Merit and Distinction Task 1 1. Pick three different departments. 2. Using the 5 choices – Verbal, Written, On-Screen, Multimedia, Web based. Identify and Explain the communication used by the department and how the mayflower uses it every day. The 5 choices must be included across the 3 departments. Be sure to link your answers to the points below.

Each one must be addressed across the three departments. * Updating Knowledge * Informing Future developments * SWOT analysis * Offering competitive insight * Communicating sales promotions * Inviting support for activities 3. Analyse how the department uses the form of communication for the 6 points above. Is it the best way to communicate?

The different types of communication [used by the Mayflower are; Verbal, Written, On-Screen, Web Based and Multi Media.

The mayflower uses different types of communication and advertising for each of these, some examples are;

Web Based: Marketing * Websites * Online Advertising * Emails * Memos * Social Media
Verbal: HR * Meeting * Telephone calls * Question and Answer Sessions
Written: HR, Finance. * Letters * Emails * Leaflets * Text Message
On-Screen: Finance * TV * Presentations * Digital Billboard * Software
Multi-Media: Marketing * TV * Radio * Images * Video

1. The three departments I have chosen for evaluation are; HR, Finance and Marketing

Web Based:

Web based communication is one of the best forms of communication to be used by a business as most of it is relatively cheap. Emails are a good way of communicating with your customers as they allow you to personally address them by their name this may make the customer feel more welcomed. They are also very cheap to set up and don’t cost much to send out. Emails allow you to update customers with new knowledge about the business and also future developments that the business will be foreseeing. However I believe that email based communication isn’t always affective as the Mayflowers target market may be aimed more towards an older age group which all of them may not have access to the internet, or possibly decide not to use the internet so therefore this could be a major drawback.

Another way of web based communication is using Social Media, this is a very good way of communicating with customers because Social Media pages such as Facebook and Twitter allow you to target certain age groups, or even target people that are married or have kids. This is good because then if you have a certain show that you want to target at a specific age group then you can pay the Social Media companies to promote your product to an age group. This way of promoting is good because you’re only paying to promote to the customers who would actually come and watch your show. On the other hand Social Media may not be one of the best ways with communicating with the public, especially if they had a show that was aimed towards the older generations as they probably wont be as engaged with social media.

Online advertising is also a very good way to promote your product to customers as you pay based on the amount of footfall that the business gets. So the more people that visit the website, the more you would pay, and the less that visit the website the less you would pay. You can also put you advertisements on certain websites that you know that people would visit the website are in your target market. Online advertising can be expensive and also wouldn’t benefit a company like the Mayflower as much as it would a company selling items online, as they offer a service people need to travel and they’d need to advertise their plays within Southampton otherwise this could be a waste of money.

Marketing would use web based communication all the time, they would most be using Online advertising to reach out to customers and try and sell their product. It would be important that their product is marketed correctly otherwise the specific target audience would not see when the show is and where. They would also use Social media as this is free and one of the best ways to advertise over the Internet as you can target certain people. Web-based communication is the best way of communicating for marketers as you can contact people in a certain target market for little or no money. This is good because it wouldn’t affect your marketing budget and you would be able to update knowledge easily without any majorly occurring costs.

Verbal:

Verbal communication is one of the most effective forms of communication as you can you pass a message across the easiest as people will understand you the easiest when you are approaching them in person rather than contacting them over the internet. Question and Answer sessions with your employees or customers are a good way to gain contact with them and it allows them to ask questions and you answer them truthfully. One of the drawbacks of verbal communication would be the fact that it could create misunderstanding if the speech hasn’t been properly organised. Verbal contact can sometimes be very time consuming and meetings could take a long time to conduct, whereas an email could be sent and read within 30 minutes which is a lot shorter time than it would take to conduct a meeting.

Another way of verbally communicating with either employees or customers verbally would be through telephone calls, this is quite a private way of contacting someone so you’d have to have a good reputation with them or they’d have to be a regular customer to contact them this way. But this is a good way of contacting someone as you can address him or her personally, and it’s more personal than an email. A drawback of telephone calls would be the fact that there would be no record of the conversation that took place to its impossible to preserve the messages to the future, which could mean that if you would need to backtrack your conversation with someone this wouldn’t be possible.

Meetings are a good way for employees to share verbal ideas and discuss with managers or other employees what they want done with the business, they could discuss ideas that would benefit the business such as new marketing techniques and also discussing how the employer could improve working conditions for the employees. Meetings are very good as you’re able to share what you want and discuss it. The drawbacks on meeting are the fact that they take a long time to set up and if someone doesn’t turn up to the meeting or is ill then this could mean that it could damage the information that needs to be passed on to the person who didn’t attend the meeting. Meetings can also be expensive, they require time, planning, paperwork and possibly travel by fellow business associates, this could be expensive for the mayflower and other alternatives could be less time consuming and cheaper.

Human Resources would use verbal communications all the time when contacting other employees. They would also have a lot of meeting which would allow them to discuss with other employees what they think of the business and the best way to improve the business is. HR focus on giving the employees the best working experience they can and deal with complaints by employees, so they would verbally have to discuss with them what the problem is.

SWOT analysis would best be done over verbal communication as it allows people to discus the strengths and weaknesses that the business faces and also the opportunities and threats that the business could possibly run into. The strengths of this include the fact that the business could prepare itself for the worst, and they could tackle their weaknesses before they start to become a problem. The weaknesses of using SWOT analysis would be the fact that they could possibly be very inaccurate and this would possibly put the business off track.

Written:

If you wanted to contact a customer through written communication one of the best ways to do it would through leaflets, there would be no reason to contact an employee with a leaflet. But if you were contacting a customer with a leaflet you could include information about new products and also new promotions and shows that are being screened at the theatre. The drawbacks of leaflets are the fact that they are expensive to produce, and if you have someone standing around handing out leaflets, most of the leaflets are either thrown on the floor or put into the bin so this may not be an effective way of advertising.

Another way of contacting people through written communication would be Texting someone, this is also a very personal way of contacting someone, although some business’ use texting to their advantage by sending out group texts to regular customers and in these messages are new deals and also new promotions that are being offered by the Mayflower. Texting cant really be used to contact a business associate, or a customer as this is quite a personalised way of contacting, to be more professional one would normally contact them through email.

Letters are used by most companies and these can be used for communicating with sales promotions with customers and offering a competitive insight into their products. This would update customers with new shows that are being presented by the Mayflower group. Letters also allow professionals to build relationships, initiate actions and respond to a request.

Finance departments would use written communication all the time for example when they have to write reports the Accounts team would have to write a report for a client. Reports would also allow a business to get a loan as this would allow a company to assess whether the Mayflower would be able to pay back the loan in a specific amount of time.
HR would use written communication all the time as they’d be dealing with people’s payslips which would be all on paper and printed out. They would also have to use emails to contact other work colleagues as employees go to the HR people if they have any problems at work and if they need to be followed up the typically the HR employees would email around if there had been a problem.

HR department would also have a write a lot of letters to other companies about their business. They also deal with payslips as well meaning they may have to right to the Tax office regarding tax forms for employees.

On-Screen:

TV’s would be used by most businesses that allow customers onto the premises this would be a great way of promoting new shows for the mayflower as customer would be able to see what shows are on soon. This is a very cheap way of promoting, as all you need to do is put together a basic presentation and let it promote itself to the customers. TV’s are very expensive to buy and place around the building and sometimes can mean that they occur maintenance costs if they go wrong or are broken. This could be expensive to the mayflower and could run up business costs, which could be potentially damaging towards the business.

Digital billboards are used very much in the UK but when they are used mostly the marketing department would agree a contact with the company to show their advertisement at a certain time of the day. For example if they were showing a family show it would be good for the marketing department to find a billboard next to a school and show it at the times of the day when there is children coming in and going out of the school. The mayflowers target market with many of their shows would be the older generations and I don’t think that Digital billboards would be the best way to invest their money advertising wise, they could possible invest their money in more profitable ways of advertising.

Software is also another type on onscreen technology that could be used by the Mayflower, software licenses are held by most businesses and if you have too little licenses then this is breaking the law as you haven’t paid for them. Software would be used for word processing and producing presentations.

The finance departments would always be using on-screen technologies such as software, they use this software all the time for financial analysis and book keeping. Its very important that the software is always kept up to date as this would mean that the accountants jobs become easier and they complete their jobs quicker as the software becomes more advanced. This could save the Mayflower a lot of money and time, so software is worth every penny.

Multi-Media:

Radio would be used a lot by the Mayflower when they decide to market their product. It’s important that they chose a suitable radio station to advertise on otherwise their product might not reach their target audience, which would be a waste of their money. Advertising through radio is expensive and most people when listening to the radio are doing other tasks such as driving and therefore may not totally be paying attention to the radio and what’s being said in the adverts.

Another type of Multi-Media used by the mayflower would be images, images are used all the time by every company, as every company has a logo, an image has been created by the company to give it a brand image and also brand recognition. Images would also be used when advertising as promoting your show is essential to making sure people come and view your show.

Video would also be used by the mayflower a lot, if they were to do a TV advert this would be Video based, and would be professionally put together to make sure that the right target audience get to view their show. Putting together a TV advert for a small company such as the Mayflower would be very expensive, and possibly wouldn’t increase their sales as much, there would definitely be better places to invest their money in terms of advertising that would make the business more profitable.

They mayflower would use Multi-Media based communication to contact with their customers they would also be able to update knowledge of their customers which would mean that their loyal customers and possibly new customers could know about their new promotions and update them with knowledge of the business making sure that they have a repeat purchase. One of the disadvantages of using Multi-Media based communication to make sure that their customers know about upcoming events and knowledge is that not all their target markets would used Multi-Media based, especially the older people.