Shopping on line can be easy, simple and save you lots of money. It can also take a lot of your time, frustrate you, and result in unwanted purchases. Now the same can be said for regular high street shopping, but with the vast opportunity presented by the Internet it will pay you to spend a few minutes reading this and understanding how to better optimize your Integrated Marketing Communications shopping experience:
1. Compare - without doubt the biggest advantage that the Integrated Marketing Communications offers shoppers today is the ability to compare thousands of Integrated Marketing Communications at a time. This is a great thing, but not necessarily all the time! Too much can be daunting at times so take advantage of the great comparison sites and where possible let them do the hard work for you.
2. Research - if it has been said it will be on the internet. Ignorance is no longer a justifiable reason for buying the wrong thing. Take the time to research in detail everything that you could possible want to know about
3. Testimonials - don't know anybody that has bought a Integrated Marketing Communications? Wrong! If the Integrated Marketing Communications is good the internet will let you know. Use the Internet as a friend and get testimonials before you buy.
4. Questions - Got a question about Integrated Marketing Communications then search the Forums, FAQ's, Blogs etc. Don't be afraid to ask .....
5. Reputation - Never heard of the company selling Integrated Marketing Communications? Don't worry, no reason why you should know every company in the world, but you know someone that does! Use the internet to find out what people are saying about Integrated Marketing Communications and build up a picture of their reputation for sales, returns, customer service, delivery etc.
6. Returns - still worried that even after all of the above your Integrated Marketing Communications wont be what you want? Check out the returns policy. There is so much competition now that someone, somewhere is bound to offer the terms that you are comfortable with.
7. Feedback - happy with your Integrated Marketing Communications then let people know, after all you are depending on others people input in your buying decision, so why not give a little back.
8. Security - check for the yellow padlock on the Integrated Marketing Communications site before you buy, and the s after http:/ /i.e. https:// = a secure site
9. Contact - got a question about Integrated Marketing Communications, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
10. Payment - ready to pay for your Integrated Marketing Communications, then use your credit card or PayPal! Be aware of companies that don't accept them, there may be genuine reasons but given the huge amount of choice you have when buying online there is no reason at all not to buy via credit card or PayPal.
Integrated Marketing Communications
Definition
The American Marketing Association suggests that integrated marketing communications (IMC) is “a planning process designed to assure that all
wiktionary: brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.” Marketing Power DictionaIntegrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations billboard, radio, and television.
Goal of Integrated Marketing Communication
A management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.In practice, the goal of IMC is to create and sustain a single look or message in all elements of a marketing campaign. Practitioners such as the Oct Group, however, remind clients that IMC should “permeate every planned and unplanned communication at every contact point where the customer or prospect may receive an impression of the company. IMC incorporates the corporate mission, the compensation plan, the management style, and the employee training. It includes packaging, positioning, promotions, pricing, and distribution.”A successful integrated marketing communication plan will customize what is needed for the client based on time, budget and resources to reach target or goals. Small business can start an integrated marketing communication plan on a small budget using a website, email and SEO. Large corporation can start an integrated marketing communication plan on a large budget using print, mail order, radio, TV plus many other online ad campaigns.
Reasons For The Growing Importance of IMC
There have been many shifts in the advertising and media industry that have caused IMC to develop into a primary strategy for most advertisers.
7 main shifts
From media advertising to multiple forms of communication (including promotions, product placements, mailers...)
From mass media to more specialized media, which are centered around specific target audiences.
From a manufacturer-dominated market to a retailer-dominated market. The market control has transferred into the consumer's hands.
From general-focus advertising and marketing to data-based marketing.
From low agency accountability to greater agency accountability. Agencies now play a larger role in advertising than ever before.
From traditional compensation to performance-based compensation. This encourages people to do better because they are rewarded for the increase in sales or benefits they cause to the company.
From limited Internet access to widespread Internet availability. This means that people can not only have access to what they want 24/7 but that advertisers can also target different people 24 hours a day.
SEKURU FRANCO (1968)highlighted the issue of marketing in relation to the sitgma of sales.
Obstacles to Integrated Marketing Communication
Roles of Individual Media
This goal may appear simple but, for companies with different teams of people working on each element of the campaign, it can be a challenge to create effective
advertising for all media using the same images and messages. Tactically, most marketers think the goal of each medium is different. For example, television ads are generally used for awareness generation, print to educate, and outdoor and radio to keep the message top-of-mind. In reality, the goal of all advertising, including packaging, is to sell. (Young, 2006)
Identifying Best Marketing Elements
The biggest difficulty IMC marketers face is summed up by Chuck Young of Ameritest, “Even though the different elements in a campaign are designed to work together, that does not mean that all the creative executions will work equally well.” This obstacle can be overcome by using
advertising to identify the images and messages that will work best across media platforms. Marketers cannot compare a banner ad’s click-through rate to a print ad’s eye-tracking data to a TV commercial’s branded attention score. Therefore, it is important the ad research system provides performance metrics that make it easy for ad managers to make comparisons across media platforms. (Young, 2006)
Solution: Market Research
They are wiktionary: attention,
wiktionary: branding, and wiktionary: motivation. An effective ad must capture the attention of the audience; it must be well branded so the consumer properly attributes the message only to the sponsor’s product or service; and it must motivate the consumer to move closer to the sale.
To see what additional metrics are important to each type of media, see Image 1 of this article.
Formula for Selecting Most Effective Marketing Elements
The goal of researching the elements of proposed integrated marketing communications is to create a campaign that is effective across media platforms. Some marketers may want only ads with the greatest breadth of appeal: the executions that, when combined, provide the greatest number of attention-getting, branded, and motivational moments. Others may only want ads with the greatest depth of appeal: the ads with the greatest number of attention-getting, branding, and motivational points within each.
But, just as media buyers multiply reach by frequency to get a measure of the net effectiveness of a media buy, a calculation can be used in IMC research to determine, when comparing campaigns, which combination would be most effective. By multiplying breadth of appeal times the depth of appeal, the more impact-full campaign is identified. Integrated Testing for Integrated Marketing PDF Campaign 2, in Image 2, is the clear winner using this simple calculation.(See exhibit 3 of the above Integrated Marketing PDF.)
Although integrated marketing communications is more than just the ad campaign, the bulk of marketing dollars is spent on the creation and distribution of the advertisements. Hence, the bulk of the research budget is also spent on these elements of the campaign. Once the key marketing pieces have been tested, the researched elements can then be applied to other contact points: letterhead, packaging, trucks, customer service representative training, and more, to complete the IMC cycle.
Some other creative marketing communication methods include: social marketing and green marketing may enhance or facilitate the marketing process of building relationship among stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, partners, communities, shareholders).
References
AMA Dictionary of Marketing Terms
Young, Charles E., Integrated Testing for Integrated Marketing: One size almost fits all
Quirk's Marketing Research Review, April, 2006 PDF link
Young, Charles E., Researcher as Teacher: A heuristic model for pre-testing TV commercials,
Quirks Marketing Research Review March 2001 PDF link
Relevant Links
External links
- Don E. Schultz (Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism)
- IMC Program at WVU (P.I. Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University)
- PDF link (Young, Charles E., Integrated Testing for Integrated Marketing: One size almost fits all.)
- The School of Journalism, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
- Integrated Marketing Communications (Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism)
- Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications (Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism)
- Integrated Marketing Course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Executive Education
Integrated Marketing Communications
Definition
The American Marketing Association suggests that integrated marketing communications (IMC) is “a planning process designed to assure that all
wiktionary: brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.” Marketing Power DictionaIntegrated marketing communication can be defined as a holistic approach to promote buying and selling in the digital economy. This concept includes many online and offline marketing channels. Online marketing channels include any e-marketing campaigns or programs, from search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcast, and Internet TV. Offline marketing channels are traditional print (newspaper, magazine), mail order, public relations, industry analyst relations billboard, radio, and television.
Goal of Integrated Marketing Communication
A management concept that is designed to make all aspects of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each to work in isolation.In practice, the goal of IMC is to create and sustain a single look or message in all elements of a marketing campaign. Practitioners such as the Oct Group, however, remind clients that IMC should “permeate every planned and unplanned communication at every contact point where the customer or prospect may receive an impression of the company. IMC incorporates the corporate mission, the compensation plan, the management style, and the employee training. It includes packaging, positioning, promotions, pricing, and distribution.”A successful integrated marketing communication plan will customize what is needed for the client based on time, budget and resources to reach target or goals. Small business can start an integrated marketing communication plan on a small budget using a website, email and SEO. Large corporation can start an integrated marketing communication plan on a large budget using print, mail order, radio, TV plus many other online ad campaigns.
Reasons For The Growing Importance of IMC
There have been many shifts in the advertising and media industry that have caused IMC to develop into a primary strategy for most advertisers.
7 main shifts
From media advertising to multiple forms of communication (including promotions, product placements, mailers...)
From mass media to more specialized media, which are centered around specific target audiences.
From a manufacturer-dominated market to a retailer-dominated market. The market control has transferred into the consumer's hands.
From general-focus advertising and marketing to data-based marketing.
From low agency accountability to greater agency accountability. Agencies now play a larger role in advertising than ever before.
From traditional compensation to performance-based compensation. This encourages people to do better because they are rewarded for the increase in sales or benefits they cause to the company.
From limited Internet access to widespread Internet availability. This means that people can not only have access to what they want 24/7 but that advertisers can also target different people 24 hours a day.
SEKURU FRANCO (1968)highlighted the issue of marketing in relation to the sitgma of sales.
Obstacles to Integrated Marketing Communication
Roles of Individual Media
This goal may appear simple but, for companies with different teams of people working on each element of the campaign, it can be a challenge to create effective advertising for all media using the same images and messages. Tactically, most marketers think the goal of each medium is different. For example, television ads are generally used for awareness generation, print to educate, and outdoor and radio to keep the message top-of-mind. In reality, the goal of all advertising, including packaging, is to sell. (Young, 2006)
Identifying Best Marketing Elements
The biggest difficulty IMC marketers face is summed up by Chuck Young of Ameritest, “Even though the different elements in a campaign are designed to work together, that does not mean that all the creative executions will work equally well.” This obstacle can be overcome by using
advertising to identify the images and messages that will work best across media platforms. Marketers cannot compare a banner ad’s click-through rate to a print ad’s eye-tracking data to a TV commercial’s branded attention score. Therefore, it is important the ad research system provides performance metrics that make it easy for ad managers to make comparisons across media platforms. (Young, 2006)
Solution: Market Research
They are wiktionary: attention, wiktionary: branding, and wiktionary: motivation. An effective ad must capture the attention of the audience; it must be well branded so the consumer properly attributes the message only to the sponsor’s product or service; and it must motivate the consumer to move closer to the sale.
To see what additional metrics are important to each type of media, see Image 1 of this article.
Formula for Selecting Most Effective Marketing Elements
The goal of researching the elements of proposed integrated marketing communications is to create a campaign that is effective across media platforms. Some marketers may want only ads with the greatest breadth of appeal: the executions that, when combined, provide the greatest number of attention-getting, branded, and motivational moments. Others may only want ads with the greatest depth of appeal: the ads with the greatest number of attention-getting, branding, and motivational points within each.
But, just as media buyers multiply reach by frequency to get a measure of the net effectiveness of a media buy, a calculation can be used in IMC research to determine, when comparing campaigns, which combination would be most effective. By multiplying breadth of appeal times the depth of appeal, the more impact-full campaign is identified. Integrated Testing for Integrated Marketing PDF Campaign 2, in Image 2, is the clear winner using this simple calculation.(See exhibit 3 of the above Integrated Marketing PDF.)
Although integrated marketing communications is more than just the ad campaign, the bulk of marketing dollars is spent on the creation and distribution of the advertisements. Hence, the bulk of the research budget is also spent on these elements of the campaign. Once the key marketing pieces have been tested, the researched elements can then be applied to other contact points: letterhead, packaging, trucks, customer service representative training, and more, to complete the IMC cycle.
Some other creative marketing communication methods include: social marketing and green marketing may enhance or facilitate the marketing process of building relationship among stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, partners, communities, shareholders).
References
AMA Dictionary of Marketing Terms
Young, Charles E., Integrated Testing for Integrated Marketing: One size almost fits all
Quirk's Marketing Research Review, April, 2006 PDF link
Young, Charles E., Researcher as Teacher: A heuristic model for pre-testing TV commercials,
Quirks Marketing Research Review March 2001 PDF link
Relevant Links
External links
- Don E. Schultz (Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism)
- IMC Program at WVU (P.I. Reed School of Journalism at West Virginia University)
- PDF link (Young, Charles E., Integrated Testing for Integrated Marketing: One size almost fits all.)
- The School of Journalism, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale
- Integrated Marketing Communications (Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism)
- Journal of Integrated Marketing Communications (Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism)
- Integrated Marketing Course at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Executive Education
