What is Integrated Marketing Communications? Things to know about Integrated Marketing Communications

Integrated Marketing Communications is a concept that is no longer strange to marketers. This is a competitive method in business, with the goal of increasing product value, and information, building product awareness, etc. To better understand this method, let’s learn more in the article below.

Nowadays, the Term Integrated Marketing Communications is no longer strange to marketers. This is a competitive method in business, with the goal of increasing product value, information, building product awareness, enhancing brand reputation, maintaining trust, and good public attitudes about the company, etc.  So what is integrated marketing, and why is it always an important part of every marketing strategy. Let’s learn with MarkKnow about Integrated Marketing Communications  and Integrated Marketing Communications tools.

What is Integrated Marketing Communications?

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the coordination of closely linked communication activities, aiming to convey a clear, consistent and convincing message about an organization and its products to customers. Integrated Marketing Communications is a tool to perform the communication function of Promotion  (promotion mix), an important element in the 4P Marketing model, meeting customer needs

“The father” of marketing, Philips Kotler, wrote in his book “Marketing Management” (2014): “Modern marketing must not only find ways to develop a better product, a more attractive price, but also to communicate most effectively to target customers. Companies must know how to integrate communication tools to introduce to current and potential customers, because separate communication has long been unsuccessful.”

The Role of Integrated Marketing Communications

After understanding what Integrated Marketing Communications is, we would like to introduce to you the role of IMC as follows:

• IMC helps businesses define and convey messages in a consistent, understandable and memorable way to their target customers.
• IMC helps businesses build a better image, faster through various tools.
• IMC helps businesses focus on communication results. Instead of using scattered tools, businesses can set initial goals and focus on them with IMC.
• Implementing IMC also helps businesses improve their competitiveness with other competitors in the market.

IMC Tools – Integrated Communications

In Integrated Marketing Communications, there are 6 typical and most important tools including: Advertising, Direct Marketing, Promotion, PR and Personal Selling .

Advertisement

Advertising is the first tool in Integrated Marketing Communications. Advertising is the use of media to convey information about the quality or advantages of a product to customers. To do this, businesses have to spend a certain amount of money.

Advertising is a standardized and legal way of communicating information about a product publicly. Because many people receive advertising, sellers know that buyers may already understand and accept the product. Advertising helps sellers repeat the message many times, helping buyers receive and compare messages from different companies to choose. Large-scale advertising positively reflects the reputation and success of the business.

However, this form is only one-way, does not bring interaction, and is not a dialogue with customers.

Nowadays, businesses can advertise on many media. These media can be divided into the following groups:

• Print media group : newspapers, magazines, commercial publications… These are media that have been around for a long time and have been widely used up to now.
• Electronic media : radio, television, movies, internet… These media began to appear in the mid-20th century and quickly became effective advertising means.
• Outdoor media group : such as billboards, posters, signs… This media originated in ancient times and is still commonly used today.
• Direct advertising media group : direct mail, telephone…
• Other media groups:  advertising at points of sale, fairs, advertising on items…

Direct Marketing

Direct Marketing is the use of telephone, mail, and other non-personal contact tools to communicate with and solicit a response from specific customers or prospects.

Direct marketing offers many benefits to consumers. People who order through e-mail say that shopping via e-mail is fun, convenient, and hassle-free. It saves time. They can browse catalogs at home that introduce new products and ways of life. They can receive gifts without leaving home.

Some forms of Direct Marketing:

• Catalog marketing: many companies use email marketing after they publish a catalog. The content of the catalog can include detailed information about the features of the catalog, about the products, sample collections, hotline numbers to answer questions, gifts, discounts, etc.
• Direct-Mail Marketing: includes letters, brochures, movies, toll-free numbers, etc.
• Telemarketing: is an important tool in direct marketing and is being used more and more. Customers use the phone and call a toll-free number to place an order.

Promotion

Promotion in Integrated Marketing Communications is an activity that provides added value or incentives to the sales force, distributors and consumers to increase immediate sales.

Promotion is divided into two main activities:

• Consumer-oriented promotions: target end consumers, using forms such as coupons, product samples, discount bonuses, lottery contests, and displays at points of sale. These forms encourage consumers to buy immediately, buy in large quantities, and buy frequently, helping to increase sales in the short term.
• Trade-oriented promotion: aimed at marketing intermediaries such as wholesalers, distributors, retailers. Implemented in the form of: price reduction, organizing sales meetings for the sales force, exhibitions to encourage distributors to stock, distribute and promote the company’s products.

Businesses use sales promotion as a tool to create a faster and stronger buying response. Sales promotion can be used to bring attention to a product and increase declining sales.

However, this activity is only effective in the short term, but is not effective in building long-term brand preference.

Public Relations

Public Relations (or PR) is defined as the management function that evaluates public attitudes, relates the policies of an organization to the public interest, and executes a program of activities to earn public understanding and acceptance.

PR aims to establish and maintain a positive impression of the public about the company. The form often used is press conferences, organizing events, providing information for the press to report on products or companies, participating in community activities such as: subsidies, contributing to social funds, sponsoring special events, etc. to enhance the company’s image.

One of the most widely used forms of PR today is to appear on major online news sites that are widely read and trusted. In Vietnam, sites such as Dan Tri, Channel 14, Afamily, CafeF, VNEconomy, etc. are influential sites, leading the trend with high traffic.

These are the newspapers that are exclusively advertised by Admicro with effective PR solutions for businesses. In the context of information chaos, Admicro’s prestigious information network is the top choice for Vietnamese readers. On the newspapers, PR activities to customers include activities such as Online Exchange, Q&A, Photographic, E-magazine, MiniMagazine Comparing, Quiz, Slide to view, etc. Businesses can choose the format that best suits the content of the article, product as well as their target customers.

Many people tend to see things through advertising. But compared to mere advertising, a product mentioned in the news or in mainstream articles is much more likely to be approved and trusted by the target audience.

Daily newsletters are more effective in stimulating buyer action than traditional advertising. A good Social Media strategy is a way to get the media to notice you.

Personal Selling

Personal selling is face-to-face communication between a salesperson and a potential customer to present, demonstrate, and sell a product.

The advantage of this tool is to create the attention of each customer and convey a lot of information. Between the seller and the buyer there is a flexible interaction, adapted to the individual requirements of the customer and can lead to purchase behavior. This is something that advertising can not do. Salespeople can also persuade and resolve customer questions. In addition, personal selling can establish and develop sales relationships.

However, in reality, for the end consumer, personal selling has a bad image. This Activity in Integrated Marketing Communications is considered dishonest and uses many customer pressure techniques. Moreover, personal selling requires a high level of expertise, professional behavior and is extremely expensive.

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) Planning Process

Step 1: Determine the goals of IMC integrated communication

Determining clear goals before each IMC marketing communication campaign helps businesses orient the next steps. Specific goals also help evaluate the success of the campaign more quickly and easily.

The SMART Model is also a great option for your business to set clear, consistent, and specific goals.

Step 2: Clearly define target customers for the IMC campaign

After determining the IMC goal, the business proceeds to determine the portrait of the target customer group.

Some elements often included in a customer portrait are: demographics, interests, habits, consumer behavior, etc.

When identifying target customers, there are two principles that researchers need to pay attention to:

• Theoretical research: The theory through collected data will be statistically and researched to give general indicators. From here, businesses can research competitors and find target customer groups for their campaigns.
• Field-based research : Information obtained by going to the market and learning more about the needs, habits or behaviors of current customers.

Step 3: Determine target customer insight

Finding customer insight is finding what exists in their subconscious that even the customers themselves may not realize.

Insight plays an important role in implementing communication activities. Therefore, to deliver close and highly communicable messages, businesses need to rely on new customer insights.

<h3″>Step 4: Come up with the Big idea

A main big idea will help businesses visualize other activities in IMC more easily.

Big idea provides appropriate customer insight or is feasible within the business’s resources.

Step 5: Implement the Integrated Marketing Communications Plan

After clearly defining the goals, customer portraits or big ideas of IMC, the business proceeds to implement the marketing communication plan.

The IMC integrated communication plan needs to be as detailed as possible, including transparent information such as: implementation time, work, budget, implementation personnel, etc.

Step 6: Evaluate and summarize the results

Evaluating and summarizing what has been achieved and what has not been achieved is a must after each campaign.

Campaign evaluation helps businesses identify what has been achieved and what has not been achieved, advantages and disadvantages. From there, businesses can draw lessons for future campaigns.

Conclude

In short, Integrated Marketing Communications is a management process that is linked to the development strategy, consistent delivery and dialogue, and harmoniously integrates messages so that customers and shareholders are aware as well as to enhance the value of brand assets. For Marketers, Integrated Marketing Communications are important to the development of the business.

With 6 tools including advertising, direct marketing, promotion, PR and personal selling, businesses need to have a specific strategy to use the tools most effectively.

Comment Policy: We truly value your comments and appreciate the time you take to share your thoughts and feedback with us.

Note: Comments that are identified as spam or purely promotional will be removed.

To enhance your commenting experience, consider creating a Gravatar account. By adding an avatar and using the same e-mail here, your comments will feature a unique and recognizable avatar, making it easier for other members to identify you.

Please use a valid e-mail address so you can receive notifications when your comments receive replies.