Introduction
Morgan Stanley has somehow managed to convince people from tens of countries all over the world to entrust it with over a trillion US dollars, in exchange for more money down the line. Most companies produce goods or services, which they then exchange with customers for a profit. Morgan Stanley (Morgan) does not produce any goods or tangible services, but has, managed to earn billions every year and employ over 60,000 people through convincing people to entrust their monies with them (SuccessStory, 2017) . Unlike banks, the organization does not guarantee a certain amount of interest after a certain period. Instead, Morgan Stanley manages to convince its customers that if they leave their money with them, they will earn more money based on the investment that Morgan will make using this money . The evidence of the success of Morgan’s promotional strategy lies in the fact that almost a century after it commenced business, millions still entrust their monies to the company in expectation of undefined returns. Morgan Stanley has achieved and maintained this through an advanced and coordinated promotional mix of advertising and public relations.
Advertising
The world of advertising has made both progress and change during the 82 years that Morgan has been in active operation. The company has continued growing with the industry and taking advantage of it to reach its intended customer base. Currently, Morgan uses both traditional and modern advertising to reach out to a prospective customer and also to elicit more investment and repeat business from current customers. Traditional means such as television is still one of the highly used means of advertising by Morgan. Its approach towards this advertising is maintaining a careful balance between keeping its advertisement attractive and making it educational (Rodriguez & Ashley, 2015) . This is based on the fact that Morgan does not have an actual product that it can brandish out for customers to admire. Instead, the company seeks to develop a relationship with its customers. It is through this relationship that the customer will entrust the company with money, then this money will be used to make more money for the customer and for Morgan. This strategy is also extended to other traditional advertising means such as newspaper and handbills.
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Morgan has also invested heavily in online advertising strategies. The company has in recent time undertaken massive advertising strategies in social networks including Facebook and Twitter. The approach undertaken in these social networks is interactive, geared towards establishing a personalized conversation between prospective customers and representatives of the company. It is when the prospective customer is drawn into a personalized conversation that high chances of conversion are created. Another major means of online advertising undertaken by Morgan is the development of an advanced official website that is tailor-made to serve customers who visit it, even when they are only prospects (Rodriguez & Ashley, 2015) .
Presence is another adverting strategy that Morgan uses to great effect. It might not be possible for the product of the company to be visible to the active and prospective customers but Morgan ensures that this is made up for by the presence of the company itself. According to Morgan Stanley (2017), the company has offices in different countries and cities across the world. The company seeks to ensure visibility through large and highly branded offices. Further, the company goes out of its way to ensure that the locations of these offices are well advertised and cannot be missed. Visibility has, therefore, been an effective advertising tool for Morgan.
Public Relations
One of the hallmarks of Morgan’s public relations is its Client Relations Department. The company may be very large and dealing with millions of customers but its client relation department endeavors to treat every customer as if he or she is the only client in the entire organization (Morgan Stanley, 2017) . Any issue raised by the customer is promptly and patiently handled to ensure continuous customer satisfaction. The main basis for this lies in the fact that getting a customer does not guarantee that Morgan will have a revenue. Its revenue is determined by the interaction that the company will have with its customers that will result with the customers entrusting money with Morgan. Advertisements will bring the customers to Morgan, but the public relations will ensure that the customers entrust their money with the company. It is also through good public relations that ensures that once the customers have given their money to Morgan, they do not then withdraw it but keep on investing more. This way, Morgan translates the customers attracted into working capital in the form of Assets Under Management (AUM) (SuccessStory, 2017) . The AUM will then bring the company revenues and profits.
Conclusion
The two elements of promotional mix supplement one another to ensure the success of Morgan and have been working with great effect. Like a pitcher and sticker in baseball, advertising ensures that prospective customers find out about Morgan and also becomes the customers of the organization. This can be considered as the pitch. The strikers are the competent, committed and effective public relations teams who do the bulk of the work both directly and online. These are the individuals who handle the customers who have now joined the organization to commit funds and assets to the company so that the company can manage it for the client. The combination of the pitch and strike as defined above has seen assets in excess of US$1.3 trillion entrusted to Morgan by its clients. Most importantly, for 82 years now, this strategy has been continually advanced and adjusted to keep the company growing.
References
Morgan Stanley II. (2017). Global Offices. Retrieved November 07, 2017, from https://www.morganstanley.com/about-us/global-offices
Rodriguez, A., & Rodriguez, A. (2015, April 21). Morgan Stanley debuts first major brand effort under global CMO. Retrieved November 07, 2017, from http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/morgan-stanley-debuts-major-brand-effort-cmo/298134/
Morgan Stanley. (2017). Client Relations. Retrieved November 07, 2017, from http://www.morganstanley.com/wealth-general/client-relations-contact.html
SuccessStory . (2017). Morgan Stanley SuccessStory . Retrieved November 07, 2017, from https://successstory.com/companies/morgan-stanley
