Marketing Communications Tools Applicable at Sheffield to Increase Tourism

Marketing Communications Tools Applicable at Sheffield
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Introduction. 4 Skiing Sports as the Tourist Hook. 5 Marketing Communication Strategies to Include in the Integrated Marketing Communications Plan  6 SWOT Analysis. 8 Recommendations and Conclusion. 10
Marketing Communications Tools Applicable at Sheffield
Introduction
The modern business environment is highly competitive, thus compelling organizations to embrace various marketing communication strategies to edge over rival firms and achieve desired outcomes, such as increased market share, brand awareness, and profitability. It includes embracing strategies such as advertising, which has been exploited over time to achieve notable success, including brand awareness. Sheffield City Council’s attempts to improve tourism in the city should rely primarily on advertisements, which thrive on digital communication platforms such as social media and old media, ranging from print to television. As a Marketing Assistant, including advertising in the integrated marketing plan for Sheffield City Council, will yield the desired outcome, in this case, increasing tourism to the city. Sheffield City Council should advertise some of its tourist sites and activities, including skiing, as the hook to attract customers to experience the city’s uniqueness, sports, and culture, among other factors. Sheffield will include ski sports and recreational activities as tourist activity. Achieving the needed awareness among local and international tourists regarding Sheffield City as a tourist destination will depend on the marketing communication strategies, such as advertising, which attracts them, resulting in increased tourism. This paper discusses the use of advertisement in the integrated marketing communications plan, meant to increase tourism, primarily focusing on events, festivals, and sports, such as skiing, that will attract a segmented audience of both young and older adults.
Using Ice Festival and Skiing Sports as a Hook in Advertising
If Sheffield uses skiing, including the ski challenge cup, it is likely to attract tourists and investors. It also includes the ski center constructions and multiple challenges that will attract professional skiers, who are then encouraged and paid to embrace online advertising that currently thrives on social networking sites, such as Instagram, Tik Tok, Twitter, and Facebook. The local government can create its own social media accounts to advertise ice and snow sports, such as skiing, which results in increased awareness of Sheffield as a tourist site, and in the long term, increases tourism. The advertising marketing communication strategy will also involve government expenditure on professionals, including influencer marketers that can easily promote ski sports as a tourist activity and Sheffield as a viable destination for such activities and events. The objective is to increase tourists flow in Sheffield, encouraging them that the city is good for the holiday experience, and experienced amateurs and beginners can enjoy and learn skiing. An increased inflow of locals and foreigners guarantees other economic activities, including rental and commodity sales, which justifies the investment in advertising to attract both tourists and the merchants that set up business activities in the ski sports regions. The marketing should meet the expectations of both the client, Sheffield City Council, and the target audience. This includes the ability to boost tourism, which can be achieved by advertising the city, primarily focusing on the image of the capital of ice and snow sports. Advertising is a perfect way to increase awareness about the city and its festivals that result in desired outcomes. The adverts will target specific demographics based on age, including young adults and older adults. This is based on the fact that regardless of age, people are likely to embrace tourism. To target young adults, the focus will be on digital advertising that thrives on the Internet, including platforms such as social media, while the older adult’s advertisements will integrate both online and offline advertising.
Marketing Communication Strategies to Include in the Integrated Marketing Communications Plan
The marketing team is compelled to embrace various strategies to create a unified message for the target audiences’ consumption, resulting in positive outcomes, including attracting and retaining clients, increasing brand awareness, and revenue or profitability. Common examples of integrated communication tools include advertising, public relations, sponsorship, direct marketing, personal selling, sales promotions, exhibitions, mobile or digital communications, and social media. Sheffield City Council can adopt all of the above, thus achieving a unified message to target an audience. The focus on advertising includes online and offline advertisements. Offline advertisements entail reliance on direct mail, print publications, organizational press release and public speaking, while online advertisements cover the digital world ranging from social media, emails, search engine marketing, and display ads (Kamil & Kumar, 2020). Offline advertisements can be considered traditional marketing and include old media platforms such as print magazines, flyers, billboards, and commercials on the radio and TV. Since the target audience includes both young adults and older ones, the advertising aspect of the integrated marketing communication will include both online and offline advertisements.
The above conclusion is supported by Vaportzis et al. (2017), who argue that even though older adults are willing to embrace new technologies, barriers such as lack of confidence, guidance, knowledge, and instructions affect their ability to fully adopt technology, which facilitates digital marketing. This is backed by Joshi et al. (2020), who argue that, in comparison, young adults are more likely to embrace traditional media when compared to younger adults, who are prone to social media networking sites such as Instagram and Facebook. Therefore, to ensure both audiences are equally targeted, Sheffield City Council will embrace both online and offline advertising, which includes commercials on radio and print and social media sites. Notably, since offline advertisements are costly and primarily thrive on reliance on third-party platforms, there is a need to ensure that marketing communication emphasizes online advertising. This address the budget concerns for Sheffield City Council. This is based on the fact that older people are currently embracing technology, including digital communications, where online advertising thrives. In both cases, our client is guaranteed attention, interest, desire, and action, which entails the visit. A social media advertisement will provide support to the target audience, correct misconceptions, remind audiences, stimulate trial, and position skiing in Sheffield in their minds.
Social media networking sites are the most common online advertising platforms that can be used successfully in the integrated marketing communication plan. The focus is on the ability to reach a wide range of new audiences and improve trust and loyalty, through positive brand engagement and feedback, among other forms of interactions (Wang and Kim, 2017). Promoting Sheffield ice sports as a tourist activity will require reliance on social media which is a cheaper means of reaching the audience. The local government can set up its own accounts to promote ice sports and introduce star power, which includes hiring professionals, especially popular people such as influencers, artists, and sportspeople. An example of successful exploitation of star power includes Nike Marketing, which includes endorsements and sponsorships involving celebrated athletes such as Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Maria Sharapova, and Cristiano Ronaldo. According to Abdullah et al. (2022), celebrity endorsement is essential in advertising. It includes using celebrities that people relate with to establish a positive brand image for the target audience.
The brand becomes more attractive and persuasive, ultimately inviting a purchase intention among the audience. This would be the case if Sheffield City relied upon local and international celebrities to advertise the city and its ice and snow sports, especially skiing, which is the hook to attract tourists. The advertisements can exploit professional British skiers such as Dave Ryding and other sportspeople such as Marcus Rashford, who has more than 15 million followers on Instagram. To attract older adults, offline and online advertising can include David Beckham, which is recognized globally, thus likely to achieve effective awareness and audience reach both locally and internationally. This can translate to improving client intentions followed by visits to the advertised skiing locations in Sheffield. Advertising will guarantee the achievement of the business and marketing communication objectives, including positioning ski sports as the premier winter sports in the country and the developme...