What are the various issues in designing and managing integrated marketing communication?

Modern marketing calls for more than developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it accessible to target customers. Companies must also communicate with present and potential stakeholders, and with the general public.

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What are the issues of IMC?
What is designing and managing integrated marketing communications?
What is the significance of designing and managing integrated marketing communications for a company?
What are the ethical issues in integrated marketing communication?

The marketing communications mix consists of six major modes of communications: advertising, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, events and experiences, direct marketing and personal selling.

The communications process consists of nine elements: sender, receiver, message, media, encoding, decoding, response, feedback and noise. To get their messages through, marketers must encode their messages in a way that takes into account how the target audience usually decodes messages. They must also transmit the message through efficient media that reach audience and develop feedback channels to monitor response to the message. Consumers to a communication can be often modeled in terms of a response hierarchy and “learn-feel-do” sequence.

Developing effective communications involves eight steps: (1) Identify the target audience, (2) determine the communications objectives, (3) design the communications, (4) select the communications channels, (5) establish the total communication budget, (6) decide on the communication mix, (7) measure the communications results, and (8) manage the integrated marketing communications process.

In identifying the target audience, the marketer needs to close any gap that exists between current public perception and the image sought. Communications objectives may involve category need, brand awareness, brand attitude or brand purchase intention. Formulating the communication requires solving three problems: what to say (messages strategy), how to say it (creative strategy), and should say it (message source). Communications channels may be personal (advocate, expert, and social channels) or non-personal (media, atmospheres, and events). The objectives-and-task method of setting the promotion budget, which calls upon marketers to develop their budgets by defining specific objective is the most desirable.

In deciding on the marketing communications mix, marketers must examine the distinct advantages and costs of each communication tool and the company’s market rank. They must also consider the type of product market in which they are selling, how ready consumers are to make a purchase, and the product’s stage in the product life cycle. Measuring the effectiveness of the marketing communications mix involves asking members of the target audience whether they recognize or recall the communication, how many times they saw it, what points they recall how, they felt about the communication, and their previous and current attitudes toward the product and the company.

Managing and coordinating the entire communications process calls for integrated marketing communications (IMC): marketing communication planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan that evaluates the strategic roles a variety of communications disciplines and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact through the seamless integration of discrete messages.

The Changing Marketing Communications Environment

Technology and other factors have profoundly changed the way consumers process communications, and even whether they choose to process them at all. Commercial clutter is rampant. Marketing communications in almost every medium and form have been on the rise, and some consumers feel they are increasingly invasive. Therefore, marketers must be creative in using technology without intruding in consumers' lives.

Marketing Communications, Brand Equity and Sales

The marketing communications mix consists of eight major modes of communication:

Advertising -- Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.
Sales promotion -- A variety of short-term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product or service.
Events and experiences -- Company-sponsored activities and programs designed to create brand-related interactions.
Public relations and publicity -- Programs directed internally or externally to promote or protect a company's image or its individual product communciations.
Direct marketing -- Use of mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, or Internet to communicate directly with or solicit response or dialogue from specific customers and prospects.
Interactive marketing -- Online activities and programs to engage customers or prospects and directly or indirectly raise awareness, improve image, or elicit sales.
Word-of-mouth marketing -- People-to-people oral, written, or electronic communications that relate to the merits or experiences of purchasing or using products or services.
Personal selling -- Face-to-face interaction with one or more prospective purchasers for the purpose of making presentations, answering questions, and procuring orders.

Communications Process Models

Marketers should understand the fundamental elements of effective communications. Two models are useful: a macromodel and micromodel. Two represent the major parties -- sender and receiver. Two represent the major tools -- message and media. Four represent major communication functions -- encoding, decoding, response, and feedback. The last element is noise, random and competing messages that may interfere with the intended communication.

Fig. Elements in the Communication Process

Developing Effective Communications

Developing effective communications requires eight steps. The basics are

Identifying the target audience -- potential buyers of the company's products, current users, deciders, or influencers, and individuals, groups, particular publics, or the general public.
Determining the objectives -- category need, brand awareness, brand attitude, brand purchase intention.
Designing the communications -- message strategy (management searches for appeals, themes, or ideas that will tie in to the brand positioning and help establish points-of-parity or points-of-difference), creative strategy (the way marketers translate their messages into a specific communication) and message source (messages delivered by attractive or popular sources can achieve higher attention and recall, which is why advertisers often use celebrities as spokespeople).
Selecting the channels -- means to carry the message becomes more difficult as channels of communication become more fragmented and cluttered.
Establishing the budget -- industries and companies vary considerably in how much they spend on marketing communications. Expenditures might be 40 percent to 45 percent of sales in the cosmetics industry, but only 5 percent to 10 percent in the industrial-equipment industry, with company-to-company variations.
Deciding on the media mix -- companies must allocate the marketing communications budget over the eight major modes of communication: advertising, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, events and experiences, direct marketing, interactive marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, and the sales force.
Measuring the results -- after implementing the communications plan, the company must measure its impact by asking members of the target audience whether they recognize or recall the message, how many times they saw it,what points they recall, how they felt about the message, and what are their previous and current attitudes toward the product and company.
Managing integrated marketing communications (IMC) -- defines as "a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time." This planning process evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines -- and skillfully combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact through the seamless integration of messages.

Coordinating Media

Media coordination can occur across and within media types, but marketers should combine personal and nonpersonal communications channels through multiple-vehicle, multiple-stage campaigns to achieve maximum impact and increase message reach and impact. Many companies are coordinating their online and offline communications activities.

Implementing IMC

Integrated marketing communications can produce stronger message consistency and help build brand equity and create greater sales impact. It gives someone the responsibility -- where none existed before -- to unify brand images and messages through thousands of company activities. IMC should improve the company's ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time and place.

Summary

Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers -- directly or indirectly - about the products and brands they sell. They represent the voice of the company and its brands and help the firm establish a dialogue and build relationship with consumers. Technology and other factors have profoundly changed the way consumers process communications, and even whether they choose to process them at all. Commercial clutter is rampant. Marketing communications in almost every medium and form have been on the rise, and some consumers feel they are increasingly invasive. Therefore, marketers must be creative in using technology without intruding in consumers' lives.They can contribute to brand equity -- by establishing the brand in memory andcreating a brand image -- as well as strengthen customer loyalty, drive sales, and even affect shareholder value. Integrated marketing communications can produce stronger message consistency and help build brand equity and create greater sales impact. It gives someone the responsibility -- where none existed before -- to unify brand images and messages through thousands of company activities. IMC should improve the company's ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time and place.

Personal Point of View

The most crucial fact for me is the intent of the message the marketer wants to send out to the target segment carries a company's image, product and brand value. After being carefully evaluated the messages, we can emphasis on the type of the media that we are going to use to reach out the target segment. These days, reaching out to the target media is a lot easier than before with the improved and developed technologies.

What are the issues of IMC?

The challenges of IMC are. A shift in market place power from manufacturer to wholesaler to retailer/shift in channel power. A movement away from relying on advertising focused approach. Rapid growth of data base marketing.

What is designing and managing integrated marketing communications?

Integrated marketing communication is an approach to promote products and services (brand promotion) where various modes of marketing are integrated so that similar message goes to the customers.

What is the significance of designing and managing integrated marketing communications for a company?

If a brand is able to reach its intended consumer multiple times, across various channels, they begin to resonate with its audience. If the various channels do a good job of communicating the brand and message consistently, then the person is even more likely to recognize and trust the brand.