by Marketing communications strategy is the strategy used by a company or individual to reach their target market through various types of communication. It includes your message (what is to be said), the medium (where it is to be said), and the target (to whom your message is reaching).
You might be wondering: what’s a marketing communications strategy that always works, even without a budget?
Easy: build relationships with journalists to get press coverage, guest posts, and backlinks.
Marketing communications or Public Relations is the ‘Promotion’ bit of the “4P’s of marketing” you might have learned during your university days (product, place, price, promotion).
Since “marketing communications strategy” is a mouthful, most people just shorten it to “Public Relations” which essentially uses online channels and software to identify relevant journalists, pitch them suitable stories and earn free media coverage.
Usually, PR strategy means building top of mind awareness amongst your ideal customers about the product or offer.
How you go about this will depend a lot on your experience, industry, and budget. If your marketing plan has a budget of a million dollars to spare, you can reach out to your target market with a promotional mix that includes TV or Facebook ads.
However, if you’re like most entrepreneurs, you want to promote your business without breaking the bank.
And there is no better way do that than by managing your own PR campaign internally without retaining the services of a media relations company or a full-service marketing company.
Wait, do you mean “free as in ‘free lunch”?
Exactly! If you apply the methods in this post to your own marketing communications strategy, you’ll learn how to build lasting relationships with journalists and influencers, get free press, and acquire more customers through a sustainable organic approach.
Anyone from your team can easily play the role of a marketing communications manager. You don’t even need to hire a dedicated marketing communications specialist!
Marketing Communications Strategy
Marketing communications strategy defines the entire range of activities you will do to market your products. This includes everything from paid marketing to media relations (PR).
Any integrated marketing communications strategy (IMC) should have three guiding principles:
- Brand alignment: Whatever marketing channel you choose should have the same brand perception as yours. For example, if you sell luxury watches, build relationships with journalists from TIME magazine, not those writing in your local newspaper (unless you live in the Hamptons!).
- Customer alignment: Follow the oldest rule in marketing – ‘be where your customers already are’. Pick channels where your consumers are already active. If you’re targeting younger millennials, advertise on social media platforms like Instagram, not Facebook, and certainly not day-time TV!
- Budget alignment: Choose a marketing channel that fits your budget (obviously). If you don’t have a budget, getting a print ad in WSJ will be out of your reach. But perhaps you can get a free press mention on WSJ’s website by reaching out to the journalists.
Any large company’s marketing plan will have several campaigns on multiple channels simultaneously. The combination of all these channels – PPC, social media, advertising on TV, print, radio, etc. – is called the “marketing mix” of your marketing communications strategy.
Smaller businesses, however, usually stick to one or two marketing channels to reach their target customers. Else you risk diluting your budget and focus.
Steps in Creating an Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy
Keeping the above principles in mind, you should create an annual or bi-annual Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy (IMC). Here are the key steps to follow.
- Understand Your Target Audience
Before you can create a strategic communications plan, you need to understand your target audience.
Any marketing communications plan has to be formulated for a specific group of target customers. Your IMC has to define the needs and characteristics of this target audience.
The simplest way to do this is to study your existing customers through surveys, interviews and so on. Ask:
What needs do most of your customers have in common?
Why are they buying your products or services?
These consumer insights are crucial for creating highly targeted marketing messages that your persona can truly relate to.
Your integrated marketing communications plan should always follow an outside-in approach, i.e. be centered around extensive customer analysis. You should invest time to stay in touch with shifting customer needs even if you are doing business-to-business marketing and you think you already know your customers very well. Avoid using an inside-out approach which does not invest sufficient resources in researching and analyzing customers. A marketing communication mix based on insufficient research is bound to be flawed.
- Define your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Your USP is the foundation of your integrated marketing communications plan. The USP should be reflected in every message your brand sends out across all communication channels, whether it’s for PR, sales or content marketing.
A clear USP will ensure that your brands messaging is clear, consistent and recognizable. It will also help you in crafting compelling media pitches.
Doing a SWOT analysis of your company from the viewpoint of your target audience will help you frame your USP. Ask:
Why will a consumer choose you over a competitor company?
Where do you fall short of your competition?
Survey your existing customers about their purchase intention. Understand the rationale behind the decision-making process of your typical consumer.
- Determine your Marketing Communications Mix
Marketing communications mix is the combination of channels you use to reach out to potential customers.
Your marketing mix could include:
- Online advertising on AdWords, Facebook, etc.,
- Offline advertising on print media, billboards or TV,
- Direct marketing,
- Personal selling,
- Events,
- Sponsorships,
- Content marketing,
- An annual sales promotion.
Large corporations would have dedicated teams within their marketing/sales division to take care of each of these activities. However a startup or small business would have to choose only two or three of these marketing strategies as part of their communication process.
As I mentioned before however, the most budget-friendly channel that drives the maximum results is DIY PR – that is Do It Yourself Public Relations.
- Define Branding Elements
Branding is a vital part of your IMC. It broadly includes two things.
At the most basic level branding is about having a consistent look and feel across all your online and offline marketing materials such as your:
- Website,
- Apps,
- Social platforms,
- Sales collateral,
- Direct marketing campaigns,
- Advertising campaigns,
- Business cards and so on.
However, at a deeper level, branding is about the core identity of your company. It’s about what you stand for, and what you want people to recognize you as. For example, Apple’s branding is all about cutting edge but extremely user-friendly technology. This identity should be a part of every marketing communication your organization sends out whether it’s for PR outreach, a new advertising plan for a sales promotion or a personal selling campaign.
- Define Success Metrics
Once you have decided on your promotional mix for your integrated marketing communications plan, you also need to plan the right set of success metrics for all communication channels.
For instance, your success in Public Relations can be measured by a range of outcomes from brand awareness to sales. Here are a few metrics:
- The number of mentions on different outlets and blogs,
- Number of website visits or signups from each article,
- Number of backlinks acquired,
- Website visits from social media shares,
- The number of leads or sales that can be attributed to Public Relations (This is easier to track in services businesses such as a graphic design or software services company.)
You will have to define metrics for each component of your communication mix.
These metrics will determine whether you are fulfilling the key objectives of your communications plans. So make sure you pick metrics that actually drive value to your business, irrespective of what communication platforms you are measuring.
For example, just because you are measuring social media, don’t use vanity metrics such as likes or retweets. Instead, go for website visits, leads acquired, etc. that indicate a higher degree of engagement by your target audiences and potential consumers.
- Execution
Once your plan for you marketing communication process is ready, you execute these marketing strategies, measure your success and modify your approach as necessary.
