Marketing Communications in the Digital Age

Isn’t it amazing how, in the incredibly saturated digital landscape, some products and services still manage to break through the noise and stand out?

This is the result of a consistent, well-planned marketing communications plan.

A marketing communications strategy is designed to capture attention, conversions, and engagement. It’s knowing how to broadcast the right message about your brand or service to the intended audience, using an intelligent mix of integrated methods (advertising, public relations), channels (sales promotions, direct marketing, personal selling, social media), and activities (e.g., product sampling kiosks, celebrity social media takeovers, immersive pop-up experiences) to achieve your marketing and sales goals.

Marketing 🤝  Public Relations 

We’ll tell it to you straight: one of the most effective marketing strategies is an integrated approach with PR at the forefront. As you build your brand and market it, your reputation and credibility will be tested. PR will help people answer the “is this brand legit?” question with a resounding “yes!”

Public Relations

PR is how an image is nurtured, information is expertly handled, and strong relationships are built between a brand and its audience. This usually involves: 

• Distributing press releases to credible media outlets.
• Organizing press conferences.
• Securing media coverage for events or product launches. 

And complimenting those efforts are other approaches integrated into your strategy. We suggest the tried and tested efficacy of advertising to match your strategy!

Advertising

This is a type of paid communication that gets distributed across a mix of channels (TV, radio, print media, and online platforms) to educate and sway customers about products, services, or ideas they didn’t even know they needed in their lives! 

These distribution methods include: 

• Sales Promotions – The sort that creates urgency and interest through time-sensitive incentives. Typically, discounts, coupons, contests, and free samples – just to name a few!
• Direct Marketing – This adds a personal touch to an otherwise uniform process of outreach, enhancing connection and improving chances of transactions, with messaging like, “Don’t forget items in your cart!” or events and promos that might be of interest – electronically distributed through mail, email, telemarketing, and SMS (Short Message Service). 

• Personal Selling – Brands like Handyman and Ace Hardware do this hands-on demonstration, to feature their products’ full functionality, draw in curious eyes, and promptly answer inquiries that may arise. 
• Social Media Marketing – The quickest way to cover as much ground as possible while hitting multiple tasks at once. For instance, you can publish great content (on the network of your choosing!), listen and engage with followers, jump in on the latest trends, and get real-time updates on results on campaign effectiveness! 

Challenges you should expect

1. Competition overwhelm

Solution: Instead of getting discouraged, flip the script: check out those who made a resounding impact, so you can immediately learn from what they are doing differently, and apply it to your own.

2. Generalized messaging because your target audience is “general public”

Solution: Reality check: your audience is not the general public. The more you refine your campaign, the clearer your real target audience becomes. Then, the best way to get more audiences is simple—focus on your target crowd and put your resources into understanding their interests, needs, and behaviors. Because, trust us, going for what is “general” could only muddle your messaging and result in confusion.

3. Consistency across channels

Solution: Confused as to where your brand should be present? Only go for channels appropriate for what you are trying to create, for the audiences you want to reach. Assess whether your senior audience is truly on TikTok, or whether your Gen Alpha audience is still on Facebook. Finally, make sure that your message is consistent across all touchpoints. We don’t mean you should copy and paste the same content from your FB to your IG. We mean—you’re telling your audience the same message so that they recall your brand the way you intended for it to be remembered. That is the power of good communication!

Last, but not least: 

In some spaces, the barrier to entry is so low that it is impossible to proceed without bumping into some form of marketing: flyers crowding street corners, and feeds brimming with content. So, you need to get creative to be distinctly remembered, and intentional in communicating effectively and choosing channels that best suit everything else for a solid, well-rounded strategy. 

Work with NGP-IMC for expert marketing and PR guidance that hits all the right channels and speaks to your audiences!