Evaluating an Integrated Marketing Communication Program of Walmart

Introduction

While different companies aspire to expand their global markets, the management must put emphasis on factors like marketing strategies, manufacturing stance, investment policies, structures, and focus. This paper fully discusses ways that companies evaluate integrated marketing communication program to help them reach their consumers.

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Walmart Company

It is the largest general merchandise corporate in the United States of America, and it has expanded in the branches in many countries worldwide. Walmart, directly and indirectly, employs over 2.3 million people and America leading with 1.5 million employees. They are also committed to using their scale for goods and size to reach their customers, associates, suppliers, and every community.

Products or services provided by WalmartAfter being considered the largest retailer worldwide, Walmart runs over 4,000 facilities and stores internationally. Their services include retail goods, photo lab, pharmacy, financial and wireless services, (Dessert et al.2015).

Retail Goods

Variety of electronics such as printers, MP3players, laptops, digital cameras and computers and other home furnishings are available. Additionally, books, ornaments, movies, sporting goods, baby products, grocery items and music downloads are also offered by Walmart.

Photo services

Customers can get the photo services online through Walmart corporate website or inside stores. Photo lab gives customers a chance to develop the print in the minimum time possible.

Pharmacy

Walmart corporate offers the monthly prescription through mail order services and in the stores for long-term medications.

Financial services

Several financial services like bill payment, check cashing and printing, money transfers, credit, and debit cards are all offered by Walmart.

Wireless services

In partnership with the T-mobile service provider, Walmart is providing its customers with voice calls and unlimited text.

The Core target audience(s) of WalmartAlthough Walmart tries to target customers of various ages through its marketing messages, special focus is given to young consumers because their loyalty is strategically important to the long-term perspective. Young consumers get attracted to cheap rice promises on social media's marketing platforms. Additionally, Walmart targets densely populated regions like urban centers to get many customers. Furthermore, they consider factors like occupation, income, gender, life-cycle stage, the region, personality, user's status, and lifestyle to bring products that satisfy all consumers.

The range of marketing communication vehicles Walmart use to reach their audience(s)

Various marketing strategies employed by Walmart are the reason behind its success. Through three essential beliefs that include individual respect, customer service and striving for excellence, Walmart directly negotiates for merchandise from manufacturers thus eliminating the middlemen. By doing so, customers get the services at lower prices. Marketing strategies include:

Sales promotion

This method creates awareness so that consumers may develop an interest to buy from Walmart. Under sales promotion, free samples are tested whenever new products are introduced. Additionally, the point of sale is considered where new products are attractively decorated to entice the customer. Furthermore, Walmart offers gifts during low sales to encourage spending. Lastly, Walmart participates in exhibitions to showcase their products, same as trade fairs (Daniel et al. 2017).

Direct marketing

According to Ottman, (2017), well-branded products should be advertised in the media like radio, newspapers, televisions, magazines, and sponsorships to directly convey the message to the consumer. During peak viewing hours, Walmart uses television to reach the greatest segment of consumers. Again, Walmart sponsors sports events and charities that earns it reputable respect. Additionally, direct mailing medium is used to update consumers on the events and new products.

Public relations

By providing cheaper goods and participation in charitable events, Walmart has successfully marketed itself globally. Also, good customer care, protection of employees' rights and better payment are added advantage to Walmart corporate. The employees use the advantages to spread the good news to the consumers thus extending good public relation.

How Walmart integrate their overall product, sales, service, communications program

First, Walmart practice prices and pricing policy that involves low price and large volumes of commodities. Walmart's prices make them very competitive in the market. Secondly, promotion mix that involves advertisements, personal selling, public relations and sales promotion improves a company's potential to lure more customers.

Distribution or place

Walmart continues to open new branches and stores to reach more customers at their locality.

Metrics used to measure the overall IMC program and summary of the rationale for these specific metrics.

According to Zahay et al. (2014), metrics gives companies details of performance. They also give alerts and warnings on ideas to be implemented in marketing. It involves gathering data from the company's websites. The data include:

• Unique visitors. The number of people who visits the website will vary depending on the company size and amount of production.
• Page views. Viewing the company page may indicate content engagement by customers.
• Bounce rate. It shows the number of visitors who turn on to the company's site then leave or bounce without clicking the page indicates their dissatisfaction with what is there.
• Conversion rate. The percentage of individuals who sign up for the content shows encouragement they get from the site.

Comparison and contrast between Walmart and Apple Companies

Both are technology companies that provide online services as well as electronics and computer software. However, Apple is the primary producer of its products while Walmart does both production and retailing on other company's products.

Conclusion

Integrated marketing communication program is very vital for a company's success in advertisements. Companies may attract customers' attention through marketing programs, thereby increasing their sales. Therefore, evaluation tools like an online response, messaging and the behavioral response are key pillars to integrated marketing company evaluation. Finally, companies should be able to sell their own products to minimize counterfeits, thus I fully support the Apple Company that typically sells its own products.

References

Daniel, M., Neves, R. F., & Horta, N. (2017). Company event popularity for financial markets using Twitter and sentiment analysis. Expert Systems with Applications, 71, 111-124.

Dessert, R. L., Canterbury, R., & Monahan, S. (2015). U.S. Patent No. 9,027,827. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Ottman, J. (2017). The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and inspiration for sustainable branding. Routledge.

Zahay, D., Peltier, J., S. Krishen, A., & E. Schultz, D. (2014). Organizational processes for B2B services IMC data quality. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 29(1), 63-74.