Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

Problem: How to construct an effective integrated marketing communications system?

After defining the problem our group came up the following four learning objectives: 

1. What are different communication channels/ tools?

2. How to choose different communication channels/ tools?

3. How to ensure effective integration internal and external?

4. When and why do you use external providers?

    a. What kind of agencies can be used?

1. What are different communciation channels/ tools?

Before starting with the first LO, I would like to clarify some terms:

Marketing communication in general describes the communication with a company's target audience. With marketing communications companies try to inform, persuade and remind their consumers about their products and brands they offer. This can happen directly or indirectly. To improve their communication marketers should focus on an integrated marketing communications approach. 

IMC is a "cohesive combinatin of marketing communicationc acitivites, techniques and media designed to deliver a coordinated message to a target market with a powerful or syngeristic effect, while achieving a common objective or set of objectives." (Govoni, 2004) It can be compared with an orchestra where every instrument has a specific task and you have to bring them all together in order to get beautiful music. 

In today's globalized and connected world a lot of different an new tools exist besides the traditional ones that can be used for marketing communication. In the following I will list a few of them: 

- Advertising: any paid form of non-personal communication (print media, POS & POP material, TV commercials, outdoor)

- Direct response marketing: use email, telephone, fax, etc. in order to communicate in a direct way with a response or dialouge from the specific customer, sponsorship in events

- Interactive/ internet marketing: mostly online activities that engage consumers and raise awareness

- Personal selling: face-to-face interactions with customers in order to present products, answer questions and build relationships

- Sales promotion: activities that are implemented to boos the sales of a product or sercice for a limited time period (consumer or trade oriented) 

- Public relation/ publicity: non personal communications to manage perceptions and strategic relationships between organisation and its interal and external stakeholders

http://mindfulkreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/integrated-marketing-imc.png

 

 - new approach to how companies and brands advertised and reached potential consumers in such a way that combined both "Online and offline tactics around a single marketing strategy" (Olenski, 2012)
- The most important element remains that customers want and expect a consistent experience across all of their touch points with companies and products” (Olenski, 2012).

2. How to choose the right channels?

Due to the immense amount of different communication tools, it is very critical to decide which channel and tools to use.
The right choice depends on the company's target market. A company has to deeply research the target market and find out how they see the brand and which features are most important for them. Furthermore, it is important to get information about their motivation, what kind of content and messages attract the target audience and which channels are used by them.

According to Connett (2004) a company should follow a 6 step process:
Step 1: Situation Analysis should include internal organisational strengths and weaknesses such as monetary resources, personnel skills, reputation, history of brands; target markets with market segmentation, targeting of selected segement, positioning; competitive analysis of indirect and direct competitors 
Step 2: Setting marketing objectives should include things like sales objectives or relationship objectives 
Step 3: Determining the marketing communication budget in total and to each of the various elements in the marketing communication mix 
Step 4: Managing the marketing communication mix (how will it be used; when, where, by whom)
Step 5: Coordinating and integrating efforts 
Step 6: Evaluating, controlling and following-up

According to Pickton and Broderick (2005) there four main features that are inevitable for IMC: 

- Coherence: different communications are logically connected? 

- Consistency: multiple messages support and reinforce, and are not contradictory? 

- Continuity: communications are connected and consistent through time? 

- Complementary: synergistic, or the sum of the parts is greater than the whole?  

3. How to ensure effective integration internally and externally?

In order to ensure that all communication channels/tools are carefully linked together and underline the same main messages it is inevitable to integrate all seperate marketing activites and try to reach a common goal. Across the marketing mix and also across different business functions (production, finance, distribution, communication) a continous exchange of information is important to ensure a coherent message for the customers. That is where it comes to horizontal integration!  

Beside the integration of different departments, the vertical integration plays an important role as well. The marketing and communication objectives must be aligned with the overall corporate objectives and missions. 

Inside the company, all staff needs to be informed and motivated about any new developments regarding the whole IMC process wherefore internal integration should be one of the main focuses. All different internal departments such as advertising, SP, PR etc. need to continuously exchange information and have to report each other for example during regular meetings. Furthermore, it is important that the main objectives are communicated throughout the whole organization. Therefore, a detailed internal communication plan needs to be accessible for everyone. A good marketing information system that collects and shares all relevant data across different departments can also be very helpful. 

4. When and why use outsourcing?

 Most companies resort to an external expert when it comes to marketing communication because the company is missing the deep knowledge / expertise, necessary resources or technology in a specific area. Therefore, outsourcing parts of this very wide ranging process to an external provider that specialises in a certain area increases the effectiveness of the whole process. The company itself can then focus more on their core competencies instead of using their time and effort for all the other things. Furthermore, outsourcing can create a higher overall level of flexibility External providers can for example be advertising or PR agencies.

In the case of outsourcing a very close collaboration and external integration of those agencies is necessary to deliver a cohesive and integrated message. In some cases, this collaboration and integration can be ensured through a company respresentative.

http://www.marketectsinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/benefits-of-outsourcing3-crop.jpg

 

 

5. What kind of agencies can be used?

After the organization has made the decision to outsource parts of their marketing, they have to decide which type of agency they need in order to successfully deliver a consistent message towards their target audience. There are a lot of different agencies that can support organizations during their marketing communications.  

According to Jobson (2012) there are different types of agencies: 

- Advertising agencies: create, develop, and produce advertising campaigns across print, outdoor, TV and radio

- Brand agencies: focus on developing brand identities (the company, name, visual identity, positioning), most commonly used when a company is starting up

- Design agencies: provide graphic design services – converting a brand / message into a visual form

- Digital or online marketing agencies: are concerned with any marketing relating to the Internet

- Market research agencies: design, carry out and report on and / or analyse research on behalf of companies

- Media agencies: specialise in planning and buying advertising space, sometimes incorporated into advertising agencies 

- PR agencies: are concerned with making sure that a company and its products /services are mentioned in the media and other important outlets (e.g. tradeshows, conferences), focus on generating free editorial not paid-for advertising

- Social media agencies: help businesses to build and maintain a presence on social networking

- Web design agencies: build, develop and host websites

- Marketing Consultant: umbrella over all these services, work with a company to develop a marketing strategy and will then bring in the appropriate agencies and specific skill sets to deliver the marketing strategy

Examples

Coca Cola

Coca Cola seems to be a pioneer in 360 degree communication because the company rapidly understood that they have to get in contact with their customers through different mediums and implemented a successfull integrated marketing communication. The company uses print media, POS & POP (e.g. freezers), TV commercials, billboards and banners. Furthermore, Coca Cola uses direct marketing in form of partnerships with restaurants and they sponsor several sport events. The most famous kind of promotion is probably the christmas truck of Coca Cola. They try to get in touch with their customer through different channels and still provide a coherent and consistent message. 

Snickers

The campaign "You're not you when you're hungry" is a very nice example of integrated marketing communications. Snickers linked their campaigns to a consumers emotion, you do not feel tetchy when you haven't eaten. The company tailored their engaging content to the different platforms they were using such as print media, television advertisment. Some examples of the TV commercials can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaRBGBHsjU8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM4aD_B3WYA 

Sources

Connett. B. 2004. The integrated marketing communication mix: in Marketing Communication (edited by Koekemoer, L.). JUTA Academics 

Fill. C. 2013. Marketing Communications. 6th edition. Pearson. London 

Govoni. N. 2004. Dictionary of Marketing Communications. Sage Publications   

Jobson. A. 2012. Types of marketing agency explained. Straight Marketing. URL: http://www.straightmarketing.co.uk/2012/01/types-marketing-agency-explained/ Accessed: 04.02.16   Olenski. S. 2012. Integrated marketing communications - Then and now. Forbes.com. URL: http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/05/31/integrated-marketing-communications-then-now/  

Pickton. D. & Broderick. A. 2005. Integrated Marketing Communications. 2nd edition. Prentice Hall