Integrated Marketing Communications – What is it?

Integrated Marketing CommunicationsWhat is Integrated Marketing Communications?

Management consultants came up with the term “integrated marketing communications” (IMC) to describe a marketer’s unified or holistic approach toward marketing across all media. Integrated marketing ensures consistency of messaging throughout all media outlets. Some may think this is a simple concept, but it is easily preached and can be hard to apply.

Communicating with our targeted users has changed with the surge in online marketing strategies such as search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, banner/online ads, social media outlets, and blogs. Companies that use to rely on newspaper ads to help promote their new product line, now “tweet”.  Money is being diverted from direct mail campaigns and reallocated to email marketing for a higher ROI.

Don’t confuse the consumer

The key of IMC is for all marketing strategies to work together in unison to achieve a common goal. That goal (for most companies) is to communicate to their targeted demographic to elicit a positive response. That positive response should in-turn get that targeted user to find out more about that product or service that was being communicated.  This takes us one step closer to the sale. If we use this holistic approach of communicating to our end-user, we won’t cause confusion. If we deploy one messaging strategy down our offline marketing channel and another messaging strategy down our online marketing channel – confusion will hit. And confusion, my friends, leads to conversion loss. Consistency…consistency….consistency of the message is paramount!

Our Goal

The goal of IMC is to create a campaign that is effective and consistent across all marketing platforms. What we tweet needs to be consistent with what we write in our direct mail campaigns. We need to first define our goals, the methods of communication, our targeted users, create consistent messaging, and execute. Conversion Pipeline is well versed in this strategy. Our customers deploy marketing campaigns across both online and offline platforms. We ensure that messaging is consistent and unified across both platforms to ensure a holistic approach.

Contact us today for a consultation.