How to Use Marketing Communication Strategies to Improve a Company's Brand Image?

The growing popularity of social media and socio-commerce has led consumers to prefer brands with high credibility and visibility. A company's brand with high online visibility can optimize its marketing communications strategy.

The role of marketing communications is crucial for companies because it helps them adapt to market changes and consumer behavior.

When change occurs rapidly, an appropriate marketing communications strategy can accelerate product innovation, promotional changes, or strategies to reflect market trends and needs.

The role of marketing communications has become more complex, and management has high expectations for the marketing department.

Research from McKinsey indicates that 83% of CEOs consider marketing processes to be a key driver of company growth.

Company growth can be achieved by continuously enhancing the company's brand image in the eyes of consumers through various channels, both online and offline.

This discussion will examine the challenges facing marketing departments in enhancing a company's brand image.

What is Marketing Communications?

Philip Kotler, the father of global marketing, defines marketing communications in his book, "Marketing Management."

Marketing communications is a way for companies to convey information, persuade, and remind consumers about their products and brands, directly or indirectly.

The process of delivering marketing messages is carried out in an integrated and strategic manner to the target market to achieve company goals such as building relationships, increasing brand awareness, influencing consumer behavior, and ultimately driving product or service sales.

This digital era not only requires marketing communications teams to convey messages clearly. Other demands include speed, collaboration, and consumer focus.

Essentially, in this more modern marketing era, marketing communications teams are indirectly adapting their work processes.

Challenges Faced by Marketing Communications Teams in Improving Brand Image

In the process of improving brand image, marketing communications teams face various challenges, both internal and external.

Budget and Resource Limitations

Improving brand image requires significant and holistic investment across all marketing channels. With a limited budget, marketing communications teams struggle to implement optimal and consistent strategies.

Fierce Market Competition

The current market offers numerous alternatives for a single brand. If our competitors have greater resources or a stronger brand awareness, this will be a major challenge for the marketing communications team.

Changes in Consumer Behavior

In addition to facing intense market competition, companies are also faced with rapidly changing consumer trends and preferences. Therefore, a branding strategy that is successful today may not necessarily be successful in the future.

Difficulty Measuring Branding Impact

A brand's image is an intangible asset, making it difficult to quantitatively measure the concrete impact of branding activities, such as their contribution to sales or customer loyalty.

Difficulty Building Emotional Connections with Consumers

Besides competing for attention in this digital era, the most important thing to gain consumer attention is building an emotional connection. The journey to creating a strong emotional connection with consumers is a long and challenging process, especially if the brand doesn't have a strong legacy.

Limited Time for Innovation

As McKinsey found, which found that 83% of CEOs expect marketing activities to drive company growth, marketing communications teams sometimes face pressure from sales and operational targets. They find it difficult to devote time to continuous experimentation and innovation in branding.

Suboptimal Cross-Departmental Team Collaboration

To drive sales, the marketing communications team needs to collaborate with cross-departmental teams such as sales, product, and customer service to ensure alignment in the implementation of an effective branding strategy.

Steps for a Modern Marketing Communications Strategy for an Even Better Brand Image

Your company has implemented various marketing communications strategies, but hasn't yet improved its brand image. Here are some modern marketing communications strategies recommended by McKinsey.

Data and Technology Integration for a Consistent Customer Experience.

Companies must integrate various data sources and marketing technologies to understand customers holistically and deliver consistent experiences across all channels.

This integration enables the delivery of relevant and uniform messages, whether through digital, offline, or customer service.

With an integrated data system, companies can effectively manage customer interactions, maintaining a strong brand image and a seamless consumer experience.

Agile and Collaborative Approach to Content Development

Modern strategies require marketing teams to work agilely, flexibly and quickly adapt to changing trends and market needs.

The content creation process is carried out collaboratively across departments (marketing, creative, technology, and sales), resulting in more relevant, timely, and coordinated content.

This approach accelerates innovation and ensures brand messaging remains fresh and engaging for audiences.

Data-Driven Personalization to Increase Customer Engagement

Carefully utilizing customer data allows companies to deliver personalized messages tailored to their preferences, behaviors, and stage of the customer journey.

This personalization increases engagement because customers perceive the messages as tailored to their needs and desires, strengthening their emotional connection with the brand and increasing loyalty.

Holistic Measurement and Evaluation of Marketing Impact

Modern communications strategies emphasize the importance of comprehensive and holistic measurement of all marketing activities. This involves measuring not only traditional metrics like sales or awareness, but also analyzing channel effectiveness, customer experience, and ROI.

Comprehensive evaluation helps companies iterate strategies more quickly and accurately, ensuring marketing investments have a positive impact on brand image and business results.

Brand Messaging Across All Customer-Connected Channels

Brand messaging consistency must be upheld at every customer interaction point, both online and offline. This ensures customers receive an experience that aligns with the brand's values and positioning.

Consistent delivery of the brand promise strengthens customer trust and improves overall positive brand perception.

Has Your Company Implemented an Agile Marketing Communications Strategy?

To enhance brand image in this modern era, a marketing communications strategy based on data integration, agile personalization, holistic measurement, and consistent brand messaging across all consumer channels is essential. This is key to building a strong brand image in the digital age.

To help your company improve its brand image through a marketing communications strategy, Prasmul-Eli offers a marketing management program.

Let's transform our marketing communications strategy into a more agile and adaptive one to enhance our brand image.