Explain in detail about growing importance of integrated marketing communications

Explain in detail about growing importance of integrated marketing communications

When it comes to communications – a consistent message is both powerful and influential. An Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) strategy ensures that the key message of your business is being delivered consistently across multiple channels. Every interaction a customer has with your brand need to embody the same values, benefits and unique selling point in order to cut through and make your brand stand out from the crowd.

Need more convincing? Here are four benefits of incorporating an Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) strategy in your business:

1. Improved Efficiency

Adopting an IMC strategy will improve efficiency by providing a streamlined process. It ensures that the company’s harmonious message is carried across various channels and time isn’t wasted on repetitive messages or communicating with others for information.

IMC is not just for your consumer; it is also beneficial for effective internal communications with your team. Internal collaboration across the business including customer service  must use the same tone of voice, style and convey a consistent message.

Before any business content is launched you want to be on the same page as your team, maintaining consistent communication and distributing a clear message to the public. This can be achieved by using an integrated communication platform such as Slack to centralise all messages and making sure everyone understands the brand and follows a set guideline.

2. Accessibility to Larger Audiences

Using a range of communication channels allows your company access to a larger audience and widens your reach. This means there is a higher probability of reaching your target audience and attracting the right consumers to your brand. However, remember it is important to maintain a consistent target audience and key message throughout your channels.

3. Cost-effective

Distributing content across numerous channels can be a costly process. By adopting an IMC strategy, this removes the need for replication of content, saving you both time and money by adopting the same images across your website and multiple social media profiles.

4. Builds Trust

Finally, implementing an IMC strategy builds consumer trust and allows for brand recall as messaging is consistent and integrated amongst several channels. A consumer will begin resignating with a brand when these three criteria are satisfied:

  • Reaches the intended target audience
  • Consistent messaging
  • Across various channels

If key messages aren’t communicated consistently across channels, the consumer will receive a disjointed brand experience and will less likely build trust and consumer confidence.

Now that we know what having a suitable IMC strategy in place can do. You may be left wondering “Okay it’s important, but how do I go about creating it?”. Depending on the nature of the business, the option is endless and exciting.

The TaurusBullseye© is our unique and trademarked methodology. We start with your fundamental business objectives and align your growth, marketing, brand and digital strategies to support these. The TaurusBullseye© process creates a strong, easily articulated message that tells your market who you are and what you can do for them. This is fundamental to your business.

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If we had to pick the biggest, buzziest buzz phrase of the year, it would have to be integrated marketing. Some call it omnichannel marketing, some prefer multichannel attribution, but whichever way you look at it, it’s all about functioning from a single perspective. Putting all your eggs in one basket can have multiple benefits for your business; here’s why we’re loving integrated marketing, and you should be too.

What does ‘integrated marketing communications’ actually mean?

In a small business or start up enterprise, chances are there is one person who is responsible for the majority of marketing efforts. This means that the messages, language and images remain consistent across all channels. This is what we call integrated marketing.

As businesses grow, or in companies which are already larger, there may be several people involved in marketing work. There could be sales teams, online and offline marketing teams, external agencies and more. This can often mean that the marketing message becomes watered down, and consistency muddied by the sheer variety of entities involved.

Bringing things back together, to function as a whole rather than separate parts, is what integrated marketing is all about. Numerous studies have shown that this teamwork based approach can be highly beneficial for a variety of reasons, helping to eliminate confusion and build increased loyalty among the target audience.

Why is integrated marketing important now?

Marketing integration has always been beneficial, but it is becoming more important today than it ever has before. There’s a good reason for this, and it’s all about digital.

In the past, marketing channels were pretty much limited to direct marketing such as phone or post, as well as advertisements on TV, radio and in print. With only a handful of channels to occupy, it was easy for brands to maintain a clear, concise message across all touch points.

But, in the modern world, there are infinite possibilities for marketing to occur, and for it to become confused, messages muddied, and loyalties smashed. Indeed, many brands rely on external agencies to manage various parts of their activities, often with different specialists in place for different outlets. The proliferation of channels for marketing has made it more important today than ever before that we strive for integration, to ensure a clear message at every touch point.

The benefits of integration

Marketing integration is not hard to do, but it can require something of a shift in culture if you’ve become accustomed to a disparate way of working. To make integration work for you, you’re going to need to be committed, consistent and confident it will get results. To help with this, here are just a few of the many benefits you can expect to enjoy when you take a more integrated approach to your marketing efforts.

  • Better results: Traditional, disparate marketing will see businesses and their agencies planning separate campaigns for each marketing stream. Press releases, advertising, sales promotions and direct marketing will all have their own stomping ground, never the twain shall meet. With an integrated approach, however, all the components come together to work as one big, beautiful, shiny machine. The information from press releases is reinforced by articles and blog posts, advertising messages are bolstered by these outlets, and follow up using direct marketing further supports the communication, shepherding leads like moths to a light.
  • Increased efficiency: Being consistent in your messages will not only make the overall impact stronger and more effective, it could save you money too. Images can be created once, then used across a variety of channels. Copy can be perfected, then repurposed for different media. And rather than using a host of different agencies, each with different specialisms, you can opt instead to work with one provider who is an integrated marketing expert. This could save you money on agency fees, and will almost certainly cut the time cost compared to dealing with multiple providers.
  • Boosted brand awareness: Interacting with your customers in a consistent, focussed manner is beneficial for both your brand and the loyalty your audience feels towards you. Creating the same message across a variety of touch points serves to reinforce your messaging, helping the customer to feel comfortable and confident in who you are and what you stand for.
  • Repeated success: Do you think your customers hear you the first time? They don’t. In fact, according to experts, the average customer needs to hear the message seven times before it really gets through. Integrated marketing helps you to reiterate the same message in a variety of different ways, so the chance of having it heard and acted upon is increased.
  • Customer satisfaction: By integrating your campaign, you can be confident that customers will receive the same message, no matter where they encounter your brand. This means you can communicate with your customers to their preference, whether that’s by email, social media or otherwise, and be confident that they are receiving your key messages loud and clear.
  • Organisational benefits: Achieving consistency in communication is always going to be beneficial for any business. It helps teams work together, saves wasted time and effort, and helps to streamline processes so that everyone works better together. By adopting an integrated approach to marketing, you can ensure that teams all function well together, and that there is less risk of confusion between departments, agencies and individuals.

There are many benefits to be had when you start to look at an integrated approach to marketing. To find out more about how this could work for you, or for help in getting started, why not get in touch with us today?

What is the importance of integrated marketing communications?

Integrated marketing offers a smooth, customer-focused experience by incorporating all marketing communication elements, including public relations, social media, and advertising. It implies that your message should have a unified look, feel, and tone across your channels.

What are the reasons for the growth of integrated marketing communication?

Factors Contributing to IMC.
(i) Fragmentation of the mass market. ... .
(ii) Media Fragmentation. ... .
(iii) Explosion of New Technologies. ... .
(iv) Emergence of Global Markets. ... .
(v) Shifts of Power from Manufacturers to Retailer. ... .
(vi) Shifting of Promotion Cost from Advertising to other Forms of Promotion..

What is an integrated marketing communication and why is it important explain it with example?

Integrated marketing communication plays an essential role in delivering a unified message to end-users through various channels and thus has better chances of attracting customers. A single message goes to customers across all marketing channels be it TV, Radio, Banners, hoardings and so on.