Crafting Your Integrated Marketing Plan: Expert Assignments

Background of the Company and Products

Discuss about the Integrated Marketing Communication Plan for Clothing Company.

The clothing industry has been experiencing robust growth in recent years. Due to the increased demand, most of the clothing organizations have been expanding their business into the large domestic areas (Yeshin 2012). Sometimes, the clothing organizations face challenges in understanding the trends of the current market. Hence, most of the business analysts have agreed with the fact that the clothing industry must follow the current market trends in order to identify the demand of the business (Franklin 2016).

Being an integrated marketing communication manager, in this context, I will discuss the IMC plan for a clothing company that is planning to start their venture in Australia. The name of the company is Fashion Zone. This particular business is a partnership based trade. As the particular business is a start-up venture, the management of the business needs to analysis the existing market before entering into the venture. The prime focus of the company is to include the diverse range of clothes for every age. However, the owner of the business have discussed that they will start the business by focusing on youth customers, as they firmly believe that youth audience can facilitate in accumulating major profit.

Fashion Zone will include a wide range of clothing collection for both men and women. Moreover, there will be the high availability of the kids wear also. In the men’s department, the products include jeans, trousers, traditional wear, formal wear, shirts, t-shirts, etc. On the other hand, the female products will involve the traditional and modern collection. Besides this, the Fashion Zone will also focus on the size, availability, colors and style of the products. The management of the organization identifies the fact that the enhanced product quality will facilitate them in attracting huge customer’s base in the business.

The prime objective of the company is to become one of the top three small clothing companies in Australia. Within the 2^nd quarter, the company will try to increase its sales by 15%. Being an integrated marketing communication manager, I can assess that the company needs to apply unique strategies into the business for competing with the existing organizations in the market. According to the directors of the company, Fashion Zone will try to enhance its products awareness by 60% of the targeted audiences. Besides this, the company will try to achieve 40% sales profit in the business. Hence, the discussed objectives can be summarized as following:

• To enhance the sales of the trade by 15% within 2^nd quarter
• To improve the product awareness by 60% of the targeted audiences
• To achieve 40% sales profit by the end of 1^st year

Objectives

Fashion Zone is a retail clothing company having a wide range of products for men, women, and kids. The management of the company has discussed that the prime focus of the business will be on the youth customers. The company needs to analyze the current market trends for understanding the demands of the youth.  However, the company will also include a wide range of clothing for middle-aged women. For instance, there are a huge number of female baby boomers in Australia (Shimp and Andrews 2012). Besides targeting youth and middle-aged women, the company also focuses on targeting kids. The particular company will differentiate the products into various sections including party wear, festival wear, formal wear and casual wear. Being an integrated marketing communication manager, I would like to highlight the fact that the company will uphold a decent pricing system. According to the management of the organization, fashion zone would provide high discounts on the different product segment.

Fashion Zone is a start-up venture. As a new business, the particular company has several communication objectives. These objectives include the development of brand awareness, advertisement of new products and services, influencing the buying intention, development of product image, etc (Blakeman 2014). In this context, the important communication objectives will be discussed. 

By discussing the new trends in business, it can be accessed that product promotion is one of the major factors for organizational success. As a new start-up business, the particular organization needs to promote their wide range of products to the large demographic market. Being an integrated marketing communication manager, I can assess that the company may not be able to improve the sales activity without implementing effective promotional strategies into the business. The prime focus of the company is to deliver the high quality products at an affordable price. For advertising the products, the company will utilize different media vehicles including social media, digital media, printing media, etc.

The target audience of the company is youth. Hence, the company needs to promote the products the youth audiences for enhancing the sales revenues. The management of the organization has discussed that the company will deliver high quality products at low cost. Consequently, it will facilitate the company in engaging the youth audiences. By implementing enhanced marketing strategies into the business, the company will be able to identify their targeted customers.

Brand value is one of the major factors that facilitate any organization in enhancing the business opportunity in an effective manner (Percy 2014). At the initial stage, Fashion Zone would face huge challenges in executing business due to existing competitors. With The involvement of Brand awareness program, the company will be able to spread product information to the large demographic areas as well as international platform. The company would not be able to obtain the customer’s loyalty in an effective manner. Moreover, the brand awareness is responsible for retargeting the audience of the business.

Target Audience Segment Analysis

Over the past few years, most of the organizations have been trying to implement creative advertisement style into the business (Castronovo and Huang 2012). In this context, the clothing organization named fashion zone would employ popular face from the fashion industry for promoting the particular brand into the large marketplace. The prime focus of the company is to target the youth audience. Consequently, the company can engage a youth model from the fashion industry to attract the youth audiences. The particular organization will provide all details about the product to the selected model.

The prime communication objective of the company indicates the enhancement of sales by 15% in the second quarter. Therefore, it can be assessed that fashion zone is required to implement promotional strategies for obtaining a lucrative gain in the business. On the other hand, the organization aims to experience 40% sales profit by the end of the first financial year. A wide range of promotional activities would facilitate the Fashion Zone in achieving the goals and objectives of the company.

In the recent years, most of the clothing companies have been enhancing their business opportunities by developing a media plan (Schultz, Patti and Kitchen 2013). For the development of the media plan, organizations can use a wide range of business tools including frequency card programs, search engine optimization, follow up method, video promotion, etc (Ivanov 2012). There are several promotional strategies available such as social media promotion, customer referral incentive program, digital media, printing media promotion. With the involvement of these promotional strategies, organizations could easily read the product knowledge the large marketplace (Reinold and Tropp 2012). In this context, the Fashion Zone would utilize the effective media vehicle for advertising the products to the audiences.

Nowadays, the social media is one of the integral parts of the business, as it facilitates the organization in spreading the product information within a short timeframe. Social media contributes the new organizations in enhancing their popularity in an effective manner (Yeboah and Atakora 2013). Most of the small and medium organizations have been utilizing the social media for promoting their individual business to the domestic as well as international market. In this context, the particular clothing company named Fashion Zone would focus on employing the different social media platforms for enhancing the brand awareness. Nowadays, Facebook and google+ are the most used social Medias for promotional activities. These platforms provide adequate opportunities to the organizations in advertising their products in a relaxed environment. Most of the business analysts have agreed with the fact that the social networking sites not only a cost-effective platform but also a potential business tool that indeed facilitates in enhancing the business opportunities of the companies (Brunello 2013). Being an integrated marketing manager, I can advise the organization to employ the social media for promotional activities so that the company would be able to avoid extra promotional costs.

Communication Objectives

Over the past few years, video promotion has also been influencing the buying behavior of the customer (Shani and Chalasani 2013). Although the video promotion is not cost-effective like social media promotion, it has the huge potentiality to enhance the business opportunities in an efficient manner. Nowadays, the online video streaming is very popular, and most of the youth audience use this particular features for obtaining updates in an easy manner (Barker 2013). For instance, the YouTube video promotion is a trend of new businesses. In this context, the organization called Fashion Zone will target the youth audience. Hence, the particular organization could promote their products through video promotion, as it would facilitate them in targeting the youth audiences.

It has been discussed previously that the prime aim of the company is to target the youth audience. Subsequently, the social media promotion and online video promotion would be the best-fit solutions for the organization to attract the youth audiences in an efficient manner. It has been seen that the youth audiences have the tendency to frequently connect with the social Medias like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, etc. Hence, the engagement of these promotional vehicles would facilitate the organization called Fashion Zone in achieving the goals and objectives of the business.

Figure: Media vehicle(s) for promotion

(Source: Kotler et al. 2015) 

In this context, the organization has some goals and objectives such as enhancing the sales volume by 40%. Besides this, the organization will also focus on enhancing the sales by 15% by the end of 2^nd quarter. According to the management, the particular organization would not be able to achieve the objectives of the business without implementing unique promotional activities. For measuring the integrated market communication plan, Fashion Zone can prepare a survey form for obtaining responses to their promotional activities (Kim and Ko 2012). Being an integrated marketing communication manager, I would like to highlight the fact that the survey process would be the best-fit solution for identifying the outcome of the promotional activities. The target audience of Fashion Zone is Youth. Therefore, the promotional team must involve the youth audiences for conducting the survey process. By involving the youth customers, the organization would be able to identify the current market trends in an effective manner. Besides this, the survey process can also involve the middle-aged women, who will provide their individual feedback in the survey process.

In this context, the social media and online video promotion have been discussed, as it would be the prime promotional vehicle for the company. Hence, the measurement of the social media promotion can be easily executed through the implementation of a monitoring process. Being an integrated marketing communication manager, I can assess that the monitoring system would facilitate the organization in identifying the progress of the implemented promotional strategies in the business. The objective of the business is to enhance the sales margin by 15% by the end of 2^nd quarter. Hence, the outcome of the promotional activities can be identified by analyzing of the annual report of the business. Asides this, the organization could build a team for monitoring their social media and activities (Parente and Strausbaugh-Hutchinson 2014). By accumulating suggestions and feedbacks from the Social sites, the management would be able to understand the key development areas of the business. Moreover, the suggestions would facilitate the management in understanding the current market trends in an efficient manner. Hence, it can be assessed that the organization called Fashion Zone can easily measure the IMC plan by following above discussed strategies. 

References

Barker, R., 2013. Strategic integrated communication: An alternative perspective of integrated marketing communication?. Communicatio, 39(1), pp.102-121.

Blakeman, R., 2014. Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.

Brunello, A., 2013. The relationship between integrated marketing communication and brand equity. International Journal of Communication Research, 3(1), p.9.

Castronovo, C. and Huang, L., 2012. Social media in an alternative marketing communication model. Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness, 6(1), p.117.

Franklin, L., 2016. Integrated Marketing Communications.

Ivanov, A.E., 2012. The Internet‘s impact on integrated marketing communication. Procedia Economics and Finance, 3, pp.536-542.

Kim, A.J. and Ko, E., 2012. Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(10), pp.1480-1486.

Kotler, P., Burton, S., Deans, K., Brown, L. and Armstrong, G., 2015.Marketing. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Parente, D. and Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, K., 2014. Advertising campaign strategy: A guide to marketing communication plans. Cengage Learning.

Percy, L., 2014. Strategic integrated marketing communications. Routledge.

Reinold, T. and Tropp, J., 2012. Integrated marketing communications: How can we measure its effectiveness?. Journal of Marketing Communications,18(2), pp.113-132.

Schultz, D., Patti, C.H. and Kitchen, P.J., 2013. The evolution of integrated marketing communications: The customer-driven marketplace. Routledge.

Shani, D. and Chalasani, S., 2013. Exploiting niches using relationship marketing. Journal of Services Marketing.

Shimp, T.A. and Andrews, J.C., 2012. Advertising promotion and other aspects of integrated marketing communications. Cengage Learning.

Yeboah, A. and Atakora, A., 2013. Integrated Marketing Communication: How Can It Influence Customer Satisfaction?.

Yeshin, T., 2012. Integrated marketing communications. Routledge.