Prepared by Kerry Kuhn, Griffith University
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Chapter 9
Integral Marketing Communications
for Services
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Learning Objectives
1. Appreciate the need for an integrated
approach to marketing communications for
services
2. Understand the role of the marketing mix in
communicating with customers of a service
3. Discuss the role of the promotional mix in
marketing communications for services
4. Examine the growing use of the internet in
promoting services
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Learning Objectives
5. Examine the advertising of services
6. Explore sales promotions for services
7. Present the role of personal selling in
services
8. Discuss the role of public relations and viral
(word-of-mouth) marketing for services
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Chapter Outline
I.
Introduction
II.
Services and Integrated Marketing
Communications
III. Marketing Communications and Services
IV. The Promotional Mix
V.
Advertising the Service
VI. Sales Promotions and Services
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Chapter Outline (cont’d)
VII. Personal Selling and Services
VIII. Publicity and Services
IX. Promoting Services on the Internet
X.
Summary and Conclusion
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Services and Integrated
Marketing Communications
• Integrated marketing communications
refers to the pursuit of a single positioning
concept for an organisation or its products
• This is achieved by planning, coordinating
and unifying all its communication devices
(Schultz, Tannenbaum and Lauterborn 1996)
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Marketing Communications and
Services
• Most services are intangible and this creates
challenges for service marketers
• Tangibilising the service means making the
service more concrete, thus enabling
customers to understand it better
(Shostack 1977)
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Marketing Communications and
Services (cont’d)
• Some firms offer giveaways, use
trademarks, symbols or standardise
processes
(e.g. an accounting firm might give a
brochure, a calculator and monthly
newsletters to reinforce their service)
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The Promotional Mix for Services
• The services promotional mix consists of:
– Advertising
– Sales promotions
– Personal selling
– Publicity and public relations
– Direct mail
– Internal personnel branding
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What promotion methods do you use for
your 5 star hotel?
Dial-Up
Broadband
Neil Paterson – Director of Sales and Marketing – Sofitel Gold Coast
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What promotion methods do you use?
Dial-Up
Broadband
Bruce White – Director of Marketing – Story Bridge Adventure Climb
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Advertising the Service
• Advertising objectives
• Guidelines for advertising services
• Enhancing the vividness of services
advertising
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Advertising objectives
• Goals are to make customers aware and to
influence their purchase decisions:
– AIDA: achieving customers’ attention,
interest, desire and action
• Advertising must reflect a customerorientation philosophy using appropriate
media
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Evaluate Virgin Blue’s television
advertising in terms of AIDA
Dial-Up
Broadband
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Guidelines for advertising services
•
•
•
•
•
•
Provide tangible cues
Capitalise on word-of-mouth communication
Make the service understood
Establish advertising continuity
Advertise to employees
Promise what is possible
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Enhancing the vividness of
services advertising
• A vividness strategy is an advertising
approach for service offerings that uses
concrete language, tangible objects, and
dramatisation techniques to tangibilise the
intangible
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The advertising mix for Virgin Blue
Dial-Up
Broadband
Darren Wright – National Marketing Manager – Virgin Blue
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Enhancing the vividness of
services advertising (cont’d)
• Interactive imagery uses pictorial
representations, verbal associations and
letter accentuations that combine an
organisation's name and its service to
establish a strong link between service name
and performance in customers’ minds
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Sales Promotions and Services
• Sales promotions
– Attract customers
– Accommodate cyclical demand (change
promotions to suit all climates and trends)
– Enhance customers’ perception of the
service
– Add tangibility — try to tangiblise the
intangibles, giving customers something
to hold on to
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Personal Selling and Services
• Some specific strategies on the selling of
services:
– Design and coordinate the service
purchase
– Facilitate quality assessment
– Tangibilise the service
– Emphasise organisational image and
reputation
Source: Adapted from George, William R., J. Patrick Kelly, and Claudia E. Marshall (1983), “Personal Selling of Services,”
in Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, L..L. Berry, G. L Shostack and G. D. Upah (eds.), Chicago: American
Marketing Association, 65–67.
Personal Selling and Services (cont’d)
– Use references external to the
organisation
– Recognise the importance of all public
contact service personnel
– Recognise customer involvement and
co-production during the service design
and consumption process
Source: Adapted from George, William R., J. Patrick Kelly, and Claudia E. Marshall (1983), “Personal Selling of Services,”
in Emerging Perspectives on Services Marketing, L..L. Berry, G. L Shostack and G. D. Upah (eds.), Chicago: American
Marketing Association, 65–67.
How important is personal selling to
your service offering?
Dial-Up
Broadband
Tony Coates – Director of Sales – Story Bridge Adventure Climb
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Public Relations, Publicity
and Services
• Service organisations gain tremendously
from good publicity
– The best publicity an organisation
receives comes from happy customers
• Service organisations must have plans in
place to overcome or control negative
publicity when it occurs
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Promoting Services on the Internet
• The internet is one of the fastest growing
vehicles for service promotion
• A distinct medium for transmitting information
• It enables service organisations to access and
target narrow segments of customers in novel
and interactive ways
• Website design is now a key feature
• Key criteria for good website design includes
speed, efficiency, effectiveness and recency,
and creative visual impact
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Promoting Services on the Internet
(cont’d)
• A site needs to:
– Be easy to use and navigate
– Be able to present information in simple
language
– Have a secure payment format
– Have the ability to search and automatically
generate suggestions to help consumers find
what they want
– Include an inventory of services/products on
offer
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Promoting Services on the Internet
(cont’d)
• A site needs to:
– Be able to build a positive attitude to achieve
repeat visits
– This is known as the quality of ‘stickiness’ —
the site is attractive, encouraging the user to
stay longer and make return visits, generating
free viral or word-of-mouth communication
• Advertisements can attract customers to
online sources of information and retailer
websites
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Promoting Services on the Internet
(cont’d)
• Cyberspace advertisements are used as a
promotional device for services
– cyberspace coupons
– contests
• Service organisations combine email
communication with internet capabilities to
create a powerful combination of promotion
and selling
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Summary of marketing
communications strategy
Operations Input
Human Resources
Input
Marketing Objectives
Communication Objectives
Marketing Communications
Traditional Promotion Mix
Front Line Role
Physical Evidence
Implicit Role of
Value, Pricing and Service Quality
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Chapter summary
• Services and Integrated Marketing
Communications
• Marketing Communications and Services
• The Promotional Mix
• Advertising the Service
• Sales Promotions and Services
• Examine the advertising of services
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Chapter summary (cont’d)
• Explore sales promotions for services
• Present the role of personal selling in
services
• Discuss the role of public relations and viral
(word-of-mouth) marketing for services
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