Answer
Communication Process is planned taking into account the target market segment and the mind set of the people of the segment. One communication model is given below.
In communications the credibility of source, or who is communicating, matters a lot. A firm’s brand equity can authenticate what is being put in the advertisements. Most firms use endorsers to talk about their products, which make the target segment believe in the product. Wrong endorsers can cause harm to the product or can have no impact rendering the advertisement useless. A top heroine endorsing washing powder may not have any impact as people know that she does not wash her clothes at all. When she endorses a beauty cream people believe her.
Sender or source’s credibility is important as it defines how or how much the receiver is going to believe the communication. “Let us take it with a pinch of salt can be the response of a consumer.” Such negative impressions come with unreliable senders of information. Use of endorsers becomes necessary in such cases. Source or sender has its own need for sending the message. How right is that need? For example, many firms resort to having yearly sale of their products. People want to know if it is a genuine sale, and if yes, then why the firm is selling good products at heavily discounted prices? Is it that they have odd sizes of unsold products, a heavy inventory as their export order got cancelled, or, is it that the discounted prices are in fact the same as the original? The firm increased the prices first and then declared the sale. Increase of prices was of 20% and discount offered is 17%. Such types of sales lose their impact in no time and bring bad name to the sale and to the seller.
Personal involvement is the key factor that influences the interest the customer is going to have in understanding and correctly interpreting the message. Sachin Tendulkar will like to go through the exact specifications of the cricket bat, while a non-playing cricket TV commentator may just take no notice of the bat.
Moods of persons at the time they are receiving the message govern how well they will receive and accept the message. Watching a tragic sob story movie on TV would make people less willing to accept the positive aspects of a product. It calls for proper selection of media; sitcoms, news bulletins, and movie-based programmes are viewed generally on TV with a happy frame of mind.
In order to monitor customer response to a message, its media pre-testing is done in which the advertisement is shown to a select group of the market segment to gauge their reaction and get their feedback. In case of poor response, corrections in message and media can be made.
After the advertisement has been released, post testing is done to find out how effectively the advertisement has met its objectives.
Persuasion Strategy
For proper impact of the message, selection of the market segment to be catered to; creativity in the advertisement and objectives associated with the communication are key elements of strategy. Some examples are given below:
- Housewife, family income ₹ 20,000 pm, urbanite, graduate would be reading, Femina, Cosmopolitan, Star Dust magazines, watching afternoon soap operas like, Saans, Santa Barbara, Dynasty.
- College student’s family income ₹ 40,000 pm would be reading sports, motorcycle and car magazines, listening to FM Radio.
- Achiever’s family income ₹ 80,000 pm, would be reading Business magazines like Business India, Business Today, Financial national and international newspapers and watching news on Star TV.
- Senior citizen’s family income ₹ 20,000 pm would be reading Health and investment magazines, watching travel related TV programmes for enjoying vicarious adventure and thrills.
- Computer addicts would be surfing the Internet and the best media for communicating to them about software updates would be the web.
- There is always crossover in segments. For instance, for a person with monthly income of ₹ 10,000, a woolen suit worth ₹ 5000 may be out of reach. However, he may buy it at least for his wedding.
Persuasion comes in the form of personal influence of some person who counts. In daily life we communicate with other persons in social political or business situations. A good communicator listens more then he/she speaks. When in doubt, we seek advice, or sometimes we get advice totally unasked for. In both cases, it is stored in the brain from where it can be restored at the time of purchase decision-making. We normally go to people whom we consider as more knowledgeable then us. These people are the opinion leaders. Buying a set of golf clubs it is best to ask the golf champion, rather then a layman. For cameras and films, the professional photographer, not the camera sales person would be the best bet.
