A Beginner’s Guide to Integrated Marketing Communications

All the vary­ing parts are work­ing togeth­er to cre­ate one uni­fied result. It’s why the G2 Crowd research team works so hard to deter­mine which soft­ware prod­ucts inte­grate with one another.

We under­stand that the abil­i­ty to use prod­ucts or ser­vices in tan­dem could make or break your pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and, in turn, suc­cess at meet­ing goals.

Integrated marketing communications

Inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions (IMC) is the strat­e­gy that takes your mar­ket­ing depart­ment from dis­parate func­tions to one inter­con­nect­ed approach. IMC takes your var­i­ous mar­ket­ing col­lat­er­al and chan­nels — from dig­i­tal to social media, to PR, to direct mail — and merges them with one depend­able message.

Imag­ine you’re try­ing to dis­cov­er a brand’s mes­sage or bet­ter under­stand a company’s mis­sion. If the sales team deliv­ers a dif­fer­ent mes­sage than the social media mar­ket­ing spe­cial­ist, you’re going to have a hard time under­stand­ing what that organization’s truth is. IMC seeks to elim­i­nate these incon­sis­ten­cies and ensure you’re send­ing the same sig­nals regard­less of team or priority.

Inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tions are ben­e­fi­cial to mul­ti­ple audi­ences. First, it helps your con­sumer bet­ter trust your com­pa­ny and its val­ues. Next, it’s ben­e­fi­cial for the stake­hold­ers in your organization.

Own­ers or those on the board will be con­tent to see your mar­ket­ing team deliv­er a con­sis­tent mes­sage to the audi­ences that will make your com­pa­ny a success.

If you find your mar­ket­ing team strug­gles to deliv­er a cohe­sive mes­sage, it like­ly stems from a lack of under­stand­ing of the impor­tance of an inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing approach. Sim­ply give this guide a good look and con­sid­er mak­ing it a required read for any employ­ees look­ing to help uni­fy your company’s mar­ket­ing strategies.

What is integrated marketing communications?

We men­tioned it briefly above, but IMC is the act of uni­fy­ing your company’s mar­ket­ing mes­sage across chan­nels. Per the Data and Mar­ket­ing Association:

“Inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing is an approach to cre­at­ing a uni­fied and seam­less expe­ri­ence for con­sumers to inter­act with the brand/enterprise; it attempts to meld all aspects of mar­ket­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion such as adver­tis­ing, sales pro­mo­tion, pub­lic rela­tions, direct mar­ket­ing, and social media, through their respec­tive mix of tac­tics, meth­ods, chan­nels, media, and activ­i­ties, so that all work togeth­er as a uni­fied force. It is a process designed to ensure that all mes­sag­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions strate­gies are con­sis­tent across all chan­nels and are cen­tered on the customer.”

Not every cam­paign has to con­sist of IMC. This strat­e­gy com­bines old and new meth­ods, and its rel­e­vance will depend on the con­tent of the cam­paign and the desired effects.

 

What are the benefits of an integrated marketing campaign?

Before invest­ing in any mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy, you want to ensure it will be effec­tive. Here are a few rea­sons to try out an inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing campaign.

Effec­tive and cost-effec­tive — First of all, it works. You saw just some of the results list­ed above in rela­tion to the cam­paign exam­ples. Two mil­lion impres­sions on social media is not some­thing brands come by every day. To see suc­cess like that, it’s nec­es­sary to strate­gize every step of the way. IMCs are thought out from top to bottom.

Inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing is every­where — These days, adver­tise­ments are so in tune with our indi­vid­ual inter­ests, it is almost to the point of being creepy. Inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing cam­paigns are effec­tive because they are every­where. You see the Snick­ers com­mer­cial not just on the TV between episodes of Friends, but dur­ing the Super­bowl of all times. Then you see that com­mer­cial again, but with a dif­fer­ent celebri­ty. Then you head to Walgreen’s to pick up your pre­scrip­tion, only to see Snick­ers changed its pack­ag­ing to reflect the campaign.

It builds a rela­tion­ship — Inte­grat­ed mar­ket­ing cam­paigns are all about the cus­tomer. You’re try­ing to build rap­port with them, increase your own brand aware­ness, and improve your rep­u­ta­tion. These cam­paigns get cus­tomers talk­ing about you in casu­al con­ver­sa­tion, sim­i­lar to the way one might men­tion run­ning into an old friend, or see­ing a new movie that just came out.

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