Scott Morrison

The ability to measure marketing effectiveness to gain insight into how small businesses respond to Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is relatively new. This paper examines an integrated campaign conducted by a major financial services institution to introduce a new financial product for small businesses across Canada. The campaign was analyzed to see how small businesses responded to the different marketing media types used throughout the campaign and to identify specific spatial characteristics associated with a positive response. Different types of marketing media and campaign positioning were examined to identify relationships with overall response rates. Small business densities and distance decay were also investigated. Results show that specific combinations of marketing media such as addressed mail, unaddressed mail, and out of home media when presented together return the highest overall response. It was found that moderate small business density generated the highest overall response rate. Proximity to both out of home media and financial service locations also produce a heightened response. These findings can be implemented into future campaigns to increase response rates and lower costs by targeting specific areas and marketing approaches known to generate the highest overall response.