Marketing can be defined as all the different activities that are involved in making products available to satisfy the needs of the customers, while at the same time generating profits for the manufacturers and distributors. It is a complex process and it involves the following:

• Designing a product that meets customer specifications which many need the use of marketing research to determine what the customers needs.
• Promoting the products so that people may get to know the product through marketing communications and Advertising.
• Setting the price and making the product available to the population through vending outlets.

Marketing communications can be described as the communication that is used in the promotion phase of the product. It is the communication between the marketing division or the marketing efforts of a company and the market and it is usually geared towards the promotion of the product. Marketing communication can usually be handled in-house or can be sub-contracted to a marketing agency.

The people in the marketing communication sector that are involved with advertising, branding, direct marketing to customers, graphic design of the product and product containers, packaging, sales and sales promotion.

They are generally involved with creating and delivering messages to the public in an attempt to move them to develop an affinity with the company and to buy the products of the company. They are usually known as marketing communicators, and it is more usual than not a team effort, than the work of a single individual.

This can either mean having a team of people to work in these different processes or taking on one marketing agency that does this, or coordinating the efforts of different specialized agencies like graphic design agencies, advertising agencies and market research agencies.

Marketing communication can be said to be divided into 5 stages from the time the message is conceived and delivered to the time the messages are received and then possible action taken by the receiver to change him from the receiver of a marketing message to a consumer.

The stages in the process are:

• Sender – which represents the marketing team that delivers an idea to the marketing communication team
• Encoding – represents the part of the process where the communicator takes the message and transforms it into eye-catching or step-changing visual adverts or tunes or a mixture of all as in audio visual ads
• Transmission – which represents the stage where the messages are transmitted through radio, tv the internet and any other device chosen by the company
• Decoding – represents the stage when the consumer receives the image and decodes it; usually, it has to do with thinking in the pattern that the marketer wants them to think
• Receiver – the message is now with received by the target audience and the receiver can then make a decision to respond and buy, take the subscription or develop a way of thinking as desired.

Therefore, from the processes above it can be seen that teamwork is essential in marketing communication as the process will be almost impossible for a single individual to create and deliver successfully alone.

In general, the people who develop the ideas and strategies in marketing research are usually analysts, and those that take the results of these ideas and recommendations to create a new product are usually different from those that will also use these same ideas to create advertising for the product.

“Without a clear idea of what the company goals are, or the kind quality of the product and who they are trying to reach, marketing communicators will not be able to create and transmit a convincing message to the consumers. Therefore teamwork is very much essential to the success of any marketing campaign.”

A marketing campaign team will usually involve people from account planning, account management, creative talent production, media departments and specialist in TV ads, radio ads, billboard advertisers as well as internet and social media advertisers.

All these people need to be managed and they need to work with each other.  Without a collective team spirit, and coordination it will be a chaotic situation and so the marketing communication team has to work with coordinating these heads and assigning tasks to each individual so that the team works flawlessly and delivers the end products as required.

Good coordination of the team will usually lead to convincing messages being sent to the consumer which will ultimately end in making sales and to convert the receiver of the messages to a client.

Looking for a comprehensive partnership with an agency that understands the importance of teamwork in marketing communication? Contact us today to build your synergistic strategy.