Using and understanding the Integrated Marketing Communication elements is a vital aspect in leading the company. The selected competitor company is Rixos Hotels, which provides all-inclusive resorts and hotels services. The company has a website and it widely uses online advertisement. The work aims to emphasize the role of the target audience and the Internet while making the marketing strategy for the company.
Integrated Marketing Communication
There are different aspects of Integrated Marketing Communication that facilitate the success of the company. It is important to understand and work on each element of the communication. The first element of Integrated Marketing Communication is advertising. Advertising is a dominant and foremost element because it introduces the main product or service of the company and serves as the main tool in making the customers acquainted with the company. There are several major advantages of using the advertisement, the first of which is the fact that advertising may cover several demographics at one time. This is especially important for the hospitality business. Thus, the advertisement can reach multiple groups of the population simultaneously, which minimizes the budget expenditure. The disadvantage of advertising is that there are no guaranteed results. The advertising market today is very competitive and there is no way to consumers will choose the company’s services only because of the advertisement. The next element of Integrated Marketing Communication is direct marketing. One of the pros of direct marketing is targeting, which means that direct advertising creates the possibility to emphasize the particular target group. This method is effective because customers will be more aware of the service. However, this Integrated Marketing Communication tool may be intrusive, which means that people might find such kind of marketing annoying. Moreover, such an approach may lead to low rates of responses because the target audience is relatively small. The next element of IMC is sales promotion, the pros of such a method are that it is an easy way to attract customers. This is especially useful when the company is at the beginning of its work. It will help the company to gain more popularity among new customers. However, the great cons of such an approach are that it narrows down the margins. This, in turn, means that the revenue will be shorted by the sales promotion. The next element of this Integrated Marketing Communication is public relations or publicity. The main advantage of implementing public relations is that it creates trust among consumers. People tend to trust real people and popular figures more than a regular digital advertisement.
However, the disadvantage of using publicity is that the control over such type of marketing is limited. For example, if the company may control the advertisement directly, the public relations cannot be totally controlled. Thus, the company and its services might be represented in different, sometimes unexpected ways. Finally, there is a personal selling approach, which also has some strong and weak sides. The strong side of such an element is that it is very specialized. This approach focuses on customers’ personal preferences and needs, which makes the personal selling method effective. This creates trust and improves customers’ attitudes towards the company. However, it could be too much time-consuming because the company should spend time on every customer individually. In comparison with advertising, it requires more time and expenditures.
Product
The product I have created is the Instagram hashtag for the Hotel Jacksonville University Inn. Today such an Internet platform as Instagram is at the top of popularity and consequently many of the target audience is actively using it, it would be great if they could follow and track all the publications related to our services. That hashtag could be used when using the publicity IMC element. I think that making the company active on social media is a worthy approach because it allows the company to attract more customers.
IMC Approach
The hotel services need a good strategy for integrated marketing because the market is very competitive. The strategy is carried out by analyzing the target audience and peculiarities of the market. In my Integrated Marketing Communication, several approaches will be implemented. They are public relations and target marketing approaches. The target audience of the company is mainly young people. Thus, there is an opportunity to set targeted marketing and promote the clothes among Instagram users from 18 to 50 years. Using public relations is very beneficial because today people are influenced by social media figures a lot. Their impact on their audience’s decisions is tremendous and their reviews on the company’s service will positively influence the company’s image.
Messaging
I will communicate with the target market through public figures, especially Instagram travel bloggers. According to the study, Instagram travel bloggers’ posts and pictures form a positive image of the mentioned destination (Gholamhosseinzadeh et al., 2021). In addition, targeted advertisements on Instagram will be used. Since the main users of Instagram are young people, it is a good platform for company promotion. I would like to send the clients a message about the reasons for buying our clothes but not another one. The company’s message is that we care about our clients and we value the quality of the service. Using described Integrated Marketing Communication elements, we will deliver the company’s message to the customers effectively.
Measuring Effectiveness
In order to measure the advertising effectiveness, the analysis of the site traffic will be carried out. Preparing an effective marketing strategy will allow a company to increase revenues and make a positive impact on the client’s attitude towards the company. The analysis of the site helps to detect the number of new visitors at different time range. Since the sales will be conducted through the Internet site, it is logical to compare the site traffic before the advertisement and after its implementation. Thus, it is the most effective way to measure the effectiveness of the chosen marketing approaches. These are the most applicable elements of IMC for such type of service and the target audience of the company. During the preparation of the integrated marketing plan, such aspects as the target audience, market peculiarities, and analysis of the elements of Integrated Marketing Communication were taken into consideration.
Conclusion
For the hospitality services integrated marketing approach such elements of the Integrated Marketing Communication like direct marketing and public relations will be used. The Instagram platform will help to set the targeted advertisement and Instagram fashion blogs will provide the publicity. It is important to analyze the target audience when making a marketing strategy and choosing IMC elements. In addition, an effective marketing strategy requires an analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the elements of Integrated Marketing Communication for the company.
Reference
Gholamhosseinzadeh, M. S., Chapuis, J. M., & Lehu, J. M. (2021). Tourism netnography: how travel bloggers influence destination image. Tourism Recreation Research, 1-17. Web.