Last Updated: September 11, 2021

Estimated reading time: 17 minutes

Integrated Marketing Communication

Integrated Marketing Communication

Good communication is the bridge between confusion and clarity. Many marketing campaigns fail due to ineffective marketing communication. Marketers should establish a good communication system to convey their message to all stakeholders so that everyone perceives the same meaning from the delivered message.

Companies are now attempting to establish a consistent brand presence that will lead to long-term brand connections. Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) has shifted its emphasis from limited “execution” to a much larger focus on branding and customer brand perceptions. The new strategy outperforms the previous one of “one voice, one look.”

IMC is the coordination and integration of all marketing communications instruments within a firm into a seamless program that optimizes the influence on consumers and others while costing the least amount of money.

Direct marketing, Internet marketing, sales promotion, public relations, promotional items, sponsorships, cause-related marketing, guerrilla marketing, and, of course, advertising all fall under the umbrella of IMC.

IMC is a straightforward continuous process for managing brand perceptions and experiences, as well as consumer expectations of the company. Its planning conveys the brand essence not just in all marketing communications, but also at all points of interaction with the brand.

It participates all shareholders in meaningful and frequently participatory brand experiences. When these best practices are followed, they result in strong brand connections, which leads to increased brand equity.

Five Key Features of Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

All five characteristics are important to understanding IMC philosophy and recognizing what has to be done to put this philosophy into effect.

Begin with the Consumer

The IMC strategy begins with the consumer (“from the outside in”) to identify which communication tactics will best suit their requirements and inspire them to acquire the brand. It prevents identifying communication vehicles from the inside out (from the firm to the client).

Use any Form of Relevant Contact

Some tools are more suitable for a specific activity only, as carpenters, plumbers, and auto mechanics are aware of these tools. Similarly, a true professional marketing communicator chooses the finest instruments for the task (advertising, social media, publicity, etc).

Now, when it comes to marketing communications, IMC practitioners must be open to employing any type of touchpoint, or contact, as a viable message delivery route. Brands that customize a long-term connection through touchpoints, such as brand communities and mobile applications, are more effective.

Speak with a Single Voice

Since the inception of IMC, it has been apparent that marketing communications must communicate with a unified voice. Coordination of messaging and media is important for establishing a strong and cohesive brand image and motivating customers to take action.

Failure to carefully coordinate all communication components can lead to duplication of efforts or, worse, a conflicting brand message. The single-voice approach, in general, entails selecting a distinctive positioning statement for a company.

A positioning statement is the core notion that encompasses what a brand is supposed to stand for in the minds of its target market and then conveys the same idea consistently across all media platforms.

Build Relationships

Building relationships between brands and their customers is essential for successful marketing communication. A relationship is an ongoing connection that exists between a brand and its customers. Successful customer-brand interactions result in repeat business and, ideally, brand loyalty.

Affect Behavior

The objective of influencing the behavior of the target audience is the last IMC characteristic. This means that marketing communications must eventually do more than raise brand awareness and improve customer sentiments about the company.

Instead, effective IMC necessitates that communication efforts be aimed at eliciting some kind of behavioral reaction. In other words, the goal is to compel individuals to act.

Marketers should be aware that it is not possible to achieve marketing action of customers from each marketing communication. Such expectation is not practically reasonable. Prior to acquiring a new brand, people must typically be made aware of the brand and its benefits, as well as persuaded to have a good attitude about it.

Communication activities aimed at achieving these intermediate, or pre-behavioral, objectives are completely legitimate. However, a good marketing communication program must finally impact consumer behavior, preferably sooner rather than later.

Criteria for Integrated Marketing Communication Programs

The marketer’s overarching aim in analyzing the aggregate impact of an IMC program is to build the most successful and efficient communication program feasible. Six relevant criteria are as follows:

Coverage

Coverage is the percentage of the audience accessed by each marketing communication choice, as well as the degree of overlap across communication alternatives. As stated by the second criterion, contribution, the distinctive element of coverage is the inherent communication potential of a marketing communication choice.

If communication choices overlap, marketers must determine how to build their communications strategy to make feel consumers already have certain communication impacts in their memory prior to being exposed to any given communication option.

Contribution

Contribution defines the primary impacts of a marketing communication choice in terms of how it influences customers’ interpretation of a message and the results that occur.

Marketing communications may play a variety of functions, such as raising awareness, improving image, eliciting reactions, and inducing sales, and the contribution of each marketing communication choice will be determined by how successfully it performs that job.

Commonality

Businesses should manage the whole marketing communication program, regardless of whatever communication choices they use, to establish a consistent and clear brand image in which brand associations share information and meaning.

The consistency and coherence of the brand image are essential because it influences how readily consumers can recall current connections and reactions as well as how easily they can associate additional associations and responses to the brand in their memory.

Complementarity

The degree to which various associations are highlighted across communication alternatives is referred to as complementarity. The ideal marketing communication program would make certain that the communication alternatives chosen are mutually compensating and reinforcing in order to develop the necessary customer knowledge structures.

Conformability

The degree to which a marketing communication choice is resilient and effective for diverse groups of customers is referred to as conformability. There are two kinds of conformability: communication conformability and consumer conformability.

The fact of any IMC program is that when consumers are exposed to certain marketing communication, some have previously been exposed to other marketing communications for the brand, while others have not.

The capacity of a marketing message to function at two levels—that is, to effectively communicate to both groups—is crucial. When a marketing communication choice delivers the desired effect independent of the customers’ previous communication history, we consider it conformable.

Cost

At last, to arrive at the most successful and efficient communication program, evaluations of marketing communications on all of the preceding criteria must be evaluated against their cost.

Why Has IMC Become so Prominent in Recent Years?

A number of improvements in communication media in recent years have increased the importance of IMC. Keep in mind that they will affect corporations differently depending on their circumstances and that they are not all distinct and independent.

Changes in Our Society

As customers become proactive and concerned about alternative products and the ‘true cost of goods, then marketing systems must be both responsive and accountable.

There is a steady shift away from broad mass media advertising and toward more segmented and focused efforts, which will eventually lead to one-to-one marketing facilitated by direct addressing via electronic media. As more managers codify their expertise, marketing has grown more professional.

Integration is more and more widely recognized for its benefits, and there is mounting evidence that systems and programs structured in this manner are sufficiently useful to justify the effort required. Consumers and purchasers are no longer viewed as passive subjects but as active consumers of communication mediums. More of us are worried about the environmental effect of the goods we use.

Change in Our Economy

Rising broadcast media prices and growing budgetary strain necessitate both cost reductions and improved performance. Scale economies in media use continue to be a restraint on commercial communication systems.

Consumers no longer regard quality and price as a required trade-off; dependable, high-performance goods may be purchased at a cheap cost. Low prices and good quality are no longer sufficient differentiators.

Changes in the Available Technology

Communication mediums are growing and diversifying, and they are often augmenting rather than replacing traditional media. Networks are becoming more multinational, if not global, in scope.

The World Wide Web and the Internet are vast networks of interconnected personal computers. Software applications are being linked to enable online data collection, data warehousing, and data mining, all of which contribute to knowledge management as the foundation of a relationship-management approach.

Barrier to Effective IMC

Marketing executives should not assume that if they are not practicing IMC, they are just missing out on the possible advantages. A brand’s marketing communication may be substantially less successful without IMC; the more complicated the market, the less effective it will be.

A lack of IMC, as well as a lack of coordinated communications strategy and the delivery of a consistent message, may result in various representations of a brand in the market. Even though the positioning is the same, if all of a brand’s marketing communication lacks a uniform look and feel, there will be no synergy or “lift” from the whole campaign.

Why hasn’t IMC been more generally adopted? Research has established a relationship between IMC and increased sales, market share, and profit; thus, why hasn’t IMC been more widely adopted? It is ‘partly because of ignorance, reluctance, and delay, and partly because of the sheer challenges of achieving integration.’

Organizational Barriers

Although most marketing managers agree on the need for IMC, the organizational structure of many marketing firms prevents it from being properly applied.

The capacity of an organization to handle the interrelationships of information and materials among the many agencies and suppliers engaged in providing marketing communication services is at the heart of this challenge.

• Vertical structures where mutual cooperation needed among various departments and teams

• Structure makes it hard to manage information from various stakeholders

• Low standing of advertising communication function

• Specialization gets in the way of integration

Organizational Character

Everyone in a business must understand and transmit the proper ‘image’ in any marketing communication. Anyone who comes into contact with customers must mirror the image conveyed by the company’s marketing materials.

This includes store clerks, salespeople, phone operators, and receptionists, all of whom are involved in a company’s marketing communication and therefore, in many ways, IMC “media.”

Too frequently, only those immediately associated with the marketing communication program are aware of it, which can be a significant issue.

•  Rigid organizational system and traditions

•  No common understanding of what constitutes IMC

• Resistance to improve and worry over who will be in charge for action

• Financial considerations placed ahead  of customer factors

Compensation issues

The true source of worry about remuneration is with the agencies and suppliers who support the marketer’s marketing communication requirements. This has proven to be a stumbling barrier for many big advertising agencies, as well as smaller agencies, who have attempted to provide their customers with a comprehensive range of marketing communication services.

• Without budget control, communication experts worry they are going to lose the position and monetary reward

• Rewards are associated with budget, maybe not to the program

Marketing Communication Mix

Advertising

As we’ve seen, the goal of advertising in IMC is to ‘turn’ the consumer’s thinking toward the marketed brand. It accomplishes this by increasing brand awareness and cultivating good views toward the brand within the target demographic.

Marketing communication should aid to raise brand awareness and foster a good attitude toward the company. However, advertising is the major communication goal when this is the primary communication goal. Advertising has a longer-term strategic function in IMC than promotion since brand awareness and brand attitude take time to develop.

Promotion

Promotion is used deliberately to increase short-term sales or brand awareness. When considering promotion in this broad sense, not as sales promotion but as part of marketing communication to assist speed up the decision-making process – whether an incentive is included or not – it is difficult to view promotion in isolation.

When creating an IMC program, the manager should consider if a promotion or a certain form of incentive promotion will be a successful element of the overall marketing communication effort.

There are two types of incentive promotions: instant reward promotions and delayed reward promotions. Immediate reward promotions are deals that provide an immediate benefit, such as price reductions, bonus packs, free presents with a purchase, and so on.

Delayed reward promotions postpone the promotion’s benefit and typically demand the target audience to do something before they receive the advantage of the campaign. These might include contests, refund offers that need proof of purchase, frequent flyer programs, and so on.

Sponsorships and Event Marketing

Sponsorships are essential in IMC because they include a corporation or brand supporting an event, organization, cause, or even an individual. In exchange, the firm receives the right to show its brand name or logo in connection with the sponsored activity or individual, as well as to use the sponsorship in other marketing efforts.

Event marketing is comparable to sponsorship in that a corporation supports a particular event rather t

The sole difference between event marketing and sponsorship is that with event marketing, a corporation supports a single event rather than a long-term partnership. Event marketing is essentially a one-time sponsorship.

Unfortunately, while sponsorships and event marketing have clear potential advantages, there is no evidence that they have a meaningful influence on sales or a company’s stock price. There is always the danger of adversely perceived over-commercialization, or a bad connotation coming from difficulties associated with the sponsored activity or people. Sponsorships and event marketing, on the other hand, may make a beneficial contribution to IMC if properly planned.

Product Placement

Product placement is the actual insertion of a product or service inside the context in exchange for money or other compensation. This context might range from movies and television shows to video games and even literature.

There are several difficulties concerning the use of product placement, including ethical considerations and whether or not it is successful. There is no assurance that the audience will recognize an attempt to convince them. Even if the audience understands, they claim, it is immoral since the marketer has the purpose to deceive.

Assuming that product placement is effective, the positioning of the brand will have a clear influence. If a brand is plainly visible being used by a celebrity or is expressly mentioned, the potential impact is greater than if it is merely part of the backdrop. If properly positioned, the most probable result will be increased brand recognition and salience.

Packaging

Marketers recognize that packaging is an important element of a brand’s identity; nevertheless, managers frequently overlook the significant impact packaging can play in creating and reinforcing good brand attitude and equity.

Well-designed packages may draw attention at the moment of purchase, which is an important feature for any product where the buying decision is influenced by brand recognition and awareness.

A package will be easily recognized at the point of purchase if it is successfully linked to the brand in the consumer’s mind as a consequence of other marketing communication for the brand, and if it is aesthetically powerful and unique in comparison to rivals. Given the enormous number of package facings competing for attention in a store, packaging must be able to ‘cut through the competition.

Content Marketing

It is the place where a brand generates ‘content’ of some kind, such as amusing short films or articles. It is then ‘shared’ via digital media in order to attract and energize customers.

The finest content marketing does not clearly promote a brand, but rather provides something of interest to the target audience. The important thing to remember here is that the content should be a tale or some sort of entertainment that is unrelated to the brand.

This is why, rather than an advertising copywriter, someone with a journalistic background is typically used to create content marketing. Still, there must be a connection to the brand, which presents some of the same ethical concerns as product placement in general.

Viral Marketing

Brand marketers have discovered that it is more vital to actively influence what is said about their businesses rather than simply hope for favorable word of mouth.

Viral marketing, which refers to tactics that leverage social networks to enhance brand recognition or other marketing objectives through a self-replicating, viral process akin to the transmission of a virus, is frequently employed to do this.

Point-of-Purchase (POP)

The point of purchase, or shop environment, gives brand marketers one last chance to influence consumer behavior. POP advertising is valuable to brand managers since marketers in the United States now spend more than $21 billion on various types of POP messaging.

Because many product and brand decisions are made at the point of purchase, this is a great moment to connect with consumers. It is the point in time and space where all aspects of the transaction together.

Personal Selling

Personal selling is a type of person-to-person communication in which a salesman works with prospective customers to understand their buying demands in order to match them with the products or services of his or her firm.

Personal selling’s major goals include educating consumers, giving product usage and marketing help, and providing purchasers with after-sales care and support. Personal selling, as compared to other promotional components, is particularly capable of accomplishing these duties due to the person-to-person contact style that distinguishes this kind of marketing communication.

As a result, as compared to other promotional techniques, personal selling has a number of advantages. Personal selling has the major disadvantage of being more expensive than other types of advertising since sales professionals generally deal with only one consumer at a time. When the ratio of inputs to outputs is considered, personal selling is generally less efficient than other IMC techniques.

Public Relation

It is difficult to determine where PR belongs to IMC. Part of the reason for this is that neither academics nor practitioners appear to agree on the function of public relations in an organization’s marketing efforts.

From a marketing viewpoint, the term “publicity” may be a suitable fit. However, many public relations professionals would like to avoid any affiliation with the term “marketing.” They like to consider their work as primarily focused on improving an organization’s image and reputation.

Regardless of how one defines PR, it is an essential component of the marketing communication mix, and the messages it conveys to various “publics” must be compatible with the ones conveyed by more traditional marketing communications.

While certain PR efforts obviously fall outside of the scope of IMC’s typical strategic planning, all actions performed on behalf of an organization should be mindful of the broader marketing communication program for that company’s brands.

When compared to other types of communication, public relations are significantly less expensive in both absolute and relative terms. This is mostly due to the absence of direct media expenses. However, there is rarely an assurance that a message will be revealed and, if it is, that it will be delivered in the manner requested by the firm.

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