What is marketing communications? It is more than just advertising

Who, what, and where are we talking about?

Audience

It's very important to correctly define your audience. A common mistake is choosing an obvious audience. For example, many stores or apps follow their competitors, first copying them and then trying to improve their product. They then attract their competitors' customers.

But it might be better to target those who don't use similar products or services, especially if you are creating a new product that competes with an established one and your product is currently worse. Don't try to attract your competitor's customers. Instead, focus on those who don't use such products.

Avoid copying your competitor's features. Talk to your current and potential customers to find out their pain points. Maybe you can create a feature that solves their problems better than your competitor's solutions.

Use online panels to understand what your customers need. Panels are groups of people representing your audience, allowing you to ask questions and get quick answers.

Don't limit yourself to local suppliers; explore options within the country, Europe, or the entire world. If you are a digital creator and your target audience is Spanish-speaking, consider translating to English.

Message

After determining the audience, the main question to ask is why?

Why do you want to tell people about your feature or product? What role should your communication play? What problem should you solve and why? What impact should it have?

The communication cannot exist on its own. It doesn't make sense to just tell people that your app is convenient. Maybe it's not what they need. You'll simply spend money and get nothing. Ensure what is important to people, how you will tell them about it, and what action you expect them to take. These success parameters largely determine the setup of the communication.

Here is an example where marketing and product management intersect: if the revenue of music platforms is calculated according to the formula DAU (daily audience) x average listening time x income per listening minute.

Therefore, when you add a new feature, you should ask how this will increase one or more values of this formula. Based on that, build the communication or make a decision about the product (I recently wrote about the DIRK framework).

Channel

With channels, everything is straightforward. In this text, I do not plan to go into detail. In digital marketing, we talk about targeting, SEM, influencers, and their social networks. In traditional marketing, posters, TV advertising, radio, newspapers, and other instruments are used.

Pay attention to channel selection when conducting surveys, research, and panels. Determine where your target audience is located and how to deliver a specific message to them.