Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC): Shift from mass to target marketing

• According to Gartner, Integrated campaigns across 4T channels outperform single or dual-channel campaigns by 300%
• According to Forbes (Kantar Mill ward Brown), integrated campaigns are 31% more effective at buildings brands
• Integrated marketing techniques not only increase brand awareness among consumers but also helps in achieving operational efficiency and higher return on investment
• IMC has several challenges at internal level that might hinder a growing company to stabilize in the market

What is Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)?

Consumers are better informed and more communications empowered regarding the brand choices and preferences these days. They do not only depend on the information provided by the marketer but have been more choosy because of various online-marketing strategies. They prefer doing a lot of online research. Integrated Marketing Communication deals with providing clear, consistent and compiling message about the organization and its products. It is essential because targeted customers may use various communicational tools- ranging from TV channels, radio and print ads to social Medias.

Identification of target audience, determination of the communication objectives, design of the message, choose of media, selection of message source and collection of feedback are some of the steps in developing effective marketing communications. Marketers provide 3 types of message appeals while choosing the message content. Messages are broadly designed on the basis of rational, emotional and moral appeals.

Communicators believe that emotional ads attract more attention and create more belief in the sponsor and the brand. Similarly, marketers also need to be very careful while designing the message structure and format. Words, sounds, music and videos matters if marketers are doing radio advertisements. Similarly, image, headline, body copy, slogan, font size etc. matters in case of print advertisements.

Benefis of IMC

IMC provides benefits at every level of the organization. Some of them include:

• IMC reduces transaction cost, interdepartmental conflict and duplication of effort which increases operational efficiency.
• It provides a higher return on campaign investment through collaboration
• IMC strategy provides clarity and consistency to brand messages creating loyal customers
• The technique increases market position, sales and growth through profitability and return on investment

Challenges with Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)

IMC has some challenges at internal level that creates an obstacle for marketers to build effective strategy. Inter-departmental relationships may not be favorable every time to plan budget, build team strength and focus on the plans and golas.Fixed budget for the start-up companies makes it more difficult for marketers to build relations with publics and media- houses. Moreover, internal competition and data silos on specific channels are serious liabilities for companies.