For a brand to market its products effectively, it will require a system to promote these products to their target customers. Integrated marketing communications is a system that ensures all promotional tools used in the marketing mix are integrated together and work in sync.
Integrated marketing communications (IMC) ensures that all forms of communication used in a marketing campaign are in harmony.
Before we look in-depth into the integrated marketing communications concept, we first have to understand what communication is all about. In the context of this article, we would be looking at brand communication.
Brand communication is the combination of all the activities that a brand uses to influence the customer’s opinion of its brand, product, and services. Brand communication educates stakeholders about the brand’s market offerings, strengths, and values.
These stakeholders include employees, customers, investors, and sponsors.
Brand communication is a core aspect of a business marketing strategy. It serves as the voice of the brand and influences the customer’s view of the brand.
It exceeds far more than the traditional forms of marketing like newspapers and television. It also involves the use of other channels like social media, social media marketing agencies, content marketing, digital marketing, and blogging to approach your customers.
Description of integrated marketing communications
Integrated marketing communications refers to the integration of all the strategies a brand uses to communicate/promote a particular product or service to its target customers. For increased efficiency and a high return on investment, every aspect of marketing communication must work together.
Components of integrated marketing communications
1. The foundation
This is the first stage of any marketing strategy. It is essential that every marketer carries out in-depth research on the target consumer as well as a detailed analysis of the product. Performing this analysis would ensure that brands know the needs/expectations of their customer as well as the best way to market their products and services to them. During this first stage of the analysis, it is important that you also analyze the activities of your competition.
2. The corporate culture
The corporate culture drives the business goals and objectives of every brand. It is important that the products and services you are offering are in line with your corporate culture. Every brand has a vision or brand motto. It is the job of the marketers to design products that are in line with the vision of the company.
For example, if the vision of a company is to promote a clean and eco-friendly world, they would need to create products that are biodegradable and eco-friendly. If it was a car manufacturing company, they wouldn’t produce cars that emit a lot of carbon dioxide.
3. Brand Focus
Brand focus is an important element of marketing strategy. Having a focus allows you to concentrate on marketing to customers that are most likely to buy your product or services. Having a brand focus ensures that you have a high return on investment for limited resources.
4. Consumer experience
It is important that marketers concentrate on the consumer experience of the customer. Customer experience (CX) is defined by interactions between a customer and an organization throughout their business relationship.
Companies that focus on improving customer experience see more increase in revenue and reduce churn. Recent digital marketing trends show that customer experience was one of the most exciting business opportunities.
It is important that you offer your customers a positive experience. When customers have a positive experience, they are more likely to be loyal to your brand.
5. Communication Tools
The world of business is evolving and it is important that you stay connected to both your employees and customers. Effective communication is integral to increasing engagement with your target audience. Reports from PMI shows that “On average, one out of five projects fail due to lack of communication between the project manager, team members, and stakeholders.”
You can communicate with your customers through several channels like advertising, social media, direct selling, etc.
6. Promotional tools
Promotional tools are crucial in communicating your brand’s message to your customers. Promotion is an integral part of the marketing mix. (Read about the marketing mix here).There are four main promotional tools. They include advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing.
7. Integration tools
Integration tools are integral for analysis, business intelligence, and reporting. It is important that you have a system track customer feedback, receive reviews and measure the effectiveness of your marketing strategy.
Benefits of integrated marketing communications
There are many benefits that businesses get from integrated marketing communications. IMC helps businesses to reach their customers effectively, boost sales and profits, create a competitive advantage, and maximize productivity.
IMC helps marketers communicate better with their customers during the various stages of the buying process. Along with improving communications, it also helps businesses to nurture a relationship with their customers.
One of the easiest ways to have an advantage over your competition is by improving customer loyalty towards your brand. With IMC, businesses can use ‘relationship marketing’ to create long-lasting bonds with their customers.
With IMC businesses can be more effective with their marketing efforts. The mistake that most brands make is that they have a ton if unconsolidated messages that can be confusing to consumers and not make an impact. IMC helps brands create a clear message that reach their target customers.
Reports say that customers are targeted with 4000 to 10000 ads per day. To differentiate yourself from all the noise, you need a clear message.
IMC also ensures that brands can communicate with their customers via several channels. The more channels of communication a brand has at its disposal, the more aware the customers become of their product. This would mean that there would be more sales and an increase in revenue generated.
IMC also ensures that the messages distributed to customers are credible. When customers trust your message, they would spend less time deciding if they want to make a purchase or not. This would also help move them through the buyer stages faster. When customers understand your message clearly, it shortens their search process and also shows them the ways your product is better than your competitors.
Finally, integrated marketing communications also helps businesses save money, reduce stress, and increase productivity. Customer databases can identify the needs of consumers and how it can be met. IMC ensures that time is saved and there is no duplication since the brand’s message is consolidated and the same across every marketing channel.
Barriers to integrated marketing communications
As with everything that has benefits, there are certain factors that might become a barrier. IMC as a system has its own share of barriers.
One of the biggest barriers to IMC is developing a message that effectively communicates the brand’s value to a wide variety of target audiences. Along with this issue, they are also other factors that might serve as a barrier. They include:
- Functional silos
- Suppressed creativity
- Lack of technical and management know-how
- Time scale conflicts
Functional silos
Functional silos are defined as “compartmentalized operating units isolated from their environment” (Motiwalla & Thompson, 2009). Silos are created as specific business processes or functions delegated to a group within a company.
Silos are organizational structures with different functions within the company. Most of these structures within a company are headed by team managers who can be rigid.
The managers are protective of their budget, data, and find it difficult to share information with other departments in the organization. In most companies, the departments rarely report to one another.
For example, the sales department rarely reports to the advertising or marketing department. Imagine how catastrophic it can be when the sales department does tell the advertising department of a new promotional offer.
You also see instances where there are rifts between managers of different departments. Some managers might not want their budgets, activities, and objectives influenced by a manager in another department.
For a business to fully integrate every aspect of marketing, all the department must work in unison, which is not always the case. The sales department might not be open to hearing how they can improve their efficiency from the PR department.
Suppressed Creativity
A disadvantage that comes with IMC is that it can suppress creativity. Since all promotional strategies must fit into the overall marketing communications strategy, marketers aren’t allowed to go wild with ideas.
Time-scale conflicts
Departments have different time scales they have set to meet their objectives. The difference in time scales can become a barrier to IMC. For example, the advertising team might have a plan to improve the brand’s image in the long term and the sales team might want to double the sales of the company within the first quarter. If the overall IMC is properly planned, the objectives of both departments can be met.
Lack of know-how
There is also a huge lack of know-how among agencies. Most managers lack the know-how required to effectively implement IMC. When managers and team members do not have good knowledge of marketing communication principles, it would be difficult to make any significant impact.
Creating an integrated marketing communications plan
To create a successful IMC plan, you need to consider the resources and the amount of time you have at your disposal for promoting your products or services.
The first step you need to take is to create a clear objective for the marketing plan. Determine the goals you want to achieve at the end of the process. This would help you to allocate your resources effectively and also in drawing up a budget.
The second step would be to gather necessary information that would help you create your IMC strategy. These information include:
- Brand message and company objectives
- Features/ Value proposition of your product or services
- Defining who your target audience is
For a marketer to be successful at integrated marketing communications, you need to have a clear vision of the goals and objectives of your organization. You need to understand what your target audience would gain when they make use of your product or service.
When you understand your value proposition, it would be easier to convince customers to buy from you instead of your competition.
Finally, draw out a detailed plan of implementation. Ensure that you adopt a step-by-step approach so that you do not miss important information. When creating your integrated marketing communication plan, it is important that you do proper research beforehand.
A summary of what your integrated marketing communication plan should include:
- A summary of your marketing plan and how you plan on reaching your target customers and marketing your products to them.
- An in-depth background on your business along with the goals, objectives, and visions of your organization.
- Description of products as well as the features that are essential and enticing to customers.
- Description of your target audience and customer expectations.
- Research on your competition. When you understand your competitors you would able to create products that trumps theirs. You need to show your customers why they should do business with you instead of your competition.
- Keep up with new trends in the industry and be flexible enough to meet with the changes in the industry.
- Regularly perform SWOT analysis. Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats.
- Specify the tools and resources you would need to create an effective IMC plan.
Implementation of integrated marketing communications plan
The first step to successfully implementing an integrated marketing plan is by having a clear understanding of who your target audience is.
The customer is the most important factor of any marketing plan. The only way customers can be loyal to your brand is when you exceed their expectations. You need to deliver so much value that they keep coming back for more.
The second part is the implementation of all the components of the marketing mix. These components include identifying the right product, determining your price, your system for promotion, and the place or location you would be distributing the products to.
Also, ensure that you are promoting and distributing your products through multiple channels. This would increase your market reach. You need to also ensure that you share the same brand message across multiple channels.
You also need to develop a budget, allocate resources and a time frame for the integrated marketing communications plan.
When determining the audience you would market to, focus on customers that are more likely to generate the highest revenues for your organization.
You need to plan effectively for maximum results. You should take promotional activities seriously and make use of brand communication activities to effectively reach your target customer.
Finally, before you implement the plan, ensure that you have carried out a detailed analysis of the barriers that you might face. Once you’ve implemented the plan, regularly measure the effectiveness of your plan.
What are integrated marketing communications tools?
The important integrated marketing communications tools are:
1 Advertising
There are four basic characteristics that advertising must possess. It includes:
- It must be persuasive in nature
- Is should be non-personal
- They must be an identifiable sponsor
- The messaging must be disseminated through mass channels of communication.
Advertising promotion is viewed as the cheapest way of reaching your target audience. As opposed to personal selling, it is easier to reach your customers via mass media. The disadvantage is that due to its non-personal nature, it lacks the ability to tailor the message to suit the message recipient. The non-personal nature of advertisements makes it more difficult to get a sale.
Therefore, advertising is not the best when you are trying to get a sale. It is more effective in increasing brand awareness and changing public opinion towards your brand. Due to the many factors that influence sales, it might be difficult to pinpoint the contribution of advertising to sales. It best to view advertisements as contributing to sales in the long run.
The biggest disadvantage of advertisements is cost. The cost of digital ads are getting more expensive while reaching lesser customers. The cost of digital ads was 12 percent higher in 2017 and even cost 70 percent more than television advertisements.
2. Public relations (PR)
Public relations is the arm of management that is in charge of identifying and maintaining a mutually beneficial relationship between an organization and the public.
The main difference between advertising and public relations is the system of communication. Advertising is a one-way system of communication, i.e, from the advertiser (marketer) to the receiver (consumer). Public relations, on the other hand, is a two-way communication. Public relations consider multiple audiences( marketers, consumers, suppliers, vendors, employees, etc).
3. Sales promotion
Sales promotions are direct inducements that offer extra incentives to enhance or accelerate the product’s movement from producer to consumer.
Some examples of promotions include discounts, coupons, samples, low-cost deals, premiums, sweepstakes, etc. All these are examples of incentives that would urge a customer to purchase a product.
Sales promotions are very effective in urging customers to choose a brand over another, especially when both brands are similar in value.
4. Personal Selling (PS)
This is a person-to-person or face-to-face contact with customers with the aim of convincing them of the value of a product and urging them to make a purchase. Depending on the nature and size of the organization, the role of personal selling can vary.
Personal selling is the most effective way to make a sale among all the tools of integrated marketing communications. This is because of the interpersonal nature of communication. The messaging can be tailored to suit each situation and feedback can be processed immediately. The main disadvantage is that personal selling is the most expensive way to close a sale.
5. Direct marketing (DM)
This is the oldest form of marketing. It involves directly communicating with your customers. It uses channels like telephone, mails, or personal messages. The key users of direct marketing are retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers.
They use a variety of methods to reach their target customers. These methods include telemarketing, direct mail, cable shopping networks, infomercials, direct response advertising, and online computer shopping services.
An advantage of direct marketing is that it allows businesses to target a segment of customers with messages that are tailored to meet their specific needs.
When companies can identify their target customers, they become more effective with their marketing efforts.
Conclusion,
Integrated marketing communications helps communicate your brand message to your target audience. With IMC, marketers can develop a system to market their products and services effectively.
Not only is integrated marketing communications interested in winning new customers, it also focuses on building a long-lasting relationship with the customer.IMC integrates several marketing tools to save time and helps marketers to easily connect with customers.
Which tips or strategies did you think I should have added that is not in this article?