Marketing is one of the most essential elements of managing a business organization successfully. The importance of communication in marketing is equally important to correctly convey the messages desired to be conveyed of different products and services which are being marketed. Integrated marketing communication is the process of linking all forms of communications related to marketing achieve the desired objectives of an organization from marketing and advertisements. A detailed discussion on the subject is provided in this document for the readers to understand the concept of integrated marketing and it’s important to Six Senses Duxton, here in after referred to as the organization only in this document for the sake of brevity, and its business.
In the modern business world the importance of marketing and advertisements to an organization carrying on business operations is equal to that of its production or service providing processes as the case may be. Organizations used different marketing and promotional tools to market and promote its products in the market with the objective of attracting maximum eye balls to the products (Belch et. al. 2014). The objective is to give as much exposure to the products and services of the concern business organization as possible. Integration of all promotional tools with the aim to achieve harmony between these promotional tools to formulate an effective marketing strategy and implement can be defined as the process of integrated marketing communication (Andrews and Shimp, 2017).
As mentioned at the most basic level it is about integration of all promotional and marketing tools of an organization to improve the marketing strategy and implementation of such strategy to achieve the desired objectives of marketing of popularizing the product amongst the prospective buyers of such product. Promotion as often known by most of the business organizations and stakeholders associated with such business is one of Ps of marketing mix. Thus, to have number of tools under one of the Ps (promotion) of marketing mix shows the importance of integrated marketing communication to achieve the overall objective of marketing and promotion (Fill and Turnbull, 2016).
The promotional and marketing communication tools will be very effective for the marketing and advertisement campaign of an organization is these tools work in tandem with each other instead of working in isolation. It is only possible to achieve harmony between the different tools of marketing communications if these are properly integrated with each other as per the market condition and objectives of an organization (Kitchen and Burgmann, 2015). Thus, the process of integration of these different tools of marketing communication is immensely important to the successful marketing strategy and communication of an organization. Without harmony between these marketing tools of an organization it would be impossible to reap maximum benefits out of the marketing communication tools of the organization.
It is a well-known proverb that the sum of parts is always greater the parts. Thus, the promotional and marketing tools of available to an organization if works in tandem with perfect harmony between themselves then the organization is surely going to achieve maximum benefits from the marketing communication tools compared to a scenario when these tools are working with different objectives without any harmony (Šeri?, Gil-Saura and Ruiz-Molina, 2014). At the end of the day a business organization has a sole and single objective from its marketing and promotional campaign and it is to provide maximum amount of exposure to the products and services of the organization. Thus, all the tools in marketing and promotional campaign of an organization must be directed to that one point single objective of achieving maximum exposure to the products and services of the organization. The marketing and promotional campaign shall be formulated keeping in mind the objective of the organization (Batra and Keller, 2016).
It requires huge amount of efforts on the part of an organization to achieve perfect integration of marketing and promotional communication tools. Firstly, the organization must correctly identify the different tools and resources of available within the organization in marketing and promotional communication. Once these have been identified the organization must formulate an effective marketing strategy to align all these tools and integrate these in a manner suitable to achieve the objectives of marketing and promotional campaign of the organization. All the tools must work in perfect harmony to achieve perfect integration of marketing communication tools (Ots and Nyilasy, 2015).
The benefits of integration of marketing communication tools can be achieved by any of the following levels of integration by an organization. The appropriate level of integration by an organization shall be chosen keeping in mind the resources available to an organization and its objectives (Shank and Lyberger, 2014).
Horizontal integration takes place across different business functions and marketing mix of an organization. In such integration different departments of an organization such as production, distribution, inventory, finance and communication should work in conjunction by realizing that the actions of there are sending important messages to the customers (Lusch and Vargo, 2014). Departments such as sales, communication, advertising and others can communicate with each other by using the information system process within the organization. Thus, the organization in vertical integration requires a commensurate marketing information system to collect data and share data between different departments within the organization. Without such marketing information system it would be impossible to achieve horizontal data integration (Andrews and Shimp, 2017).
In vertical integration the marketing and communication objectives are aligned with the corporate objectives of the organization. Thus, the corporate objectives of an organization determine the marketing communication integration in such integration.
The marketing staffs and employees are given the most priority in this type of integration. Ensuring that all staffs and employees are aware of all new developments and advertisement strategy. Keeping the employees and workers motivated to help the organization achieve its marketing objectives is the most important aspect of internal integration. Any new developments about the product, advertisements, corporate identities, changes in strategic partners, expansion in business, and changes in production process are shared with employees and workers in internal integration (Valos et. al. 2016).
Agencies hired from outside including promotional agents and advertising agencies in external integration. The agencies must work closely and cooperate with each other to achieve external integration to achieve harmony in marketing communication tools of an organization. Thus, in external integration the emphasis on outside agencies and parties whereas in internal integration it is all about stakeholders internal to an organization which are responsible to achieve integrated marketing communication (Hakansson, 2015).
There are number of benefits of integrated marketing communications. A brief discussion on the benefits of integrated data integration is provided below.
Helps in creating competitive advantage over others: Integrated marketing communications (IMC) helps an organization to achieve competitive advantage in the market. In this hugely competitive world marketing tools provide competitive advantage to business organizations. IMC helps an organization to achieve competitive advantage in the market (Lovelock and Patterson, 2015).
IMC helps an organization to increase its sales and revenue by attracting new customers from the market. Thus, the ability of an organization to increase its sales and revenue would be dependent on the proper integration of marketing communication tools. IMC does exactly that for an organization (Felix, Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017).
The growth in revenue will obviously boost the profits of an organization as long as the operating costs stays within the limits. IMC helps an organization to attract new customers in the market which results in increase of gross revenue of the organization. With operating costs expected to stay within the limits the profit of the organization grows significantly from earlier (Rowley, 2016).
IMC helps an organization to maintain positive relationship with its customers by taking actions on the concerns of the customers with proper integration of management and operating tools. The integration of marketing communication tools include taking into consideration the feedback of customers about the products and services of the organization and making necessary changes to the products and services to take care of the concerns of the customers (Blakeman, 2018).
Part a:
In order to complete this part of the document the product that has been chosen to discuss about the specific integrated marketing communications is Six Senses Duxton (Singapore).
The integrated marketing communications (IMC) of an organization as discussed in the earlier part of the document is mainly dependent on the available resources of an organization in marketing and the products of the organization. Product is the most important element in marketing strategy of an organization (Luxton, Reid and Mavondo, 2015). The marketing mix as well as integration of marketing communications are mainly dependent on the nature and characteristics of a product, demand of the product, the supply of the product, the market segment, the customer preferences, availability of substitute products all important attributes of marketing are primarily dependent on the product itself. Thus, it is only natural that the IMC will be heavily affected on the basis of products and its characteristics (Valos et. al. 2016).
Boutique hotels in Singapore provide luxury hospitality and accommodation services in the country. The services provides by Six Senses Dextun, mentioned as the organization only herein after, has very niche market in Singapore. It can be seen as a benefit as well as a drawback for an organization in integration of different tools of management communications for luxury products and services and especially for luxury hospitality and accommodation services. It is because unlike the common and regular goods and services, the market segment and customer demographics for luxury goods and services are completely different (Kotabe and Helsen, 2014). Especially if its luxury hospitality and accommodation services then the market segment and customer demographics changes even further. However, it is dependent on the management of an organization as to how it uses the different elements of market in respect to different goods. It is important to use different strategy for different products. An organization will be able to increase its ability to generate revenue from sale of differ products if it uses appropriate marketing strategy including IMC by considering the different elements associated with different products (Lanz and Carmichael, 2015).
Six Senses Duxton has used a mix of vertical and horizontal integration to integrate the different marketing tools of the company. The objective of the higher level of management, i.e. the executive management of the company, has always been to achieve growth in revenue of the company by improving the revenue generation in the country. The strategy to integrate the marketing tools of the company is firstly to integrate the tools of marketing communications in order to achieve the objective of corporate management of the company to increase the revenue in the country. Secondly, in order to achieve the corporate objectives of the company of increasing revenue, the different departments of the company including luxury services in the hotel, house stuffs, customer support service, marketing, communication and finance have to operate in a manner suitable to the organizational and corporate objectives of the company (Tsekouropoulos, Andreopoulou and Misso, 2015).
Though in current financial year, i.e. 2017-18 the company has managed to improve its overall revenue in the country, i.e. in Singapore, the corporate objectives of the company is not in tune with the employees and hotel staffs of the company and marketing department. This is due to the ineffective strategy of the company to properly involve the employees and hotel staffs of the company to integrate the marketing and promotional tools.
In order to recommend an idea integrated marketing communications plan for Six Senses Duxton (Singapore) it is essential to assess the situation of the company at present. Based on which the objectives of the company will be set to make an appropriate strategy for the company to achieve the objectives in the future. In short the company should follow SOSTAC model to improve its market position in the country (Foster et. al. 2014).
Before delving into the discussion about the specific recommendation for the integrated marketing communications of Six Senses Duxton a brief discussion about the SOSTAC model would work as frame of reference to understand the recommendation about IMC of Porsche Singapore better.
The different alphabets of SOSTAC model in marketing has the following meaning assigned to them (Valos et. al. 2016).
“S” stands for situation analysis. Thus, firstly analysis of situation of an organization, in this case Porsche Singapore has to be made. “O” in SOSTAC defines objectives. Thus the organizational objectives must be taken into consideration to recommend an appropriate strategy for the company. “S” stands for Strategy of the company to achieve the above organizational objectives. “T” stands for tactics. Tactics are details about the strategy. “A” stands for actions which are essential to execute a plan and finally, “C” stands for control that determines the ability of an organization to achieve the overall objectives of the organization (Ashley and Tuten, 2015).
The present situation of Six Senses Duxton is quite positive with significant growth in overall revenue of the company in both 2016-17 and 2017-18. However, the objective of the executive management is to achieve significantly higher revenue in the future. To improve its revenue in the future the company must provide luxurious experience to the guests of the hotel in the future.
The mission and goals of the company is to continuously increase its revenue in the country. Thus, sustainable development is the main objective of the company. The mission and goals of the company must be aligned with the employees and hotel staffs of the company by making them feel part of the whole development process of the company. Keeping employees and workers informed about the new developments would be extremely helpful in achieving the missions and goals of the company (Gillespie and Riddle, 2015).
The company should use aggressive marketing campaign to market the luxury hospitality and accommodation services in the country. Often the potential guests are lost due to the inability of an organization to provide necessary exposure to the luxury hospitality and accommodation services. Though the services provided by the Six Senses Duxton is in the segment of luxury however, all efforts should be made to extensively promote the services in the country.
In order to achieve the organizational objectives it is important to have an appropriate strategy in place. The tactics are the detailed strategy of an organization. Six Senses Duxton Singapore must use effective tactics to achieve the organizational objectives in the future. As already mentioned the tactics should be to use effective marketing tools to promote the various different hospitality, accommodation and other services provided by the Hotel in the country. Attracting the attention of the new guests in addition to keep the existing guests should be the motive behind such tactics. The spacious hotel rooms, luxurious and comfortable hospitality and accommodation services of Six Senses have always fascinated the guests. Effective advertisement strategies shall be helpful in attracting number of new guests to the hotels of the company in the future.
In addition to the use of effective promotional and marketing tools, the company should make have a standard policy in place to integrate the different facilities within the organization. The marketing information system of Six Senses should be used effectively to provide important information about the guest services within the country and other important customer feedbacks in the operations of the hotels of the company.
The company already have a stable internal control systems in place and with the effective use of above recommendations the company will be able to integrate the different tools of marketing and promotion to achieve the overall organizational objectives in the future ((Belch et. al. 2014)).
Conclusion:
The recent improvement in financial performance of Six Senses Duxton i.e. increase in overall revenue in the country in recent few years, is mainly due to the increase in tourists visits in the country. The recommendations made in respect of Integrated Marketing Communications in the country to use aggressive marketing and promotional campaign to attract the attention of new guests in the country will help the company to achieve higher growth in revenue of the company in the future. However, along with the use of advertisement and promotional campaigns the company should also make effective use other marketing communication tools to achieve the overall organizational objectives in the country.
References:
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