Should we use traditional marketing or digital marketing? This question is top-of-mind for all marketers. The decision to use one platform or outlet can mean the difference between success or failure. Evaluating each option is time-consuming but essential for forming a cohesive, meaningful marketing effort. This section looks at a variety of traditional media activities, including advertising, public relations, sales promotions, and direct marketing. It also explores digital marketing, including websites, interactive tools, content marketing, SEO (search engine optimization), and other strategies. As you read, consider the criteria you might need to use when determining which strategies are right for your organization and offerings.
Advertising: Pay to Play
Selection and Implementation
The media planner must make decisions about the media mix and timing, both of which are restricted by the available budget. The media-mix decision involves choosing the best combination of advertising media to achieve the goals of the campaign. This is a difficult task, and it usually requires evaluating each medium quantitatively and qualitatively to select a mix that optimizes reach and budget.
Unfortunately, there are few valid rules of thumb to guide this process, in part because it is difficult to compare audiences across different types of advertising media. For example, Nielsen ratings measure audiences based on TV viewer reports of the programs watched, while outdoor (billboard) audience-exposure estimates are based on counts of the number of automobiles that pass particular outdoor poster locations. The "timing of media" refers to the actual placement of advertisements during the time periods that are most appropriate, given the selected media objectives. It includes not only the scheduling of advertisements, but also the size and position of the advertisement.
There are three common patterns for advertising scheduling:
- Continuous advertising runs ads steadily at a given level indefinitely. This schedule works well products and services that are consumed on a steady basis throughout the year, and the purpose of advertising is to nudge consumers, remind them and keep a brand or product top-of-mind.
- Flighting involves heavy spurts of advertising, followed by periods with no advertising. This type of schedule makes sense for products or services that are seasonal in nature, like tax services, as well as one-time or occasional events.
- Pulsing mixes continuous scheduling with flighting, to create a constant drum-beat of ads, with periods of greater intensity. This approach matches products and services for which there is year-round appeal, but there may be some seasonality or periods of greater demand or intensity. Hotels and airlines, for example, might increase their advertising presence during the holiday season.