What is Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)?

The advancements in the field of technology have impacted the way businesses operate these days. Entrepreneurs have felt a need for a coordinated and consistent messaging approach using multiple channels of communication to keep marketing strategies effective and relatable. Thus, integrated marketing communication has emerged. In this article, we will take an in-depth look at integrated marketing communications and find out why it is so vital for the business world.  

What is IMC? 

Integrated marketing communication (IMC) refers to combining a brand’s message so that it is consistent across all media used by a brand to reach target consumers. It is a holistic approach that incorporates omnichannel marketing and multi-channel attribution, creating a coherent story for your business irrespective of the platform used by the customers. Since it is entirely centralized, it becomes easier to be consistent and maintain the language, message, and public image.

You must have put a lot of effort and hard work into expanding your business. However, you must realize that you cannot handle marketing by yourself and need additional help. You may need to hire several sales teams, online and offline marketing teams, marketing agencies, etc.

Once you have a bigger team, you may expand to several platforms where you can reach a larger audience. However, when too many people get involved, there is a chance of your message being watered down, and you may struggle to maintain consistency. Therefore, to keep your marketing strategy effective, you must ensure that you deliver a coherent message that can be used on any platform. This will not only avoid confusion but also maintain and improve your audience’s confidence in you.   

Why Is Integrated Marketing Communication Important? 

While it is not new for organizations to use multiple channels to communicate with their consumers, in the present world, it can become difficult for companies to monitor all the media. Hence, you need omnichannel marketing to keep it together. And this is precisely where the importance of integrated marketing communication lies. Let us look at some points that make integrated marketing communication necessary.   

Consistency Throughout the Customer Journey 

Before making a purchase, think about the first time you heard about the brand or its product and what made you do that purchase. Probably, you may not have bought the product the first time you heard about it or saw it. Usually, you go through the entire buying journey from start to finish before making a purchase decision. While it is a complicated process, one thing can be guaranteed:  by communicating consistently and in a recognizable way across every marketing channel, you can create a smooth customer experience.   

Helps in Brand Building 

If you can communicate with your target audience consistently and in a recognizable manner, it can significantly impact the process of brand-building. If your audience can connect all the dots between your campaigns, it helps build and strengthen their association with your brand. While your aim should be to deliver the right message at the right time, you must accompany your communications with your brand codes to increase clarity. 

Your brand could be a distinctive asset you use consistently in your communications. By intertwining it with IMC, you can bring together your campaigns, maintain distinctiveness and boost your brand image. The logo or mascot of the company is the most common brand code.  

Read Also: 5 Ways a Business Management Solution Can Help Your Brand Grow

Boosts Campaign Effectiveness 

While there are multiple ways to reach your target audience, unless you are catering to the mass market, you must focus only on those relevant channels that your consumers use. You must not only strive to maintain a significant presence across all such channels but try to throw in as many media channels as possible because it will make your campaign far more effective. Generally, most companies spend 60% of their budget on brand building and 40% on uplifting sales. Therefore this 60:40 ratio must be reflected in your marketing channels.  

Enables You to Reach a Wider Audience 

Once you start using more channels to communicate, you develop the potential to reach a broader audience. Using integrated marketing communications, brands can create multi-level marketing campaigns to target more people.  

Better Revenues  

Once you have the potential to reach out to a larger audience and deliver your message in an effective manner, it will automatically increase your revenue. Most businesses take a combined approach to increase revenue by including their strategists, public relations team, social media marketing team, research team, design team, and more. Therefore, focusing on just one department would be a waste of time. If you wish to remain competitive in any industry for a long time, you must have the ability to communicate with every department of your company.  

Integrated marketing communications has a bright future, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics projecting growth between 13% and 32% through 2024. Career opportunities like media brand manager, social media manager, or art director are emerging and allow employees to earn more than $130,000 annually. Hence, if a company is looking to expand its market, it must try to look into various possibilities for integrated marketing communications.