Marketing Communication: Definition and Objectives

Marketing communication is the process by which marketers exchange or

share meanings with customers through a common set of symbols. Marketing
communication has five basic objectives, namely, to inform, to persuade, to
remind, to add value and to assist other marketing functions.
Objectives of marketing communication:
Inform their customers about their new offerings, specific brands and to
educate them about product features and benefits.
Persuade customers to try new products and services to create demand for
entire product category and to build secondary demand for the product.
Remind their customers to keep the companys brand fresh in their memory
and to create topofmind awareness.
Add value by altering consumer perceptions and delivering sales promotions.
Assist sales representatives, to presell products and to provide salespeople
with valuable introduction.
All these objectives are basically aimed at developing (or changing)
consumer preferences.

The communication process

The communication process which begins when the sender wants to share
some idea or information with one or more receivers. The sender encodes a
message to convey that idea and sends it through a media. The receiver then
decodes the message to interpret the meaning of the message and sends his
feedback to the sender. The message is often distorted by noise, i.e.,
anything that interferes with the target receivers reception or interpretation
of the message.

The communication process and the promotional mix

Marketers achieve their communication objectives by adopting a marketing
communications mix, or promotion mix consisting of the following five tools
or elements which differ in their ability to affect the target audience and in
terms of how they interact with the communication process.
Advertising: Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of
ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.
can reach masses of geographically dispersed buyers at a low cost per
exposure;
enables the seller to repeat a message many times;
large-scale advertising says positive about the sellers size and success;

 consumers tend to view advertised products as more legitimate.

impersonal and cannot be as directly persuasive as can company
salespeople;
Can carry on only a oneway communication with the audience and can be
very costly.

Sales promotion: Shortterm incentives to encourage the purchase or sale

of a product/service.
Sales promotion includes a wide assortment of toolscoupons, contests,
centsoff deals, premiums, and others to attract consumer attention;
offer strong incentives to purchase
can be used to dramatize product offers and to boost sagging sales.
invite and reward quick response,
often shortlived and not as effective as advertising or personal selling in
building longrun brand preference and customer relationships.
Public relations (PR): Building good relations with the companys various
publics by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate image,
and handling or heading off unfavourable rumours, stories, and events.
Public relation is very believablenews stories, features, sponsorships, and
events seem more real and believable to readers than ads do.
PR can reach many prospects who avoid salespeople and advertisements.
Public relations can dramatize a company or product.
Personal selling: Personal presentation by the firms sales force for the
purpose of making sales and building customer relationships.
involves personal interaction between a buyer and a seller, is
the most effective tool in building up buyers preferences, convictions and
actions. The buyer usually feels a greater need to listen and respond.
most expensive promotion tool.
sales force requires a longerterm commitment than does advertising.

Direct marketing: Direct connections with carefully targeted individual

consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting
customer relationships.
Although there are many forms of direct marketing, they all share four
distinctive characteristics. Direct marketing is less public; immediate;
customised and interactive.
By using one, more than one or all of these tools a company communicates
with its target market either directly or through its various intermediaries.
However, in addition to the promotion mix initiated by the company, its
market offerings may also be promoted by favourable wordof mouth of
satisfied customers or other publics. These, along with the promotion mix
tools constitute the overall marketing communication system

Promotional goals and the AIDA concept

The AIDA concept represents a classic model for reaching promotional goals.
AIDA stands for standing for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action and
outlines the stages of consumer involvement with a promotional message.
The concept assumes that promotion propels consumers along four steps in
the purchasedecision process.
1. The advertiser must first make the target market aware that the product
exists.
2. The next step is to create an interest in the product.
3. The desire to purchase the product is the third step in the process.
4. Action is the final step in the purchase decision process.
The promoters task is to determine where on the purchase ladder most of
the target consumers are located and design a promotion plan to meet their
needs.

AIDA and the promotional mix

Each promotional tool is more effective at certain stages of the hierarchy of
effects model.

1. Advertising is most effective in creating awareness.

2. Personal selling is most effective at creating customer interest for a
product and for creating desire.
3. Sales promotion is most effective in creating strong desire and
purchase intent.
4. Public relations have the greatest effect in building awareness about
the company, good or service.
The different elements of the promotional mix are not equally effective when
buyers are at different stages as shown in Exhibit 2 below.
Exhibit 2: Effectiveness of various promotional tools at various stages of

buyer readiness

Factors affecting the promotional mix

Development of the promotional mix for a market offering depends on a
number of factors such as:

Characteristics/nature of the product;

o Consumer, B2B, cost, risk
Stage in the product life cycle;
o Introduction, growth, maturity and decline
Target market characteristics;
o highly informed buyers; brandloyal repeat purchasers
Type of buying decision;
o Routine, complex
Availability of funds
o shortage; sufficient

advertising, public relations, sales promotion and personal selling to inform

the

Integrated marketing communication

Promotion mix strategies

;

A push strategy involves pushing the product through marketing channels

to final consumers. May include direct sales; negotiating with retailers to
carry company product; sponsorship/affiliate marketing; social media
advertising; telemarketing and banner ads.
A pull strategy involves the producer directing its marketing activities
toward final consumers to induce them to buy the product. May include
blogging/guest blogging; eBooks; podcasts; webinars; social media and
infographics.

Advertising
Advertising, one of the tools of the IMC, it helps to communicate the brands
value proposition to target Customers. It must blend with other IMC elements.

Marketers need to take four decisions when developing an advertising

program. These are (i) setting advertising objectives; (ii) setting the
advertising budget; (iii) developing advertising strategy and finally (iv)
creating an advertising message.
Setting Advertising Objectives
An advertising objective is a specific communication task to be accomplished
with a specific target audience during a specific period of time. These
objectives include:
Informative advertising is used heavily when introducing a new product
category.
Persuasive advertising becomes important as competition increases. Here,
the companys objective is to build selective demand.
Comparative advertising also known as attack advertising is directly or
indirectly comparing one brand with another.
Reminder advertising is important for mature productsit helps to
maintain customer relationships and keep consumers thinking about the
product.
Setting the Advertising Budget
There are four common methods to set the total budget for advertising:
Affordable Method: Refers to setting the promotion budget at the level
believed to be what the company can afford.
Percentageofsales Method: This method sets the promotion budget at a
certain percentage of current or forecasted sales.
Competitiveparity Method: This method sets the promotion budgets to
match competitors outlays.
Objectiveandtask Method of setting advertisement budget is considered to
be the most logical budgetsetting method as it involves setting the
companys its promotion budget based on what it wants to accomplish with
promotion.

Developing Advertising Strategy

Advertising strategy consists of two major elements, namely creating
advertising messages and selecting advertising media. After an
advertisement is created by the creative department, the media department
selects best media for presenting it to the target media.

Creating the Advertising Message:

To gain and hold attention, advertising messages must be better planned,
more imaginative, more entertaining, and more rewarding to consumers.

Message Strategy:
The first step in creating effective advertising messages is to plan a message
strategyto decide what general message will be communicated to
consumers.

Ideally the message should identify customer benefits that can be used
as advertising apple.
Messages may have (i) Rational Appeals; (ii) Emotional Appeals and
(iii) Moral Appeals
The message should be such that it can (i) get Attention (ii) hold
Interest (iii) arouse Desires and(iv) obtain Action. (A framework known
as the AIDA model).

Advertising appeals: Reason for a person to

buy a product.
Some common advertising appeals that are considered desirable,
exclusive and believable are selected by marketers as the theme for a
campaign.

Message Execution:
The advertiser has to translate or convert the big idea into an actual ad
execution that will capture the target markets attention and interest. Popular
execution styles used by marketers include the following:

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Selecting Advertising Media Advertising media are channels that

advertisers use in mass communication. Seven major types of advertising
media, namely television, internet, newspapers, direct mail, magazines,
radio, outdoor advertising and the Internet, are available to marketers.

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The major steps in advertising media selection involve (1) deciding on

reach, frequency, and impact; (2) choosing among major media types; (3)
selecting specific media vehicles; and (4) deciding on media timing. Before
discussing each of these steps, it is important to know the advantages and
disadvantages of each of the seven media listed above which are described
below. Characteristics of various media Television including networks
(ABC, Seven, Nine, Ten and SBS), independent stations, cable channels and
direct broadcast satellite television can be useful for reaching specific
markets. Television reaches a huge market, but both the advertising time and
production costs are very expensive. Thirty seconds of advertising time
during the final episode of the Australian version of Big Brother cost about
A$49 000. Thirty seconds of regular primetime midweek advertising time on
Network Ten costs between A$17 000 and A$25 000.
The infomercial is a thirtyminute or longer advertisement. They are popular
because of the cheap air time and the relatively small production costs.
The Internet and the World Wide Web has established itself as a solid
advertising medium. Popular Internet sites and search engines generally sell
advertising space, called banners. Banner ads are judged to be as or more
effective for boosting brand and advertising awareness. The challenges posed
by online media include more consumer control and measuring effectiveness.
Newspaper advertising has the advantage of geographic flexibility and
timeliness. Newspapers reach a very broad mass market. Cooperative
advertising is an arrangement in which the manufacturer and retailer split the
costs of advertising the manufacturers brand. Yamaha will pay for 50 per
cent of its dealers costs (up to a set annual limit) to advertise in local print
and broadcast media. Newspaper ads have a very short life.
Magazines are often targeted to a very narrow market. Although they may
offer a very high cost per contact, the cost per potential customer may be
much lower. One fullpage colour ad in Newsweek costs US$100 000.
Radio can be directed to very specific audiences, has a large outofhome
audience, has low unit and production costs, is timely and can have
geographic flexibility.
Outdoor advertising is a flexible, lowcost medium that may take a variety
of forms, such as billboards, skywriting, ads in and on modes of
transportation and so on. It reaches a broad and diverse market.
Alternative media: Marketers can also use alternative media such as
facsimile (fax) machines, video shopping carts, electronic placebased
media, interactive computer advertising and cinema and video advertising to
reach their target market.
Deciding on Reach, Frequency, and Impact
To decide the particular media to use for the advertisement message, the
media planner has to know the reach, frequency, and impact of each of the
major media types.
Reach is a measure of the percentage of people in the target market who are
exposed
Evaluation of advertising effectiveness

Advertisers should regularly evaluate (i) Communication effect and (ii)

Sales and profit effects.
Measuring the communication effects of an ad/ad campaign

o tells whether the ads and media are communicating the ad

message well.
Sales and profit effects:
o Harder to measure. Sales and profits are affected by many
factors besides advertisingsuch as product features, price,
and availability.
o Compare past sales and profits with past ad expenditure;
o Through experimentation (CocaCola uses this method).
Return on advertising investment: It is the net return on advertising
investment divided by the costs of the advertising investment.

Organising for advertising

Different companies organise in different ways to handle advertising.
Small companies, advertising might be handled by someone in the
sales department.
Large companies set up advertising departments whose job it is to
set the advertising budget, work with the ad agency, and handle
advertising not done by the agency.
Advertising agencies employ specialists who can often perform
advertising tasks better than the companys own staff.
o Most large advertising agencies have the staff and resources
to handle all phases of an advertising campaign for its clients,
from creating a marketing plan to developing ad campaigns
and preparing, placing, and evaluating ads.
More complex than domestic ad decision.
Standardisation vs. localisation: Standardisation reduces advertising
costs; provides greater global ad coordination and a more
consistent global image. But it ignores the fact that country markets
differ greatly in their cultures, demographics, and economic
conditions.
Ad media costs and availability and regulatory practices differ vastly
from country to country.
Although advertisers may develop global strategies to guide their
overall advertising efforts, specific advertising programs must
usually be adapted to meet local cultures and customers, media
characteristics, and advertising regulations.
Advertising
Avoid false or deceptive advertising.
Must not create ads that have the capacity to deceive.
Avoid baitandswitch advertising that attracts buyers under false
pretences

Sales promotion
Sales promotion refers to various shortterm incentives offered to consumers
or channel members to induce the purchase of a particular good or service. It
is the act of influencing customer/consumer perception and behaviour to
build marketing share and reinforce brand and the companys image.
Reasons: high demand for profits and sales.
Purpose: attract new users, build brand-loyalty and increase purchase
frequency.

Major sales promotion tools

Each of these tools is designed to add perceived value and encourage the
purchase of a product.
Trade promotions

Persuade resellers to carry a brand, give it shelf space, promote it in

advertising, and push it to consumers.
Manufacturers direct more sales promotion dollars toward retailers and
wholesalers (78 per cent) than to final consumers (22 per cent).
o They offer several trade promotion tools such as straight
discount (also called a priceoff, offinvoice, or off list);
allowance (usually so much off per case); free goods; push
money and free specialty advertising items.

Business promotions This is used to generate business leads, stimulate

purchases, reward customers, and motivate salespeople.
Conventions and trade shows: Firms selling to the industry show their
products at the trade show.
Vendors receive many benefits from such events include opportunities to
find new sales leads; contact customers; introduce new products; meet
new customers; sell more to present customers; educate customers with
publications and audiovisual materials and reach many prospects not
reached through their salesforces.
Sales contests are generally organised for salespeople or dealers to
motivate them to increase their sales performance over a given period. Sales
contests work best when they are tied to measurable and achievable sales
objectives (such as finding new accounts, reviving old accounts, or increasing
account profitability).
Developing the Sales Promotion Program

Public Relations [PR]

The Role and Impact
Public relations [PR] may be defined as a nonpaid strategic

communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between

an organisation and its publics.
Impact:

Can have a stronger impact on public awareness at a lower cost

than advertising can.
o If the company develops an interesting story or event, media
may publicise it.
The company does not pay the media for PR. So it has more
credibility than advertising.
Often described as marketings stepchild because of its limited and
scattered use.

Major Public Relations Tools

Public relations use several tools such as news, speeches, special events,
written materials, audiovisual materials, corporate identity materials and
public service activities. Management should set PR objectives, choose the PR
messages and vehicles, implement the PR plan, and evaluate the results.
Public Relations
Public relations departments may perform any or all of the following
functions:
Press relations or press agency: Creating and placing newsworthy
information in the news media to attract attention to a person, product, or
service.
Product publicity: Publicising specific products.
Public affairs: Building and maintaining national or local community
relations.
Lobbying: Building and maintaining relations with legislators and
government officials to influence legislation and regulation.
Investor relations: Maintaining relationships with shareholders and others
in the financial community.
Development: Public relations with donors or members of nonprofit
organisations to gain financial or volunteer support.
Public relations may promote products, people, places, ideas, activities,
organisations, and even nations.
A Public Relations Plan
A basic public relations plan or strategy should contain several elements.
They are objectives, definition of the target audience, message (what do you
want to say to the target audience), strategy, tactics, planning, budget, key
performance indicators (KPI) and evaluation mechanism. For example, the
main tasks that can be used to help a tourism company develop its public
relations strategy are set out below. These can be divided into internal public
relations (aimed at the workers) and external public relations (aimed at
clients, investors, public institutions, etc.).

Personal selling

Personal selling is the interpersonal arm of the promotion mix. It is practiced

by businesses that employ a "sales force" to sell the product after meeting
facetoface with the customer.
These people promote the product through their attitude, appearance and
indepth product knowledge. They aim to inform and encourage the
customer to buy, or at least trial the product.
Hence, personal selling is effective than advertising in complex selling
situation
Personal selling can foster relationship marketing (RM).
RM the process of creating, maintaining and enhancing strong, value
laden relation ships with customers and other stakeholders by creating
superior customer value and satisfaction
Many types of personal selling jobs
The person making the selling personal is the salesperson, often called
sales representative and account executive.
Role of sales-force serves as a critical link between a company and its
customers.
1. Managing the sales force:

2. Recruiting and selecting

salespeople: recruiting will attract many applicants from whom the
company must select the best.
3. Training salespeople: most companies provide continuing sales training
via seminars, sales meetings and web e-learning throughout the
salespersons careers.
4. Compensating salespeople: to attract good salespeople, a company
must have an appealing compensation plan.
5. Supervising salespeople: continuing supervision and encouragement
should be given to new salespeople in order to help them do a better job
even though they have already received formal training.
6. Evaluating salespeople: getting regular information from salespeople is
a key factor in ensuring effective evaluation of their performance. This can
be done through sales reports, call reports, expense reports and
feedback and return on investment.

ationships with them. The salesforce plays a major role in facilitating

transactions by serving as a critical link between a company and its

customers. In the context of B2B marketing, the salespeople represent the
company to customers and they represent customers to the company.
The role of personal selling varies from company to company. In most firms
the salesforce plays a major role; however, some companies for example,
those that sell only online or through catalogues, or companies that sell
through manufacturers reps, sales agents, or brokers have no salespeople
at all.
Salespeople can be classified as field salesforce or outside salesforce and
inside salesforce. The outside salespeople travel to call on customers in the
field while the inside salespeople conduct
businessfromtheirofficesviatelephone,theInternet,orvisitsfrombuyers.
Mostcompanies now tend to use team selling to service large, complex
accounts. Sales teams can unearth

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problems; develop solutions, and sales opportunities that no individual
salesperson could. Such teams might include experts from any area or level
of the selling firmsales, marketing, technical and support services, R&D,
engineering, operations, finance, and others.
Coordinating Marketing and Sales
To help bring its marketing and sales functions closer together a company can
take a number of actions. For example, it can increase communications
between the buyer and the seller by arranging joint meetings and by spelling
out when and with whom each party should communicate. The company can
create joint assignments and/or joint objectives and reward systems for sales
and marketing. Also, it can appoint marketingsales liaisonspeople from
marketing who live with the salesforce and help to coordinate marketing
and salesforce programs and efforts. Finally, it can appoint a chief revenue
officer (or chief customer officer) a highlevel marketing executive who
oversees both marketing and sales.
Managing the salesforce
Salesforce must be properly managed involving analysis, planning,
implementation and control of salesforce activities. Salesforce management
includes designing salesforce strategy and structure, recruiting; selecting,
training, compensating, supervising them and finally evaluating their
performance. The major salesforce management decisions are briefly
discussed below.
The personal selling process
Many companies, particularly those in the B2B marketing context, take a
customeroriented approach to personal selling. Salespeople try to identify
what the customer is looking for and then find the solution for that. In such a
way, companies may attract customers to buy the product and build long
term relationships with them.
Steps in the selling process
The selling process, i.e., the steps that a salesperson follows when selling,
consists of seven distinct steps. These are (i) prospecting and qualifying, (ii)
preapproach, approach, (iii) presentation and demonstration, (iv) handling

objections, (v) closing and (vi) followup.

1. Prospecting and qualifying: Defined as the first step in the personal selling
process, prospecting and qualifying involves identification of qualified
potential customers by the salesperson or the company. The salesperson
must approach many prospects to get a few sales.
2. Preapproach: In this step, the salesperson tries to know the background
of the organisation and its buyers as much as possible before calling on a
prospect.
3. Approach: This step requires the salesperson to decide how to meet and
greet the buyer and how to get a good start.
4. Presentation and demonstration: At this step, an introduction of the
products is given to the buyer. The salesperson tells the value story to
the customer, showing how the companys offer solves the customers
problems.
5. Handling objections: This is the step in the selling process in which the
salesperson seeks out, clarifies and overcomes customer objections to
buying. Customer hesitations, questions and objections, which can be
logical or psychological, are a normal part of any sales discussion and
relationship. The salesperson should use a positive approach to address
these issues.
6. Closing: Closing is defined as the step in the selling process in which the
salesperson asks the customer for an order, and for many people is the
hardest part of the sales process due to unsuccessful handling of
objections and lack of confidence. Several closing techniques can be used
to attract customers to make orders, such as lower price and extra
quantity at no charge.
7. Followup: Followup is when the salesperson follows up after the sale to
ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business. It is the last step in the
process and may actually be the most important. The delivery time,
purchase terms and other matters should be completed in this step.

Direct and Digital Marketing

Direct and digital marketing is more than just a communications tool; it
constitutes an overall marketing approach a blend of communication and
distribution channels all rolled into one.
Direct marketing is an interactive system of marketing which uses one or
more advertising media to effect a measurable response and/or transaction
at any location
It consists of direct connections with carefully targeted individual
consumers to both obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting
customer relationships.
Direct marketers communicate directly with customers, often on a oneto
one, interactive basis.

Digital marketing: interacting with known customers and others in the

marketing channel, on a onetoone basis, using electronic network tools and
technologies
interacting with known customers and others in the marketing channel, on a
onetoone basis, using electronic network tools and technologies.
Forms of Direct and Digital marketing
The main forms of direct and digital marketing include internet and mobile
marketing, direct print and reproduction, direct response television and
radio, telemarketing, telesales and kiosks and electronic dispensing.
Internet marketing: Internet marketing, or online marketing, refers to
advertising and marketing efforts that use the World Wide Web and email to
drive direct sales. Internet marketing can be categorised under three
specialized areas, namely Web marketing, email marketing and social media
marketing.
Web marketing includes ecommerce Web sites, affiliate marketing Web
sites and promotional or informative Web sites, online advertising on
search engines, and organic search engine results via search engine
optimisation (SEO).
Email marketing involves both advertising and promotional marketing
efforts via email messages to current and prospective customers.
Social media marketing involves both advertising and marketing
(including viral marketing) efforts via social networking sites like
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Mobile marketing refers to marketing on or with a mobile communication
device, such as a smart phone, tablets and other mobile device connected
to the Internet. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and
location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services
and ideas. Marketers send their message through SMS (Short Message
Service) as well as MMS (Multimedia Message Service). In recent times,
many marketers have started using smartphone apps for mobile

marketing as this allows for direct engagement, payment, and targeted

advertising.
Direct print and reproduction involves directmail marketing and catalogue
comprising mailouts of letters, samples, paperbased as well as digital
catalogues on CDRom or DVD.
Directresponse television and radio involves putting commercials on air
that persuasively describes a product and then provide a toll free number
to viewers to call and place orders. It is used to develop a database as
well as to make immediate sales.
Telemarketing and telesales, though often used interchangeably are
related but different concepts.
Telemarketing focuses on generating interest, creating opportunities,
providing information, seeking customer feedback, making appointments and
producing leads by telephone. Telemarketers professionally presents the
company brand, product or services to potential customers.
Inbound telemarketing viewers are invited to call.
Outbound telemarketing telemarketers call out.
Kiosks and Electronic dispensing. Kiosks are information and ordering
machines placed in stores, airports, hotels and other locations frequently
visited by people. EDMs are card reading telephones that dispense cash.

Customer database
A customer database is an organised collection of comprehensive data
about individual customers or prospects, including geographic, demographic,
psychographic, and behavioural data.
A consumer database might contain consumers demographics (age,
income, family members, birthdays), psychographics (activities, interests,
and opinions), and buying behaviour (buying preferences and the recency,
frequency, and monetary valueRFMof past purchases).
A business marketing database will contain B2B customer profile in

terms of the products/services the customer has bought; past

volumes and prices; key contacts (their ages, birthdays, hobbies,
and favourite foods); competing suppliers; status of current
contracts; estimated customer spending for the next few years; and
assessments of competitive strengths and weaknesses in selling
and servicing the account.
Companies use their databases in many ways
1. to locate good potential customers and to generate sales leads and
2. to learn about customers in detail.

Using a Database in Direct and Digital Marketing

Organisations use databases in a number of ways. Databases are used for
identifying prospects, for deciding which customers should receive a
particular offer, for deepening customer loyalty, to reactivate customers
purchases and for Data mining. Strategic approaches to database use should
utilise an integrated direct marketing approach.

Setting Up An Online Marketing Presence

There are four ways an organisation may develop an online marketing
presence:

Creating a Website: For most companies, the first step in conducting online
marketing is to create a website. They can have the most basic corporate (or
Brand) which are designed to build customer goodwill, collect customer
feedback, and supplement other sales channels, rather than to sell the
companys products directly. Alternatively, they can develop a marketing

Website that engages consumers in an interaction that will move them closer
to a direct purchase or other marketing outcome.
Designing Effective Websites
Designing a website that is attractive on first view and interesting enough to
encourage repeat visits is a challenging task. Online marketers should pay
close attention to the seven Cs of effective website design:
1. Context: the sites layout and design
2. Content: the text, pictures, sound, and video that the website contains
3. Community: the ways that the site enables usertouser communication
4. Customisation: the sites ability to tailor itself to different users or to
allow users to personalise the site
5. Communication: the ways the site enables sitetouser, usertosite, or
twoway communication
6. Connection: the degree that the site is linked to other sites
7. Commerce: the sites capabilities to enable commercial transactions
To keep customers coming back to the site, companies need to embrace yet
another C constant change.

Forms of Online Advertising

Banners are bannershaped ads found at the top, bottom, left, right, or
centre of a Web page.
Interstitials are online display ads that appear between screen changes on
a website, especially while a new screen is loading.
Popups are online ads that appear suddenly in a new window in front of
the window being viewed.
Popunders are online ads that appear in a new window that evades popup
blockers by appearing behind the page youre viewing.
Rich media display ads are online ads that incorporate animation, video,
sound, and interactivity.
Searchrelated ads (or Contextual advertising) are online advertising in
which textbased ads and links appear alongside search engine results.
Other Forms of Online Promotion

Challenges of social media include:

Online networks are new and difficult to measure effectiveness.
Marketers cannot simply alter social dialogue
Networks are user-controlled
Corporate communication can be seen as intrusive.

Evaluating direct and digital marketing results The most common

assessment involves comparing sales before, during and after implementing
any of the promotion campaigns discussed above. However, the profitability
of such offers and the return on investment are even more important. Direct
and digital marketing organisations are usually interested in a number of
measures of performance, both for individual programs and integrated
campaigns.

Public policy issues in direct marketing

Irritation, Unfairness, Deception, and Fraud: Internet fraud, including identity
theft and financial scams, has become a serious problem. Phishing is a type
of identity theft that uses deceptive emails and fraudulent websites to fool
users into divulging their personal data. Online security issues continue to
grow. Consumers fear that unscrupulous snoopers will eavesdrop on their
online transactions, picking up personal information or intercepting credit and
debit card numbers. Access by vulnerable or unauthorised groups is another
area of concern. For example, marketers of adultoriented materials have
found it difficult to restrict access by minors.
Privacy