The Marketing Tool Box

As a senior college student awaiting graduation and, essentially, the jump start to the rest of my life, I can't help but wonder if the knowledge I have obtained in the past four years will stick with me. How am I certain that once I'm at my workplace developing PR/Social Media/Marketing Campaigns for clients that I'll remember all the concepts in my marketing tool box? Application is key, not memorizing. So, this post aims to add a few concepts to that tool box, hoping that in one, two, five years from now, I remember what I spent my four years in college learning about.

The first concept I would like add to my tool box is word-of-mouth (WOM). This is a broad term that consists of a complex and dynamic understanding. In the earlier years of WOM, it consisted of a friend talking to a friend about a great movie they saw over the weekend, but now, in the digital era, there is a whole new transformation of the WOM and it is called E-WOM (electron word-of-mouth). Face-to-face communication seems like a concept in the past due to the vast upbringing of social networking sites, mobile phones, tablets, etc. Consumers are not just talking to each other face-to-face, they are putting reviews online (good or bad) and consumers are reading and listening. An even more specific concept to add to my marketing tool box is the difference between personal WOM and impersonal WOM. I think the difference between these two concepts is important for marketers to realize. If a consumer participates in personal WOM, then they are at school or work talking to someone directly about a new product, restaurant, etc. This personal WOM generates an incredible amount of high credibility, which is something that consumers love. They want their information to be reliable and trustworthy. On the opposite side of the spectrum lies impersonal WOM. This is the E-WOM previously spoken about. Consumers are going online to websites like Yelp! to research certain products, services, or ideas. The downside to this is the low credibility. There is no face-to-face reliability and trustworthiness.

Another concept I think is important to add to the tool box is the mere exposure effect, specifically the impact familiarity has on a consumer. We spoke in class about this term in regards of outdoor advertising, but it applies to all areas on integrated marketing communications. The mere exposure effect basically states that consumers are more likely to favor a brand they have previously been exposed to, which leads to familiarity. People like things they are familiar to. People do not like uncertainty and we try our best to reduce uncertainty. So, products that consumers have seen before are more have a higher purchase intent.

The last concept I want to add to my marketing concept tool box is perceived risk. This is the risk consumers think about before purchasing a product. Obviously, the more risk, the higher the involvement the consumer has in their research and purchase. For example, gum from the checkout lane has no perceived risk, while a new car has very high perceived risk. The important thing to realize about perceived risk is that there are different kinds. There are financial risks, social risks and psychological risks. A product could be expensive, so the consumer could feel like their is a risk in losing a lot of money. A product could change the way the consumer wants to be perceived by others. Or a product could be detrimental to the consumer's own values and morals. Whether it be any of those three kinds of risks, marketers must realize that consumers go through a great deal of weighing in the negatives of a purchase and it is their job to minimize the risks and promote the positives.

I'm adding these three terms into my marketing tool box because I believe they play an important role in integrated marketing communications implementation. They all serve the purpose of spreading awareness, knowing what consumers like, and knowing what consumers are afraid of losing during their consumer decision journey.