Integrated Marketing Communications

Have you ever looked at an advertisement and thought, "Wow, that is smart marketing!" whereas other times, you might not even bat an eyelid at boring TV commercials? This differentiation comes down to one of the well-known marketing mix factors - promotion. Promotion may include advertising, personal selling, or even digital marketing. Together, they make up the communication mix companies try to integrate to form an effective communications strategy. Read along to find out how organisations can develop integrated marketing communications strategies.

Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

Communication is an essential element of any marketing strategy. A company could have a great product with unbelievable pricing, but customers need to understand the value the product brings them. Organisations need to engage customers by communicating with them effectively. This is why an integrated marketing communications strategy is essential to the marketing mix.

Integrated Marketing Communications Definition

To define integrated marketing communications, we first have to look at the definition of the marketing communications mix.

The promotion mix may include a combination of advertising, sales promotions, digital marketing etc. As a result, an integrated marketing communications mix combines the various communications methods effectively to persuade customers of the value of a product and create longstanding relationships with them.

Introducing the Promotion Mix

The promotion mix is a vital part of marketing communications. A company may blend the following promotional tools to construct its communications mix:

• Advertising - a paid form of promotion aiming to sell an organisation's product or service. For example, a TV commercial or a billboard.

• Personal selling - when the firm's sales team directly contacts customers to increase engagement and build relationships.

• Digital marketing - any form of marketing that takes place online and engages with a specific group of target customers.

• Public relations (PR) - any efforts made by a company to shape public opinion. PR is used to create a positive brand image, address unfavourable events or scandals, etc.

• Sales promotions - short-term efforts made by a company to encourage a purchase. For example, a 15% off discount is available for a limited time only.

Integrated Marketing Communications Model

To understand the integrated marketing communications model, it is essential to look at how marketing communications are changing.

Consumers - First of all, due to our digital age, consumers have access to immense amounts of information through the internet and social media. In other words, consumers no longer rely on the company/brand to provide information on a product or service.

Digital technology - New technologies are also changing how consumers and businesses interact due to the vast number of information and communication tools available. This has altered marketing communications models.

Marketing strategies - Most businesses focus on creating strong and engaging relationships with their target market online rather than through mass marketing strategies. Companies also have new tools to target and reach small market segments through focused marketing strategies.

As a result, the role of marketers is shifting from creating TV ads and billboards to becoming content marketing managers who engage with customers across various channels through various media.

However, due to the nature of marketing communications, customers receive many marketing messages through several different channels, which is why companies must integrate their marketing communications. The integrated marketing communications model can be visualised in Figure 1, which shows a curated mix of promotional tools.

Figure 1. Integrated Marketing Communications Model, StudySmarter

Integrated Marketing Communications System

Marketers need to understand how integrated marketing communications systems work to develop an effective communications plan. The communications process is made up of the following elements:

1. The sender - or the party trying to communicate a message to another party.

2. Encoding - the form through which the message is conveyed, for example, an illustration or words.

3. Message - the set of encodings the sender is communicating.

4. Media - the communication channel the sender uses to convey its message to the receiver.

5. Decoding - the process through which the receiver interprets the encoded message. For example, a consumer watching a TV ad interprets the words and the video.

6. Receiver - the person receiving the message sent by the sender.

7. Response - how the receiver reacts to the message after exposure. For example, the receiver buys the product the TV ad was trying to sell.

8. Feedback is when a part of the receiver's response gets communicated to the sender. For example, the receiver complained to the company that their TV ad was offensive.

9. Noise - the distractions that may occur during the communications process. These can distort the message. For example, the receiver's young child crying during the TV commercial could lead to the missing receiver half of the advertisement as they were distracted.

Therefore, for a message to be successfully received by the receiver, the sender must ensure that the encoding and media chosen are well suited to the receiver's decoding process. Figure 2 below shows the overall communications process.

Figure 2. The Communications Process, StudySmarter

Now that we understand the communications process let's look at how marketers can develop effective marketing communications. To do this, it is essential to follow a marketing communications plan.

The steps to follow when coming up with an effective marketing communications programme are:

1. Identify the target audience - choose which markets and customers to target with the message.

2. Determine the communication objectives - what is the desired response? Frequently, this might be a purchase.

   Remember the buying-readiness stages: awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, and purchase.

3. Design the message - the message should ideally grab the audience's attention and lead to action (e.g. a purchase). To do this, the marketer needs to pay special attention to the message content, structure, and format.

4. Choose a communications channel and medium - These may include personal communications channels (e.g. face-to-face or e-mail - but can often also come through word-of-mouth or opinion leaders, such as influencers) or non-personal communications channels (e.g. print or broadcast media).

5. Choose the message source - Marketers should choose sources that the receiver will view as credible and persuasive. For example, receivers can often consider promotion through doctors or celebrities a compelling source.

6. Collect feedback - Marketers should collect feedback to see whether the communications plan was successful or not. Feeback results in practical insight that marketers can use for future communications efforts.

Integrated Marketing Communications Examples

Now that we understand the marketing communication process let's look at some integrated marketing communications examples.

For example, British Airways (BA) and the Ogilvy group came up with an impressive communications campaign involving digital billboards. The campaign was called 'Look Up' and included interactive billboards that showed a little boy standing up and pointing to an aeroplane flying above the billboard in real-time. The billboard was programmed to know precisely when a plane would pass by the location. It would then show the audience exactly which plane it was, the flight number, its destination, and the lowest fare available for flying to that destination with BA.¹ This is an engaging way of promoting a product/service. BA used an emotional and interactive appeal that caught the audience's attention and added an informational element, encouraging viewers to travel with BA.

Another example of an integrated marketing communications campaign can be observed through Spotify, which used 'meme culture' as an inspiration for one of its campaigns. This campaign was used to strengthen the company's relationship with customers by creating engaging meme billboards.² One example of a billboard depicted the text "Me: It's okay, the breakup was mutual" side by side with the text "Also me:" and an image of a 'sad indie playlist' available on Spotify. The campaign attempted to engage customers in a fun and relatable way, ultimately strengthening customer awareness, recall, and relationships with the brand.

The examples mentioned above demonstrate how marketers have a wide range of communications tools they can implement into their promotion mix to form an integrated marketing communications strategy.