Archive for 'Marketing Students'

The terms ‘Above the line’ (ATL) and ‘below the line’ (BTL) are used to categorise the different communication tools and channels you can use in your Push and Pull communications strategy.

Above the line communication

ATL communications use media tools and channels which broadcast your message to a mass audience; for example the press, magazines, radio, cinema, TV and search engines.

Below the line communication

BTL communications on the other hand are focused on a more ...

There are three main strategies when it comes to your Marketing communication plan, and they are the three P’s; push, pull and profile. From my experience these can be, and arguably should be, used as a blended communication strategy rather than just one, however this can depend on a number of things which are mentioned below.

So what’s the difference between a push, pull and profile strategy?

Push Strategy

A push strategy is a more direct form of ...

When setting marketing communication objectives (and all others too) the SMART framework should be used; see our article on Setting SMART Objectives. For marketing communications to be successful, the right message must be communicated at the right time, through the right channels to the right audiences.

There are four levels summarised by Fill (2006) which marketing communications must cover:

Awareness

Customers must be aware of the brand and products, otherwise they won’t know you exist and ...

Setting objectives is an important part of any plan; without objectives you will have no direction, measurement for success or ability to focus on areas to improve in the future. It’s well documented that objectives should be SMART:

Specific

What exactly are you trying to achieve? E.g. Increase market share? Raise brand/product awareness?

Measurable

How will you measure the objective? E.g. Market share has gone up? Increase is sales? More inbound enquiries?

Achievable/Attainable

Can you achieve these objectives or are they to ambitious? If they are, ...

Marketing communication plans are also refered to as marcomms and are the next level down to your marketing plan; it’s important that they build on the corporate and marketing plan and not duplicate them. Writing a digital marketing communications plan is much like writing an overall digital marketing audit and plan, the difference being that your subject matter is about communicating with your key stakeholders, particularly your customers. There’s a marketing communication plan framework (MCPF) which was developed by Chris Fill, ...

Marketing communications is how you get your messages out to your stakeholders; this includes all internal and external audiences. The foundation of marketing communications is built on an understanding of what your different stakeholders want to know; for example you might communicate the benefits of a product to your customers and the sales figures to your shareholders.

Understanding your stakeholder’s needs and therefore the key messages comes from your marketing communications plan (marcomm); but ...