Ch--7
Services Marketing
Communications
Integrated Service Marketing Communications
• Communication is the most visible or audible form of marketing activities.
• Through communications, marketers explain and promote the value proposition
their firm is offering.
• It should be used intelligently in conjunction with other marketing efforts for
maximizing value.
• Communications must be viewed with a broader perspective than just as media
advertising, public relations, social media and professional salespeople.
Adding Value through Communication Content
• Information and consultation represent important ways to add value to a product
• Provide information to prospective customers
• Service options available, cost, specific features, functions, service benefits
• Persuade target customers that service offers best solution to meet their needs and build
relationship with them
• Help maintain relationships with existing customers
• Requires comprehensive, up-to-date customer database and ability to make
use of this in a personalized way
• Direct mail and contacts by telephone, e-mail, websites, text messages
• For example, doctors sending annual checkup reminders to patients
The 5 ‘W’s Model For Marketing & Communications
Planning
• Who is our target audience?
• What do we need to communicate and achieve?
• How should we communicate this?
• Where should we communicate this?
• When should the communication take place?
Defining The Target Audience
Target audience for Marketing Communications:
• Prospects — not usually known in advance
Employ a traditional communications mix, comprising of elements such as media
advertising, online advertising, public relations, and use of purchased lists for direct mail
or telemarketing.
• Users — existing target audience
Reach by cross-or up-selling efforts by frontline employees, point-of-sale
promotions, other information distributed during service encounters, and location-based
mobile apps.
• Employees — secondary audience
A well-designed communications campaign through public media targeted at
customers can also be motivating for employees.
Specifying Service Communication Objectives
• Strategic Service Communications Objectives
• Include building a service brand, and positioning it and its service products against
competition.
• Tactical Service Communications Objectives
• Relate to shaping and managing customer’s perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and
behavior in any of the three stages of the service consumption process.
• The Service Marketing Communications Funnel is aligned to the Attention-Interest-
Desire-Action (AIDA) and Hierarchy of Effects models.
Maximizing Value From Service Communication
Strategy
• Promote tangible cues to communicate quality.
• Add value through communication content.
• Facilitate customer involvement in service production.
• Promote the contribution of service personnel and backstage
operations.
• Stimulate and shift demand to match capacity.
Crafting Effective Service Communication Messages
Challenges in developing communication messages include:
Problems of Intangibility
• Abstractness - financial security or investment-related matters do
not have one-to-one correspondence with physical objects
• Generality - items that comprise of a class of objects, persons or
events are general and not specific enough
• Non-searchability - many of the service attributes cannot be
searched or inspected physically before they are purchased
• Mental impalpability - many services are sufficiently complex, multi-
dimensional or novel; it is difficult to understand the experience of
using them
Overcoming The Problems Of Intangibility
• Specific communications strategies can be created by marketers
• Using tangible cues and metaphors are two other methods firms can
use to create strategies
• Tangible Cues - “vivid information” that catches the audience’s attention.
• Metaphors - metaphors that are tangible in nature to help communicate the
benefits of their service offerings and to emphasize key points of
differentiation.
Accenture Promotes Ability to Turn Innovative Ideas
into Results
Ad dramatizes abstract notion of helping
clients capitalize on innovative ideas in
fast-moving world
Features Tiger Woods in eye-catching
situations
Highlights firm’s ability to help clients
“develop the reflexes of a high-
performance business”
Use tangible metaphors when possible!
Source: Courtesy of Accenture
DHL: Promoting the Efficiency of Its Import Express
Service
Use of an easily grasped
metaphor
Heavily knotted string represents
how complex importing can be
Straight string represents how easy
it would be using DHL’s express
service
Source: Courtesy DHL Express Singapore
Facilitate customer involvement in service production.
Facilitate customer involvement in service production.
Table 7.1 Advertising Strategies for Overcoming Intangibility
Using metaphors
The Services Marketing Communications Mix
Sources of Messages Received by Target Audience
Front-line staff
Messages originating
within organization Service outlets A
U
Advertising D
Sales promotions
Direct marketing
I
Sources Personal selling E
Public relations N
Messages originating C
outside organization Word of mouth E
Media editorial
Source: Adapted from a diagram by Adrian Palmer, Principles of Services Marketing, London: McGraw-Hill,4th ed., 2005, p. 397
Sources Of Messages
1. Messages transmitted through traditional marketing channels.
2. Messages transmitted online.
3. Messages transmitted through service delivery channels.
4. Messages originating from outside the organization.
Three Key Sources Of Messages
Ethical And Consumer Privacy Issues In
Communications
Unethical
Unrealistic
advertisers
service
and
promises
salespeople
Unwanted Deceptive
intrusion promotions
