Integrated Marketing Communication

What is IMC?

Integrated marketing is a management concept. It is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication work together as a unified force. Such aspects of marketing communication are advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing. (Mundford 2012.)

Before you will fully understand the areas of IMC, first, you need to identify what concepts and tools best relate to your professional experience. The intend of IMC is to get the most out of the marketing communication campaigns. (Mundford 2012.)

Picture: http://www.braatheenterprises.com/virtualproject/business/marketing/what-is-integrated-marketing-communications/#.VNE8FSnBC0w

Integrated marketing communication, or IMC, ensures that all forms of communications and messages are linked together. At its most basic level it means integrating all the promotional tools and trying to make them work together in harmony and so to develop brand awareness and to reach the target market. All the promotional communication tools work better if they work together in harmony rather than in isolation. At its best these tools should speak consistently with one voice all the time, every time. (MMC Learning.)

There can be found different levels of integration such as;

• Horizontal; 
• Vertical; 
• Internal; 
• External and 
• Data Integration. (MMC Learning.)

Horizontal Integration occurs across the marketing mix and across business functions. These are for example production, finance, distribution. All these should work together with communications because also their decisions and actions will indirectly send messages to customers. (MMC Learning.)

Vertical Integration means that marketing and communications objectives must support the higher level corporate objectives and corporate missions. (MMC Learning.)

Internal Integration requires keeping all staff informed and motivated about any new developments from new advertisements, to new corporate identities, new service standards and new strategic partners. (MMC Learning.)

Meanwhile External Integration requires external partners such as advertising and PR to work closely together to deliver an integrated message. (MMC Learning.)

Data Integration requires a marketing information system that collects and shares relevant data across different departments. (MMC Learning.)

IMC planning process is developing message strategies. Companies and their marketing communication agencies employe strategic thinking at a variety of levels in the marketing communication process. All messages should;

• Create brand awareness;
• Change or reinforce customer attitudes;
• Stimulate some kind of response or action and
• Stimulate the interactivity that helps build brand relationships. (Slideshare 2013.)

Also the importance of IMC is growing. It has been adopted by both large and small companies and has become popular among firms marketing consumer products and services as B-to-B marketers. Some of the reasons why marketers have done so are;

• The movement away from advertising focused approached; respect to demographics, lifestyle, media use, buying and shopping patterns.
• Shift from media advertising to other forms of marketing communication and the movement towards low-cost communication tools.
• Shift in power from manufacturers to retailers
• Rabid growth and development of database marketing
• Demands for greater accountability and compensation for agencies 
• Rapid growth of the Internet medias
• Increasing importance of branding (Kehinde 2011.)

How to create a Marketing Communication Plan?

1. Executive summary is an important part of IMC Plan because it summarises the goals, execution plan, and potential results.

2. Marketing Communications Objectives set the tone for the whole plan. They should aim to raising sales with specific, measurable tools aligned to enhance the overall goals.

3. Situation Analysis states the initial research findings that will guide the recommendations. 

4. Research a part where the research tools, mediums and points of emphasis for the campaign are articulated.

5. IMC Campaign Strategy is a outline for the overall strategy and it tells how and why it should be effective to accomplish the marketing communication objectives.

6. Creative Brief is often used in advertising, as a separate document, to develop an ad plan.

7. Advertising tells what tools and channels will be used for each target audience, the objectives, the media plan and timing of the communication. 

8. Direct Response Email talks about the objectives and execution strategy of emails.

9. Public Relations message is something that every company should have.

10. New Media can include for example blogs, blogs, podcasting, mobile marketing, display ads and social networks.

11. Consumer Promotions can generate engagement, but at the same tome it fits with the big idea and the brand message should be performed.

12. Budget details of how and when the money will be spent.

13. Measurement and Evaluation specifies what will be uses to measure and evaluate the effectiveness. These can be for example Questionnaires, word of mouth measurement or focus groups opinions.

The Plan may also include appendices, references or footnotes. (Hand Raiser Marketing 2010.)

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What are the Benefits and Challenges in IMC?

IMC requires a lot of effort but it also delivers many benefits. It can create competitive advantage, boost sales and profits to the company. It can also save time and money. (MMC Learning.)

IMC brings the company communications closer to the customers and helps them move through the various stages of the buying process. At the same time, the organisation simultaneously consolidates its image, develops a dialogue and nurtures its relationship with customer. This is also known as "Relationship Marketing". Consistent images and relevant, useful messages help nurture a long term relationship with customers. (MMC Learning.)

IMC also increases profits through increased effectiveness. A simple unified message has more impact than many unconnected messages. At another level IMC can boost sales by stretching messages across several communications tools to create more opportunities for customers to become aware, provoked, and eventually to make a purchase. On the other hand, un-integrated communication may send unconnected messages that may confuse, frustrate and arouse anxiety in customers. (MMC Learning.)

Despite its many benefits, IMC, also has many challenges. These include;

• Functional Silos;
• Stifled Creativity;
• Time Scale Conflicts and
• Lack of Management Know-How. (MMC Learning.)

Functional silos mean that the managers are protecting both their budget and their power base so that the inflexibility in organisational structures is affecting on the integration. Also, some organisational structures isolate communications, data, and even managers from each other. Sadly, for example, the PR department does not report to marketing. Also the sales force rarely meet the advertising or sales promotion people. 

IMC can also restrict creativity. The sales promotions are so tight to the overall marketing communication strategy that there is no room for creativity nor innovativeness. (MMC Learning.)

The problems that may rise from the time horizon is that some of the tools are designed to nurture the brand over the longer term and at the same time there are tools that are designed to boost quarterly sales with short term.  However, if carefully planned, the two objectives can be accommodated within an overall IMC. (MMC Learning.)

Surprisingly, this kind of planning is not very common. The managers or agencies might lack expertise in IMC. This lack of know how is then compounded by a lack of commitment.  (MMC Learning.)

Source: 

Marketing Communications. MMC Learning. URL: http://www.multimediamarketing.com/mkc/marketingcommunications. Accessed 02.02.2015

9 IMC Message Strategy. Slideshare 2013. URL: http://www.slideshare.net/soumya499/9-imc-message-strategy. Accessed 02.02.2015

Integrated Marketing Communication Plan Outline. Hand-Raiser Marketing 2010. URL: http://hand-raiser.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Integrated-Marketing-Communications-Plan-Outline.docx. Accessed 02.02.2015

What is Integrated Marketing Communication. La-Quinta Munford 2012. URL: http://www.braatheenterprises.com/virtualproject/business/marketing/what-is-integrated-marketing-communications/#.VNE8FSnBC0w. Accessed 03.03.2015

Marketing Communication: Kehinde Oladele Joseph 2011. A Catalyst for the Growth of E-business Management. http://www.medwelljournals.com/fulltext/?doi=sscience.2011.64.73. Accessed 03.02.2015