Integrated Marketing Strategy for Paramount Studio - Essay Example

Integrated Marketing Strategy for Paramount Studio’s Latest Movie Release: Integrated MarketingStrategies are also described as "loyalty" or "relevance" marketing, or as "targeted direct marketing". This is a systematic method of getting access to the presently available potential customers for Paramount Studios. It relies upon building, maintaining, and sensitively using a customer-focused database. Such a database allows the organization to change seamlessly from a product focus to a marketing focus - and finally, to the true customer focus that builds customer satisfaction and loyalty. In the campaign designed for the purpose of promoting ticket sales of Paramount Studios’ latest thriller, a combination of traditional and modern approaches to marketing has been adopted. The integration of sales promotion and direct marketing involves a particularly big clash, combining dissimilar disciplines practiced by different types of people. Direct marketers tend to think long term about building relationships, while sales promotion has traditionally focused on boosting short-term return. Direct marketing is about one-to-one relationships, while sales promotion is focused on the offer. But put together, the approach can offer great opportunities for commercial success. The first media chosen for my campaign will be Internet. Internet has unparalleled reach in todays world and is accessed by billions of people worldwide for information and entertainment. There can be no better place to promote the new thriller than internet. These days, integrating e-mail across various channels of communication has become a top priority for many marketing strategists, and their challenge lies in determining how best to utilize this tool in their integrated marketing strategy. Recent trends show that the internet is increasingly being used for shopping. In this context, combining search and email features together can be very effective. For example, a media arrangement that combines direct marketing mailing with email can captivate a a customers or prospects attention and move them along in a buying cycle, which could then result in a sale of the movie ticket. Employing such enterprise marketing management systems as are offered by multimedia companies-such as Aprimo, Eloqua Corp., Vtrenz, Bronto Software, etc are quite appropriate for the marketing campaign of Paramount Studios. With the help of these systems, Paramount Studios can come up with a sophisticated cross-channel campaign; also the performance measurement and analysis of such campaigns can be carried on the back end. In other words, the EMM systems provide the technology backbone to tie marketing efforts together into one central system. Further, our internet strategy will start with the establishment of a comprehensive web portal about the movie that will offer posters, information about character, previews / trailers and will also sell merchandise related to the movie. The web portal will be very interactive, user friendly with lots of flash to provide an entertaining preview about the movie. Best of all, the site will a direct link with the thriller’s direct mail program and back it up with messages in its corporate Television advertisements. With less than twenty percent of households in the United States having internet connections, this potential conflict with TV has not yet emerged and hence makes our marketing strategy a sound one. Internet users in the United States are basically affluent professionals or students, and although they buy movie tickets online they are not the only audience that will be targeted by our integrated marketing campaign. Included in the target audience are such demographic groups as homemakers, retired people, who are increasingly spending more time on the Internet. Even if this does not result in a significant increase in sale of tickets, the ultimate objective of Paramount Studios – one of building relationships with their consumers – will nevertheless be fulfilled. We will also partner with other high ranked or popular movie and entertainment portals and will share the preview/trailers and posters on such sites. This will not only enhance our reach, but will also drive traffic to our site by reciprocal links, banners, etc. Further, we will utilize web-logs, forums, etc. to popularize the movie as well as generate feedback from the viewers. Another media chosen for campaign will be mobile. Today, more and more consumers are using mobile for entertainment, information seeking and music. We can develop mobile content in the form of ring tones, wallpapers, and interactive games using the characters of the film and short clips that can be distributed to the mobile users. It will be a very useful media in terms of extending our reach to the masses as most people, especially youngsters, are fascinated by content over the mobile and a popular mobile ring tone, wallpaper, etc. spreads like fire among mobile users. Gaming will also be collaborated with mobile media to offer interactive science fiction games related to the movie. It will be especially useful in engaging kids attention towards the move. The marketing through mobiles also tend to be a highly customer-focused marketing. It is both the prerequisite for successful database marketing and its result. While experts in the management information field like to talk about hardware, software, and how it all links up, the prime determinant of success in this area is neither the computer systems, nor telemarketing. Those are just among the many tools available for a marketing strategist to implement the campaign efficiently and cost-effectively. Not even state-of-the-art tools and strategies can compensate for business plans not based upon meeting the needs, and surpassing the expectations, of core customers – in this case, fans of thriller movies. The proven techniques of integrated database marketing through the medium of mobile technology can help Paramount Studios to accomplish all their key marketing objectives. The third media chosen for this purpose will be outdoor media, such as large hoardings, etc. Now-a-days, attractive interactive hoardings using latest technologies can be utilized to display interactive content. Especially for this science fiction thriller, an attractive interactive display at prominent locations across the cities can be quite effective in terms of generating viewers interest. The high visual impact of outdoor media like billboards can be used to create fast awareness about the movie. Outdoor media can offer such unique advantages to the campaign. For instance, they can deliver sensitive, value-based communications directly to customers, across all age groups, drawing upon your individualized knowledge of their wants, expectations, and unfulfilled needs, thereby leveraging the impact of "expensive" contacts like sales calls with coordinated support from direct mail, telemarketing, space ads, and the like. They also help align marketing efforts with those of Paramount Studios’ channel partners (dealers, distributors, etc.) so that the goals become collaborative rather than adversarial. When one wins, all win. In this case, whatever keeps one from presenting an integrated, customer-focused face to the market harms all stakeholders. Also, in terms of expenses involved outdoor marketing tends to provide a better return on investments than other newer medium of advertisements available. The outdoor element of this integrated campaign will improve the profitability and long-term viability of Paramount Studios many-fold by retaining their most valuable customers and increasing their loyalty to you. Read More