Invisible Communication

I read an article on invisible communication written by Ake Finne and Tore Strandvik, where they discuss communication between the customer and the company. Invisible communication is defined as communication occurring when no communication seems to take place from the marketer’s point of view about the company itself or its products and service, but still does so from the customer’s point of view. This focuses on the communication about the brand, firm or even service that the customer perceives no matter what the source is. Non-communication is where a company doesn’t send any messages to the customer and the customer sees this as a message. If a marketer were able to balance the perfect amount of non-communication and communication with the customer, it would build longer lasting relationships with the consumer. The idea here is to understand just how your customer views and interprets the invisible communication your company produces. Controlling invisible communication properly is only possible with proper research. We are trying to paint the perfect picture about a company in our customer’s minds. This is also called relationship communication, between company and customer. The paper stresses the importance of looking at created meaning rather than simple attention or immediate behavioral response. They also stress looking at the customer as an active creator of meaning rather than a passive target for communication. You must think that the customer is constantly changing how they view your firm and always creating meaning out of the communication or non-communication from your company’s messages.

                To truly understand how to manipulate relationship communication, we have to understand how customers view each message we send. If you send a direct message to your customers, you must follow up with your customers and find out how they viewed or saw that message. As a marketer, without the knowledge of invisible communication interpretation, you’re at a disadvantage. Most marketers believe that the majority of influence on customers is done through the marketing campaign. In fact, the majority of influence is in the small points of contact that we don’t generally look for. Constant research and feedback response is required to have the most influence on your customers as well as manipulating consumer response. The key here is to analyze and manage all communication and non-communication between the firm and the customer without losing sight of the company’s vision.

Works Cited:

Finne, Åke, and Tore Strandvik. "Invisible Communication: A Challenge to Established Marketing Communication." European Business Review 24.2 (2012): 120-33. ProQuest. Web. 5 Oct. 2013.