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By Madigan
Pratt
Let's face it. Most travel marketers today never
have sufficient funds to deliver the sales demanded by management. Limited
funding, coupled with increasingly stiff competition, has forced managers
to review every line item in the budget. (Lack of funds and competition,
by the way, are two of the most important factors fueling the drive
toward Integrated Marketing Communications.)
Reality has come to travel marketing and establishing
a proven return on investment for each component of the marketing plan
is upon us. Proven ROI has led to significant increases in the use of
direct marketing and promotion in recent years. It has also led to the
integration imperative. Even with increasingly scarce resources, it
makes good business sense to allocate sufficient funds to measuring
marketing impact.
Single Customer Markets
In addition to measurement, many travel marketers
are constantly researching, defining and refining their target audience(s).
They look for niche segments of consumers where they may have a particular
competitive advantage. Or one that is so tiny that competition may overlook
(or choose to ignore) their efforts.
Using the vast computer power and sophisticated
software available today, more aggressive marketers are going beyond
niche marketing to defining single customer markets. Just look at the
increasing use of one-to-one marketing and relationship marketing programs
designed to build loyalty and maximize sales.
Defining the Customer
There is a relentless demand to balance the quest
for new customers, retain existing ones, meet sales goals and thwart
competitive advances. This in turn has lead to perhaps an inordinate
focus on "the customer." Blasphemy, you say!!!
It all depends upon how you define the customer.
Most marketing plans define the customer in demographic, psychographic
and/or geographic terms referring primarily to those individuals who
eventually pony up to the cash register.
These however are the external customers. But having
a laser focus on these customers has left a major blind spot in most
marketing initiatives. Far too often the internal customer - the marketing,
sales, service and support personnel who help capture and retain cash
paying external customers - are virtually ignored.
Internal Customers
Working alongside the internal customer day-in and
day-out has led far too many marketers to falsely conclude that staff
knows as much about the direction of the communications message as the
marketing director. This is a fatal flaw in many marketing initiatives.
Companies have mission statements published in their
annual report and have it hung outside the President's office. This
doesn't mean that internal customers (personnel) either understand or
apply it to their daily work. Can you recite your mission statement?
Can your staff?
I get to see many mission statements and although
they are elaborately and expensively constructed, far too often they
are dripping in hyperbole surrounded by motherhood and apple pie with
oftentimes conflicting directives and are outright impossible to implement.
They do however warm the hearts of senior executives whenever they are
recited.
Travel marketing professionals know who their external
target audience is. They understand the arena in which they are competing.
They know what benefits are being offered and the rationale for why
external customers would be better off doing business with them instead
of a rival. Internal customers need to have the same knowledge in order
for the organization to sell effectively.
Key messages need to be constantly and consistently
reinforced to internal customers. Just because they were told once doesn't
mean they will retain and apply that knowledge when servicing or selling
external customers.
Expanding the Concept
To achieve the benefits of a truly Integrated Marketing
Communications program you must ensure, even insist upon, a free flow
of marketing information throughout the entire organization. Information
must flow both up and down the organization with ease.
This includes not only senior and junior staff,
but marketing partners as well - partners such as advertising, public
relations and promotional agencies and consultants.
These professionals can help you develop the strategies
and plans needed to sell both internal and external customers and create
a truly Integrated Marketing Communications program.
In order for IMC to succeed, your marketing partners
must have access to highly confidential information. If you hold back
information and fail to integrate partners completely into the marketing
process, their recommendations, strategies and implementation programs
will be less than optimal and may not provide a satisfactory ROI. Who
suffers when information is withheld?
Summary
In order to succeed in today's increasingly competitive
marketplace, everyone within a given organization must be completely
conversant with its mission, the target audience and the benefits of
dealing with them vs. competition.
It is only when the internal customers, including
marketing partners are completely in sync that they can effectively
maximize selling opportunities against the external customer. This is
the only way to operate in these days of tight budgets and focus on
ROI. 
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