customer is, and the distribution channel used to reach the customer, companies find that they have to have different marketing strategies. Some companies which are ultimately concerned with selling to the public but which do so through intermediaries, find that they must work closely with their distributors in order to build a strong customer base (Lamons, 1995, p. 13).
Promotion is a key part of the marketing mix since it is through promotional activities that consumers learn of the product and the product's brand. Promotion includes most marcomm activities, and includes advertising, public relations and point of purchase activities. Personal selling, when it is used, is also part of the promotional strategy. Companies typically follow more than a single promotional strategy even for a single product in order to reach various target markets (King, 1995, p. 328).
The last component of the marketing mix, price, involves setting a price which enables the company to make a profit but which also goes toward establishing (or maintaining) a particular image for a product or service. This helps to explain the widely different prices for items in the same product category such as automobiles: while there is some relationship between the price of a car and the amount that it costs to produce, the greater relationship is between the price of the car and the image which the manufacturer is trying to promote (exclusivity versus economy, for example) (Bernstein, 1995, p. 17).
There is no one definition for what marcomm includes, or excludes. Marketing communications includes presentation materials, including "leave behind" pieces that are given to prospects at the end of a presentation as well as the presentation itself (on film, videotape, slides or through a personal speaker). Marcomm also includes press releases, collateral material (information that is given to prospects or clients) and even price lists and catalogs that are pr...