The term integrated marketing communication (IMC) is an important concept in the field of marketing mix relating to promotion.
According to the American Association of Advertising Agencies, IMC is “a concept of marketing communications planning that recognises the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines, e.g., advertising, direct response, sales promotion and public relations – and combines disciplines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact.”
IMC involves the coordination of promotion and other marketing efforts so as to achieve maximum informational and pervasive impact on customers. The most important objective of IMC is the coordination among different media to consistently communicate with the target group at the same wavelength. In nutshell, IMC means coordination of marketing communications mix with the marketing strategy.
Image Source: stirstuff.com
The Five Elements of IMC:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
i. A primary goal is to affect behaviour through communication.
ii. The need to work backwards from the customer’s or target’s perspective.
iii. The use of all forms of communication and all sources of brand and company context as perspective message sources.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
iv. The requirement to find synergy through coordination.
v. The focus on building relationship between brands and customers.
The Key Benefits of IMC:
i. Creative integrity (the theme and style of advertising are followed consistently through all types of media)
ii. Consistency in messages (every message Communication the same theme)
ADVERTISEMENTS:
iii. Unbiased marketing recommendation (from the agency that has appropriate strategy, and does not worry about earning commission)
iv. Better use of all type of media (each medium is used to its best of advantage) Greater marketing precision (due to use of database marketing techniques; information from direct response advertising, direct marketing campaigns and telemarketing)
v. Operational efficiency (less people to manage, single point of contact)
vi. Cost saving (better media rate, rationalization of product literature, elimination of duplication in areas like photography, reduction in hidden internal administration costs, and competitive centralized buying across all marketing activities).