Integrated Marketing Communication Strategy

Front 1

The Marketing Communications Mix

Back 1

Marketing Communications Mix:
- The specific mix of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations a company uses to pursue its advertising and marketing objectives

Advertising:
- Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor

Sales promotion:
- Short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sale of a product or service

Public relations:
- Building good relations and corporate image with the company's publics using publicity, and handling unfavourable events

Personal selling:
- Personal presentation by the firm's sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships

Direct marketing:
- Direct communications with targeted individuals to obtain an immediate response and lasting customer relationships

Front 2

Integrated Marketing Communications

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The Marketing Communications Environment is Changing:
- Mass markets have fragmented, causing marketers to shift away from mass marketing to target marketing
- Improvements in information technology are facilitating segmentation
- Media fragmentation has occurred with companies doing less broadcasting and more narrowcasing

The Need for Integrated Marketing Communications
- Conflicting messages from different sources or promotional approaches can confuse company or brand images
- The problem is particularly prevalent when functional specialists handle individual forms of marketing communications independently
- The Internet must be integrated into the broader IMC mix
- Best bet is to wed traditional branding efforts with the interactivity and service capabilities of online communications

Definition: IMC is the concept under which a company carefully integrates and coordinates its many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message about the organisation and its products