[MUSIC] Hi, let me now discuss with you the communication strategy, which is the last part of the marketing mix. The communication strategy is probably, I would say, the most important part of the marketing mix. For one simple reason that we all are going to understand easily because that's basically where most of your marketing money will go. Okay, so that's where the money goes, so we have to do it very carefully. Let me read again as usual with a definition of what is the communication strategy in the marketing plan and to use it once again, a classic definition. Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers directly or indirectly, about the products and brands they sell. Modern marketing requires developing a good product, setting an attractive price, bringing the product to the customers using the right distribution channel. But all this is worthless if you're not able to communicate the right way to the consumer. So, communication seems to be key. Okay, if they don't know us they don't buy us. So basically we need to create notice in the market about our product or service. When defining the communication strategy, there's always a first decision that we are going to make. Pull strategy versus push strategy. What is pull and push? Well, pull and push is one of the most well-known concepts in marketing and especially in communication. And meaning that, if we are pushing, we're trying to get to the final customer through the distribution channel, through the intermediary, the retailer whether he is in contact with the final customer. While if we are trying to pull, okay, this one we are tying to get to the final customer, okay? So in terms of communication, when we do pull strategy, or pull communication, is when we try and reach the final consumer. Using, many times, a very well-known communication campaign, for example, would be an advertising campaign. Okay, so we try and reach the final consumer. We try that the final consumer would demand my product. Okay, they will know buy my product and they will be willing to buy, so they will demand my product. What is the other option? Communicating through, or using the distribution channel, and that's what we call push, because you are trying to push down the product in the channel. Doing what, well basically doing marketing campaigns with the channel, okay? This is many times called also trade marketing. Okay? Which one is better? Or which one should be used? Of course it depends. It depends on your product or service. Okay, the big question usually when deciding push or pull is what is the role of the channel in the buying process? Okay, it is actually the channel, the distinguishing channel, the retailer influencing the final consumer decision. Then you have to do probably some push, okay? You have to do marketing with them. If the role of the distribution channel is not so relevant in the buying process, then you probably should go for the pull. What is usually the case in real companies and in real marketing plans? A mix, a mix of both. Okay? Depending on where you are in terms of the role distribution channel, you may rely more on pull or push. But usually what you are going to see in your marketing plans is a mix of both, pull and push. By the way, in the assessment probably you should be mentioning the pull and push decision in your communication campaign. Once you have figured the pull and push strategy, basically the next step would be defining a communication campaign, okay, a communication strategy. So, basically, defining the communication strategy is going to be a process. And now, we can see here what is going to be the process. Let me begin the process with the first step in the communication strategy definition which is going to be defining the target segment and the communication objective. What is what we want to define here? The segment, the group of individuals we want to reach. Okay. And the objective. What is what we're looking for with this communication campaign? Are we trying to build brand awareness? Are we trying to build brand preference? Are we trying to build brand perceptions, segment brand perceptions? So depending on the objective we're going to go through one path or another. So target and objective is the first thing that we define. What is the second thing? We define the message, okay? So what are we going to talk about in a communication campaign? What is going to be the message, the main idea that we want to build? Of course, it should be very much linked to the positioning that we have defined in the marketing strategy step of the marketing plan. So target, objective first step, second one, message. What is next? Establishing a communication budget, one of the most difficult things to do. How do we define the budget? Well, it depends on actually the available resources that you have. It also depends on the industry where you are. On the benchmark with the competition, many times the budget is defined as a percentage of sales, so different ways of actually defining this. Actually in the perspective results part, we will discuss about the budget a little more. What is next? So we'll have a target, we'll have an objective, we'll have a message, we'll have a budget. Now we'll have to define what is going to be the communication mix. So what communication tools are we going to use? So basically we are going to choose among the different communication tools which ones are going to be better for us. And the last step is basically defining the results that we're going to deliver. So measure the communication results. So that would be the process of the communication campaign. And with this, we finish the communication process. In the next video, I will show you communication tools that can be used in your marketing plan. Thank you. [MUSIC]
