Integrated Marketing Communications Is The Coordination and Integration of All Marketing
Integrated Marketing Communications Is The Coordination and Integration of All Marketing
Integrated Marketing Communications Is The Coordination and Integration of All Marketing
communication tools, avenues, functions and sources within a company into a seamless
program that maximizes the impact on consumers and other end users at a minimal cost. It
aims to ensure consistency of message and the complementary use of media. The concept
includes online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-
marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click,
affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, micro-blogging, RSS,
podcast, Internet Radio and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print
(newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry relations, billboard, radio, and
television. A company develops its integrated marketing communication programme using all
the elements of the marketing mix (product, price, place, promotion and public relations).
The starting point of the IMC is the marketing mix (Product, Price, Promotion, and Place)
which involves different types of marketing, advertising and sales. Without a complete IMC
plan there is no integration or harmony among client and customers. The goal of an
organization is to create and maintain communication throughout its own employees and
throughout it's customers.
Reasons for the Growing Importance of IMC
Several shifts in the advertising and media industry have caused IMC to develop into a
primary strategy for marketers:
Those who practice advertising, branding, brand language direct marketing, graphic design,
marketing, packaging, promotion, publicity, sponsorship, public relations, sales, sales
promotion and online marketing are termed marketing communicators, marketing
communication managers, or more briefly, marcom managers.
In branding, every opportunity to impress the organization's (or the individual's) brand upon
the customer is called a brand touch point (or brand contact point.) Examples include
everything from TV and other media advertisements, event sponsorships, webinars, and
personal selling to even product packaging. Thus, every experiential opportunity that an
organization creates for its stakeholders or customers is a brand touch point. Hence, it is
vitally important for brand strategists and managers to survey all of their organization's brand
touch points and control for the stakeholder's or customer's experience. Marketing
communications, as a vehicle of an organization's brand management, is concerned with the
promotion of an organization's brand, product(s) and/or service(s) to stakeholders and
prospective customers through these touch points.