IMC Audit Research Paper- KODAK
Executive Summary
Kodak has been failing over the years despite being among the leading camera manufacturers in the world at one point. This new marketing strategy is aimed at helping the company regain its competitive advantage. The marketing strategy has been developed based on the company’s strategic focus, which includes a mission, goals, core competency, and sustainable competitive advantage. The mission is to revolutionize digital age photography by creating a result-oriented culture offering customers exciting ways to capture high-quality images and process them as entertainment, memories, and information anywhere in the world. The goals are to become a leader in the photography industry, introduce innovative ideas that will revolutionize the digital photography age, gain a 60% market share in the United States and 50% in the global market, and increase customer loyalty by offering cameras that capture high-quality images. The core competencies that Kodak will leverage to retain competitiveness are color science, image processing, sensors, ink technology, and print media competencies. Although the company has experienced brand failure before, it will use performance-based and quality-based brand positioning to improve its brand image using the proposed marketing strategy.
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The industry analysis indicates that photography is highly profitable due to the rising demand for high-quality cameras to record films, advertisements, and events. The industry is also characterized by seasonal demand, including high demand for photography products and services during summer when outdoor activities and weddings are rising and are anticipated to grow, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. The competitive analysis indicates that the market for photography products is large due to the high number of small businesses specializing in photography and content creation. The level of competition in the market is high because the reduced cost of photography equipment and technological advancements have made it easier for consumers to create content and take photos with their phones instead of relying on professional photography. The customer analysis indicates that most of Kodak’s customers in the United States are males between 25 and 34 years old. The new marketing strategy will include high-quality products, affordable processes, and a combination of online and offline distribution stores.
Kodak’s current integrated marketing communications include television advertisements, promotions, coupons, crisis management, website marketing, sales representatives marketing, search engine optimization, and social media advertisements. The recommendations for an improved integrated marketing communications plan include changes in the company’s structure and marketing strategies. The recommendations for structural changes will include expansion into global markets, partnering with filmmakers, and partnering with electronics distributors. The marketing strategy changes will include creating marketing campaigns and outsourcing marketing communications to an advertising agency. The implementation plan will include identifying the unique selling proposition, determining the communication channels that best differentiate the company’s marketing message and products from competitors, creating marketing content, creating social media platforms, and maintaining customer engagement to get followers before posting marketing content and posting marketing content on social media platforms and engaging customers by replying to their comments on the marketing posts. The evaluation process will include determining whether the advertising campaigns have met the marketing objectives and the company’s goals and using key performance indicators to measure success. The main key performance indicators that will be used will be an increase in new customers, sales, and brand awareness.
Company Description
George Eastman founded Kodak in 1888. The company was incorporated in 1892 as Eastman Kodak Company. It focused on photography-related activities, such as film and photographic-based materials and chemicals (Tyan, 2009). It dominated the photography industry by structuring its operations based on customer focus, local distribution, developing a low-cost mass production process, and extensive marketing (Stanwick & Stanwick, 2020). Eastman was dedicated to revolutionizing how images were captured by emphasizing clarity. The company increased its market share rapidly and controlled over 80% of the market share in the photographic film industry in the United States and 50% of the photographic market in the world. However, the company’s performance began declining in 2005 when digital cameras were introduced in the market because the company ignored the changes and continued focusing on analog photography. The company also started facing stiff competition from lower-priced competitors who offered similar quality. Its main competitor was Fujifilm. The stiff competition led to a massive decline in sales, and the company began making losses. In January 2012, it filed for bankruptcy because it could not sustain a positive cash flow.
In 2016, the company began its journey to recovery. It announced that it would revive its Super 8 camera. During the same year, it announced that it would introduce a Kodak smartphone, Kodak Ektra, that would be sold at $3999.99 (Stanwick & Stanwick, 2020). However, the smartphone idea was not successful because the phone was not compatible with major mobile networks. In January 2018, the company announced it would expand into cryptocurrency and blockchain technology. The company also stated that it would use blockchain technology to create its cryptocurrency, KodakCoin. The cryptocurrency would be used for photo royalty and copyright payments for digital photographers (Stanwick & Stanwick, 2020). However, the project was unsuccessful due to criticism that the profits promised to investors were misleading and unrealistic. On July 28, 2020, the company announced that it had been granted a government loan amounting to $765 million under the United States Defense Production Act. It stated that the loan would help in generic medicine production. The company also noted that it would create a new pharmaceutical department to expand its operations.
Strategic Focus
Mission
To revolutionize digital age photography by creating a result-oriented culture offering customers exciting ways to capture high-quality images and process them as entertainment, memories, and information anywhere in the world.
Goals
To become a leader in the photography industry.
To introduce innovative ideas that will revolutionize the digital photography age.
To gain 60% market share in the United States and 50% in the global market.
To increase customer loyalty by offering cameras that capture high-quality images.
Core competency and sustainable competitive advantage
The core competencies that Kodak can leverage to retain competitiveness are color science, image processing, sensors, ink technology, and print media competencies. According to Grant (2016), Kodak is a leader in the control, production, specification, visual perception, and measurement of color, including predicting the performance of the devices used to capture images and imaging systems. The company is also a leader in quantifying and measuring visual responses to light. Therefore, it can leverage these competencies to improve the quality of the pictures captured using Kodak cameras. Kodak is also a leader in the algorithms used to process images for text and object recognition, balancing color, image manipulation, and enhancement. The company can leverage this competency in adjusting lighting conditions, scene reflectance, and sharpness in digital photo finishing. Grant (2016) argues that Kodak is a leader in image sensor technology with more than 30 years of experience in manufacturing and designing electronic image sensors used in machine vision, cameras, medical imaging, and satellites. The company is also a global leader in pigments and dyes, including the micro-milling technology applicable in digital photography. The print media competency includes being a leader in applying chemical and polymer science engineering in printing.
Brand image
A brand image is customers’ overall perception, impression, and association with a brand. Kodak’s brand image has undergone various changes over the years. When the company was established, it gained recognition as one of the best film companies in the world because of its high-quality, unique products. Its revenue increased to approximately $16 billion in the late 1990s, and by 1999, its profits amounted to $2.5 billion. However, the company began experiencing challenges in the early 2000s, which led to a negative brand image. The main cause of the decline in the company’s performance was stiff competition, which emerged because the company was slow to adapt to the changes and trends in the market. By 2009, the company’s revenues amounted to $9.4 billion. Revenue continued to decline, and in 2011, the company generated a revenue of $6.2 billion. The sudden decrease in revenue raised concerns about the company’s future and sustainability. To respond to the changes in revenue, Kodak laid off more than 120,000 employees worldwide and announced thousands of job cuts by 2012. By then, the company faced intense competition from Fuji Photo Film. Most of its customers had switched to Fuji products because they were of higher quality than what Kodak was offering.
Kodak’s sales volume began decreasing rapidly, making it hard for the company to create a competitive advantage. The company did not disclose the problem to the public and struggled to maintain operations as if nothing was wrong. The company continued to experience losses and was eventually unable to hide its situation from the public. The management admitted that the company needed to take action to regain its good brand image and began investigating the most effective strategies to achieve this goal. The company had also filed for bankruptcy and had debts that needed to be repaid, thus creating a need to resume operations. In 2013, Kodak announced that it had recovered from bankruptcy and would focus on digital graphics, enterprise and printing, commercial films, and entertainment. By 2014, the company had already started regaining its good image. The company has had a good image since 2015 and is working on retaining it by providing high-quality products and encouraging its employees to be innovative to produce unique products. The company is currently the main provider of film products in the American motion picture sector and also supplies functional printing, packaging, professional services, and graphic communications to customers worldwide.
Kodak can use its brand position to maintain a good brand image due to the stiff competition in the photography and film industry. A brand position describes what a brand does and its target customers, its unique value, how its target customers benefit from working with the brand or its products or services, and how it differs from competitors. Therefore, the main elements of brand positioning are competitors, companies, and customers. The customers provide valuable information that the brand can use to reach customers and create a competitive advantage. The company defines the company or brand’s marketing strategies based on the level of competition. Competitors give companies an idea of what they should focus on to propose unique value to customers. Kodak can use performance-based and quality-based brand positioning. According to Kostelijk & Alsem (2020), performance-based brand positioning focuses on the performance of a product compared to similar products offered by competitors. Kodak can ensure that its cameras’ performance is high and meets digital photography’s performance standards. Quality-based brand positioning focuses on using a product’s quality as the main selling point (Mogaji, 2021). Kodak can use high-quality raw materials to manufacture the cameras to ensure they are durable and strong to avoid breakage. The company can also use high-quality lenses to ensure that the photos captured with the cameras are high quality.
Situation Analysis
Industry analysis
The photography industry is highly profitable due to the rising demand for high-quality cameras to record films, advertisements, and events. According to Fang & Xiong (2020), technological advancements have impacted the demand for film processing, thus creating an opportunity for innovative businesses within the industry to leverage new opportunities. The industry is also characterized by seasonal demand, including high demand for photography products and services during summer when outdoor activities and weddings are rising. According to Simpson (2012), seasonal demand is also experienced in commercial photography due to seasonal events such as fashion campaigns. The industry is anticipated to grow, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. According to Tiernan (2019), the photography industry in the United Kingdom and the United States expects a 1.9% growth over the next five years due to the demand for portrait and wedding photography. Technological advancements will also contribute to the industry’s growth by creating new changes that allow customers to improve their photography skills and understand the most important features to consider when purchasing a camera. The demand for commercial photography will also accelerate the growth of the photography industry due to increased demand for high-quality videos and images to promote products and services.
Competitive analysis
The market for photography products is large due to the high number of small businesses specializing in photography and content creation. The level of competition in the market is high because the reduced cost of photography equipment and technological advancements have made it easier for consumers to create their content and take photos with their phones instead of relying on professional photography. Therefore, camera manufacturers must rely on building a good reputation and customer loyalty to succeed. Digital technology software such as Adobe Photoshop also threatens the success of camera manufacturers such as Kodak because customers do not need to capture high-quality images since they can retouch and enhance any image digitally. However, the demand for digital photography in commercial photography continues to increase steadily, thus creating an opportunity for companies such as Kodak to gain a significant market share by focusing on business-to-business sales.
Customer analysis
Kodak mainly focuses on parents, young people, and film producers. Most of their advertising campaigns demonstrate that its cameras are designed to capture the most memorable family moments and create memories of the time families spend together. For example, the company’s marketing campaigns and advertisements include slogans such as “share moments, share life.” The company designs its products based on customer needs to create customer loyalty by increasing customer satisfaction. According to a survey by Similarweb (2023), most of Kodak’s customers are in the United States. The statistics indicate that 24.51% of Kodak’s customer base is from the United States, 17.50% is in the United Kingdom, 4.98% is in Canada, 3.57% is in Australia, and 3.50% is in India. The survey also indicated that 61.58% of Kodak’s customer base is male, and 38.42% are female. Most customers are also individuals between 25 and 34 years. Kodak also categorizes its customers based on their interests. Most customers specialize in computer electronics and technology, followed by programming and software developers, news and media publishers, and social media users, respectively.
One of the new target markets will be filmmakers. The company will design cameras for filmmakers by including features to help filmmakers capture clear images, such as light adjustment and zooming. The second new target market will be professional photographers. The company will focus on the camera features required in professional photography, such as image clarity, to meet the needs of professional photographers. The third new target market will be amateur photographers. The company will offer cameras with photo editing features to help amateur photographers capture good photos. The fourth new target market is marketing content producers. The company will offer affordable cameras with filmmaking capabilities for content producers.
Product, Price, and Place Marketing Program
Product strategy
Kodak will focus on producing digital cameras, lenses, and digital printing materials. The digital cameras will include mirrorless cameras, digital SLR cameras, compact digital cameras, and film SLR cameras. The company will produce phone camera lenses to sell to phone manufacturing companies and camera lenses that customers can purchase when they want to change their camera lenses. Digital printing material will include digital printers and printing presses. The product portfolio may be expanded based on customer suggestions and market trends.
Price strategy
Kodak will use a competitive pricing strategy. According to Kachani & Shmatov (2010), competitive pricing includes strategically setting prices based on the price of similar products offered by competitors. Kodak will compare its prices with those set by major competitors such as Nikon to ensure that it sets favorable prices that can help acquire a large customer base. The company will occasionally offer incentives and discounts to maintain customer loyalty and attract more customers. Returning customers will also be offered discounts to encourage return purchases.
Place strategy
The company will distribute its products through online e-commerce platforms and physical stores in areas with a high population of target customers. The company will also partner with electronics retailers to sell its products. It will also create an online selling platform where customers can view available products, product features, prices, and reviews and place an order and delivery address.
Current Integrated Marketing Communications Analyses
Advertising
Advertising includes paying to share a message that identifies with an organization or brand to many people through one or many channels. Organizations may use traditional or digital advertising channels. Traditional advertising channels include radio, television, magazines, and leaflets. Consequently, digital advertising channels include social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and blogs. Kodak mainly uses television advertisements to advertise its products and connect with customers. The company ensures that all its advertisements tell a story to evoke specific emotions from the audience. For example, the company created a television advertisement titled “Understanding.” The advertisement tells a story of a parent’s and family’s reaction when they discover their son is romantically attracted to men. A photo is then taken after the family resolves their tension to preserve the memory and demonstrate the establishment of an understanding between the conflicting parties. The company also uses slogans such as “The moments that capture your love” in one of its television advertisements to stand out among competitors. The slogan suggests that Kodak’s cameras can be used to capture moments perfectly and preserve memories that people cherish. The company also advertises its products through photos posted on various social media platforms. The photos include some photos of the products and others taken using Kodak cameras. Kodak’s advertisements aim to communicate the brand’s value to existing and new customers to attract and retain more customers.
Promotions
Promotions in integrated marketing communications focus on the activities that temporarily increase the sales of a service or product by adding to the product’s basic value. Kodak uses coupons as a promotional strategy. According to Dubé et al. (2017), coupons offer an immediate reduction in a product’s or service’s price because the manufacturer reimburses the amount in the coupon to the retailer. The retailer also receives a handling fee when they accept coupons, thus guaranteeing reduced product or service costs. Kodak awards customers who purchase specific products on offer with coupons to attract more customers. The company also uses coupons to increase customer loyalty. Customers can download the coupons on the company’s website and store them on their mobile phones. The coupons are accessible to customers worldwide, thus contributing to the overall growth in the company’s market share. Another promotion strategy that Kodak uses as part of its integrated marketing communications strategy is cost savings for companies that partner with it. For example, the company developed a rebate program by partnering with Print Affiliates to offer their participating members cost savings when they buy various Kodak printing solutions. The third strategy is online promotion campaigns. For instance, the company uses campaigns such as “Its Tie for You and Kodak” and “So Kodak” to communicate its product features and value to customers. Kodak’s promotion campaigns focus on acquiring more B2B markets by increasing the company’s visibility in various film festivals and awards. Therefore, the company can leverage its position by increasing customer awareness about its products, especially among major customers such as film producers.
Personal selling
Personal selling includes using sales representatives to sell services and products. The sales representatives should have a personal connection with the organization or brand selling the product or service and establish a personal connection between the brand or company’s products and services and the buyer. The goal of sales representatives in personal selling is to inform potential customers about a brand’s or company’s products and services, persuade them to purchase, and remind them about offers and modifications, service agreements, and prices. Personal selling improves customer relationships by facilitating customer feedback. Kodak uses personal selling to address its customer’s needs and preferences without them feeling pressured. The company uses its sales representatives to gather customer feedback and use the feedback for product improvement. The company also uses its sales representatives to provide information and recommendations to customers and advise them on how to use its products to produce the best quality photos and films. The company also uses its sales representatives to help buyers make the best purchase decision within their budget, thus reducing the time customers take to make the purchase decision. The sales representatives cultivate a good relationship with the customers to get honest feedback about a product and express concerns about meeting their needs, thus cultivating trust between the company and its customers. The company also demonstrates how its products are used, including the advantageous features of all the products and how they meet customers’ needs.
Public relations
According to Newton (2022), public relations includes maintaining a good brand or organization image and creating a beautiful relationship between an organization and the people it serves, public communities, and groups. The aim of public relations is to create a good impression of a brand or organization through positive publicity and paid messages and drawing attention to attention-worthy and newsworthy activities. Kodak’s main public relations strategy is crisis management. Kodak has been using crisis management as its promotional technique by owning up to its mistakes and updating customers about the approaches it takes to address the mistakes. The company’s crisis management approach includes building a relationship with the customers, listening, and maintaining constant communication. Kodak’s crisis management has enabled the company to overcome its brand failure and create a competitive advantage over some major competitors in the market. Kodak emphasizes rebuilding trust among its customers to develop customer loyalty that results in increased sales.
Direct marketing
Direct marketing includes reaching customers directly to understand their preferences, behaviors, interests, and needs. Some direct marketing strategies companies can use include telemarketing, catalogs, and direct mail. Direct marketing aims to appeal directly to and reach customers and use information about them to provide offers, services, and products most relevant to them and their needs. Kodak uses its website for direct marketing. The company’s website represents an all-in-one display counter, storefront, and a communication channel to share information with customers about its products and offers. The company also uses Search-engine-optimization to directly communicate with the customers. Search engine optimization is the process of using Bing, Google, and other search engines on the internet to gain visibility, notice, and traffic from customers searching specific products using keywords and sharing valuable content with the target audience to complete a profitable action and increase sales.
Database marketing
Database marketing is a systematic approach used to consolidate, collect, and process consumer data for effective customer relationship management. Kodak uses its website to collect data about its customers and uses the website to create good customer relationship management through various actions. One of the actions is providing general information to the customers about the company, its products, and contact information. The second action is expressing the brand through the company’s logo and the voice used to communicate with customers through the website. The third action is demonstrating Kodak products’ quality, value, benefits, and features. The fourth action is providing proof points about the value of Kodak products using evidence from customer reviews. The company also maintains a good relationship with its customers by recommending products based on customer needs and preferences.
Internet Marketing
Internet marketing, also known as online marketing, includes using digital methods and platforms to promote products and services by focusing on the target market. Internet marketing aims to generate more traffic to an advertiser’s platform. Kodak has embraced the use of social media platforms for two purposes. The first purpose is to attract new customers. Social media platforms increase a brand’s and product’s exposure to many customers. Kodak posts pictures and videos of its products and a description of the products and services’ main features to attract new customers and update existing customers on product modifications. The second purpose is to promote brand loyalties by increasing the number of customers reached. Kodak also uses its social media platforms to get customer feedback on its products. For example, the company learned why customers were uncomfortable with the Zi8 Pocket Video Camcorder name through customer reviews on social media platforms. The company responded by creating a virtual contest where followers were expected to suggest the most appropriate name for the next pocket camera, which led to the name Kodak Playsport.
Recommendations for an Improved Integrated Marketing Communications Plan
The company will expand into the global market by venturing into developing markets that large brands have not yet dominated. The company will open branches in developing countries to monitor sales and conduct market research to improve the company’s sales in the countries. The company will also partner with filmmakers in developing countries by forming partnerships to supply filming cameras and share the profits from selling the films because most developing countries cannot afford high-quality cameras for film production. Expanding into developing markets will also include partnering with local retailers to increase the availability of Kodak products to the target customers. The company will partner with electronics distributors in developed countries to sell products and increase brand awareness.
I would also recommend creating a campaign to market various Kodak products. The campaign should be run through various online platforms to reach a large audience. One of the measures the company should take to create a successful campaign is building a buyer persona representing the ideal target customer. The company should conduct detailed research on customer needs and preferences to create the most accurate buyer persona. The information applied in creating the buyer persona should be based on real data, including customer location, age, occupation, income, interests, challenges, goals, and priorities. The second measure is identifying the organization’s goals and the digital marketing tools that will be needed. The marketing goals should be linked to the company’s main goals. The third measure is evaluating the existing digital assets and channels. The company should consider paid, earned, and owned media frameworks. Paid media is any channel the company has to pay for to catch the attention of the target customers, such as paid social media posts, sponsored advertisements, and paid blog posts. Earned media is a company’s exposure through word-of-mouth marketing, such as positive reviews and press mentions. Owned media is a company or brand’s digital assets, such as social media profiles, websites, imagery, or blog content. The fourth measure is auditing and planning the company’s owned media campaigns. The company should begin by auditing its existing its current digital marketing content to identify improvement areas. The company should list all its existing owned content and rank every content based on past performance in meeting its goals. The second step should be identifying gaps in the existing content. The third step is creating a content creation plan. The fifth measure the company should take in creating a digital marketing campaign is auditing and planning the company’s earned media campaigns. The sixth measure is auditing and planning the company’s paid media campaigns. The seventh measure is bringing the company’s digital marketing campaign together.
Kodak also needs to determine the channels where most customers consume content to avoid spending money on marketing channels that do not offer a return on investment. The company should create a marketing budget and consider each channel’s return on investment before allocating marketing funds. It is also important for the company to be aware of the channels that competitors use. This will enable the company to use the same marketing content in various ways across various channels to increase cohesion and minimize the need for using different marketing content in every channel. The company must consider the most appropriate platforms serving different target customers. For example, the company can use social media platforms to reach young customers and chatbots to reach professionals who may not have time to go through social media posts. The company should also select the most appropriate messaging style based on the target customers. For example, the company can use a formal style when communicating with professionals such as filmmakers and directors and an informal style when communicating with other customers. The company should also determine the most appropriate frequency for passing the marketing message and targeting. For example, the company can use more frequent messages when communicating with unqualified leads and less frequency when communicating with loyal customers.
Another recommendation that Kodak should consider is outsourcing its marketing communications to an advertising agency. One of the advantages of using an advertising agency is that it will enable the company to improve its customer base and sales without incurring additional costs in salaries. The company can capitalize on the expertise and experience of the staff from the advertising agency. The second advantage is that the advertising agency could easily access the marketing channels that it has used before, thus increasing the success of the company’s advertising efforts. The third benefit will be marketing efficiency because the advertising agency has the tools and exposure needed to compile and interpret customer data that can be leveraged to increase sales. There are ten types of advertising agencies that an organization can use. One of them is full-service agencies. This type of agency provides various advertising services with digital and traditional options, including advertisement campaigns, television advertisements, content creation, graphic design, search engine optimization, web development, radio advertisements, and social media management. The second type of agency is digital advertising agencies. This type of agency provides online advertising services. Companies use digital advertising agencies when they only want digital advertisements, such as social media marketing, search engine optimization, account-based marketing, email marketing, lead generation, and website design marketing. The third agency is traditional advertising agencies that provide traditional advertising such as magazines and newspapers, billboards, radio, postcard mail, and television advertisements.
The fourth type of advertising agency is social media agencies. The agencies provide social-media marketing on behalf of their clients by establishing social media advertisement optimization, writing blog posts, designing profiles, writing captions, and creating digital content for advertisement. The fifth type is creative boutiques that provide various creative design options for their customers based on their marketing needs. The boutiques allow clients to monitor their marketing campaigns’ performance and determine where their advertisements should be placed. Creative boutiques can help a company build an online community, create content such as blog posts, social media posts, and videos, and plan campaign strategies. The sixth type of agency is media buying agencies that help clients determine the best location to post their advertising content. The seventh type of agency is public relations advertising agencies that help clients maintain and improve their public image. Kodak can use a public relations advertising agency to improve its brand image, given its history of brand failure. The eighth type of agency is brand advertising agencies that help companies develop their colors, company name, overall design, and colors. The aim of branding is to make a company memorable and recognizable to customers. Brand advertising agencies can help Kodak develop unique logo designs, color palettes, and signage, as well as help the company develop its brand name. The ninth type of agency is an in-house advertising agency that operates within a specific company. The tenth type of agency is an interactive advertising agency that focuses on the interaction between the brand and its customers. The agencies send interactive messages and emails to customers to discuss products and their features.
Implementation Plan
The marketing strategy will be implemented in three phases. The first phase will be creating content that will be used to market the company’s products. The marketing team and graphic designers create the content to ensure it is fit for marketing and appealing to the audience. The second phase will be creating social media platforms and maintaining customer engagement to get followers before posting marketing content. During this phase, the social media platforms will inform customers that the company is regaining its position in the photography industry and solicit customer feedback on what they expect from the company and areas for improvement it should consider to be successful. The third phase will be posting marketing content on social media platforms and engaging customers by replying to their comments on the marketing posts. The content will be updated regularly to maintain customer engagement and the brand’s relevance.
Implementing the integrated marketing communication strategies discussed in the recommendation section will include identifying the company’s unique selling proposition. Kodak will adopt and utilize strategic differentiators that can be leveraged to create a competitive advantage. The unique selling proposition will help the company increase conversion rates and secure more interested customers. The unique selling proposition may include unique product features, quality, and price. The company will also define its marketing communication methods. The most important part that will be considered in developing and implementing a wide range of marketing communications strategies is defining the strategies that will make up the strategy, such as the messaging style and the marketing platforms. The company will determine the communication channels that best differentiate its marketing message and products from competitors. The implementation plan will also include maintaining a consistent brand element and outlining the main success metrics. The company will constantly review its brand element to maintain it in every phase of marketing communications and across every channel, media, and platform. One of the metrics that will be used to monitor success will be the number of mentions the company will receive on social media within one month. This will help determine whether the proposed strategies are effective. The second metric is the number of website visits the company will have within a month. An increase in visits will indicate that the marketing strategies are effective. The third metric will be the conversion rate for the website visits. An increase in the conversion rate will indicate that the strategies are successful.
Evaluation and Control
The marketing strategy will be evaluated by creating key performance indicators. According to Appleton (2017), key performance indicators are the indicators that organizations use to estimate their success based on specific goals and objectives. One of the key performance indicators that will be used is the increase in new customers. The second indicator is the increase in sales. The third indicator is the increase in brand awareness. In addition, the marketing strategy will be controlled by regularly monitoring the changes in sales and customer feedback on the marketing posts on social media platforms. The changes will be recorded to assist the evaluating team in determining what is working and what should be reconsidered.
The evaluation process will also include determining whether the advertising campaigns have met the marketing objectives and the company’s goals. The evaluation of the campaign will include measuring the impact of the campaigns on the company’s performance based on various factors. One of the factors will be the return on investment. An increase in the return on investment after implementing the integrated marketing communication strategies recommended for the company will indicate that the strategies are effective. The second factor is market share. An increase in market share after implementing the strategies will indicate that the strategies are successful. The third factor is corporate reputation. The strategies are expected to improve the company’s reputation. Therefore, an improvement in reputation based on positive reviews will indicate that the strategies are successful. The fourth factor is brand equity. An increase in Kodak’s brand equity will indicate the success of the strategies. The effectiveness of the marketing campaigns will be measured before, during, and after implementing the proposed strategies. The company will review customers’ perceptions and measure how they respond to the campaign to determine the impact of the marketing strategies on the company’s marketing efforts.
References
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IMC Audit Research Paper- KODAK