Key components of the communication process

I am a firm believer in creating strong foundations - whether you are building a house, a business empire or an marketing campaign.  The very basis of creating a successful marketing campaign is to understand the communication process.  Communication in any business defines the relationship with the customers.

Key elements of the communication process

The source or sender

The source or the sender is the person or organisation that distributes information.  For marketing purposes it is better to convey information via a person as consumers relate better to individuals than faceless corporations.

The source needs to be credible.  The consumer will internalise the marketing message and make it part of his/her own belief system if they perceive the source to be reliable.  The attractiveness of the source will have a bearing on the likeliness of the receiver to identify with the message.  In other words, if the consumer find the message familiar or likeable, he/she is more likely to identify with the message. 

Receiver

Where marketing is concerned the receiver is referred to as the audience.  It is crucial that the marketer identifies the target audience in great detail.  The better your understanding of the demographic, geographic and psycho-graphic aspects defining your target audience, the more effective your marketing strategies will be.

Message

The message is any information you want to convey to your target audience.  It can range from awareness about the brand or product, in depth information about product attributes to images promoting positive associations with the product.  What is important to remember is that research indicate information presented first and last are remembered better than those in the middle.

Encoding

Encoding refers to the translation process of putting ideas and messages into symbolic form.

Decoding

This process occurs when the receiver tries to interpret the message.  Marketers know that the message might be decoded differently by different people.  This is due to the fact that the sender and the receiver are likely to have different fields of experience.

Feedback

Feedback is the part of a receiver's response that is communicated back to the sender.  It occurs in the form of purchases, inquiries, complaints, questions, store visits, website hits, etc.  Feedback assists the marketer in determining why a campaign fail or succeed.

Noise

Noise is anything that distorts a message or distracts the sender.



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