What is Integrated Marketing Communication?


Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is an effective technique that transforms the marketing process from a decentralized channel to a networked approach. IMC combines your various marketing channels and related materials-from digital, social, public relations and direct mail into one.

Why is Integrated Marketing Communication important for brands?

It is important for companies to promote their brand to end users, not only to stand out from the competition, but also to survive in the long term. Brand advertising increases the visibility of products and services, and ultimately increases your sales, thus bringing huge profits and revenue to the company.

To understand integrated marketing communication, we first need to understand what brand communication is. Brand communication is an action of a company to promote its products and services to end consumers. Brand communication plays an important role in promoting products and services to the target audience. The process involves identifying the most suitable target audience to purchase a product or service and promoting the brand to them in one of the following ways:

  • Social Media Marketing
  • Sales Promotion
  • Public Relation
  • Direct Marketing
  • Personal Selling
  • Print Advertising
  • Digital Marketing

Integrated marketing communication brings together all the aspects of marketing mix to promote products and services to end consumers at the right time and place. You need to promote your products well to get the greatest attention from end users. According to a comprehensive marketing communication plan, various brand promotion methods are brought together to achieve the highest efficiency and best results.

Let us take an instance to understand integrated marketing communication:

A company deals in providing personal hygiene products to end-users. The first step would be to identify the target customers. It is crucial for the brand to understand who would be the best buyers for their products. For hygiene products they need to target the housewives, for personal hygiene products, it would be youngsters and senior citizens as well.

Integrated marketing communication is a method of using multiple strategies to convey information.These strategies can work together and collaberate with each other. For example, companies can promote new logos, slogans, or strategies through various media, including print, television, internet, and social media. For a particular media company, each method may be slightly different, but they will all lead the audience to the same information. There are many ways to use it to be creative.

A successful method helps to establish and maintain a good relationship between the company and its customers. They promote the company's brand to potential customers by convincing them that they are best to try new products or services. Profit margin is the main reason for participating in most activities.

How decision-making involved?

It is essential to understand what motivates customers to buy a product or service, and then find out why they choose to buy from you. The important thing here is to understand the problem you are solving for them and help them make a decision. Note that some customers use high-level decision-making processes, while others use low-level participation to make limited, nominal, or spontaneous decisions. It all depends on your company and the products you sell. If it is a low-priced consumer product, the delivery time will be shorter. If you sell B2B product, it may take longer due to the large number of people involved. Most customers follow a basic pattern when faced with specific situations that may lead to sales. This is called the decision-making process.

As you can see, developing an integrated marketing communication strategy can take your business and sales to a new level. Not only have you improved your external image, but your internal team also gets benefited from several advantages. With an effective IMC, the investments will go up and the costs will decrease, which will bring profits to you and your team. It takes time and effort to establish effective integrated marketing communications, but innovation makes this strategy a strategy you can't ignore. With the right plan, you will reap the benefits discussed in this article and more.

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