Marketing communication is an effective way of conveying a company’s message to its customers about its brand, products and services. The basic marketing communication process involves the following constituents: Sender, Encoding, Transfer Mechanism, Feedback, Response and Decoding.
• The SENDER is usually the company/firm that produces the product.
• ENCODING is communicating the message in comprehensible terms for the customer.
• TRANSFER MECHANISM is the medium used to “transfer the message”.
• DECODING is the way a customer interprets the message.
• RESPONSE is the reaction of the customer on the message.
• FEEDBACK is a measure of how successful the advertising campaign was.
Basic Model of Communication
1. Sender
A sender is also referred to as a source and is the one who has a message to convey. For example, a company or a brand manager can be considered as a Sender. In a marketing process, it is important to ensure that the source or the sender is realistic and trustworthy. Also, source can be direct or indirect.
2. Encode
The sender encodes ideas into a message. A brand manager, for example, decides to advertise a new product.
3. Message
Based on the ideas given by the sender, the marketer creates an effective message that is clear and effective enough to achieve the communication objectives.
4. Receiver
The receiver is the person or group of people with whom the sender tries to communicate and share the message. For example, customers are the receivers for a company.
5. Decode
On receiving the message from the sender, the receiver decodes it. It I important here that the sender and the receiver have common experiences in order to decode the message at the receiver’s end as it was intended to be.
6. Feedback
Feedback is considered as examining and evaluating how precisely the intended message is being received by the receiver. Marketing research can be a way to collect feedback from the receivers.
Essentially, it involves asking receivers if they have seen the message, whether they remember the message, and their attitude towards the message (product).