What is Integrated Marketing Communications?

By Yhordan Serpentini | September 2, 2022

If you’ve been a small business owner, or entrepreneur, for some time now, you most likely have heard of the term integrated marketing communications. It is crucial that you make yourself very familiar with this term if you don’t already know it because it will be something you must practice if you want your business to survive. what is integrated marketing communications?

What is IMC?

Integrated Marketing Communications, or simply IMC, is the strategic process in which all businesses, their brands, services, products, and the sponsors of those brands, are relevant or appropriate to their target group and target audience. In shorter terms, it is the way in which you (the sponsor) are trying to communicate (market) to your consumers to determine the relevancy of your product and services to them.

IMC is absolutely crucial to your business’s lifespan because it directly affects how your consumers view your product or services. Is there something that needs to be changed? How should your brand adapt to the fast-growing, ever-changing expectations of consumers? What isn’t being received well? What is being received well? Do consumers even care about your brand, product, or services, anymore? How much traffic are you gaining or losing? How could you attract more leads? All of these questions, and many more, are what IMC helps answer.

The Four Ps

Something you must understand about Integrated Marketing Communications, and marketing as a whole, is that it simply isn’t just about advertising. Advertising is just a fraction of marketing and is actually only one of the six elements that make up IMC, but we will get to that a little later.

There are four major factors of IMC you need to know and get familiar with if you want to really integrate the strategic planning process into your business—which you definitely should.

Place – the location of your business. Depending on where you place your business will directly affect how your consumers will be exposed to your business. How cozy, comfortable, exciting, or inviting your business looks—like decorations, color theory, size, and building condition—will also be a contributing factor to customers

Price – how much your consumers are willing to pay for your product and services. The pricing of your services and products will also affect whether your target audience will even look at, or purchase, your goods. Price is a major deal breaker for many consumers, so it is important you find the right balance that will bring positive cash flow, while also maintaining happy customers.

Product – what your business has to offer; what you are selling to the public. One thing you’ll learn over time with IMC is that your product’s lifespan won’t permanent—you will have to change, upgrade, and adapt your product and services to match the ever-changing demands of your target market.

Promotion – where, how, and why you will market your product or services to your target market. This factor of marketing is where advertising comes into play.

The Elements of IMC

On top of the four factors, there are also multiple elements that make up IMC. Each of these elements has its own effective integration that also applies to other methods of marketing communications like marketing mix; however, that will be saved for another blog. Here are some of the most crucial elements of IMC:

Advertising: as you might have guessed, advertising is paid promotional material that will persuade or convince your audience to take some action regarding your product(s) or service(s). Advertising comes in many forms, such as online advertising, television (digital) advertising, or print advertising. Some of the most popular types of these advertising forms include things such as magazines, newspapers, television, cinema, channels, radios, billboards, posters, flyers, websites, broadcasts, discounts, and sales—it’s endless; you are exposed to it so often that you don’t even notice it at times anymore.

Digital Marketing: digital marketing is as it sounds, marketing…but digitally. This includes things such as websites, digital media, social media, and social branding. For example, if you have come across our website or blogs through any of our social media, then you’ve been exposed to digital marketing. Popular companies practice digital marketing daily as a means of building traffic, leads, and a relationship with new, as well as returning, consumers.

Sales Promotion: unlike other forms of marketing, sales promotion markets a sponsor’s products and services through discounts and sales, as a means to pressure their target audience into purchasing the limited-time offer. This strategy is meant to convince consumers into buying products out of fear that a discount this good might never happen again, rather than because the promoted product is a necessity, or if the consumer may actually even want it. That’s right! Consumers are more likely to buy things they don’t want or need only because it was on sale out of fear that they may actually want or need them when they are no longer on sale.

Public Relations: public relations is the public evaluation and attitude towards your business, goals, objectives, policies, and overall publicity—the very same one you must cater to. There are multiple ways of promoting through public relations, such as fundraising, having sponsorships in—or of—events, hosting or participating in community events, etc. For example, not-for-profit organizations typically use public relations as a means of promoting their organization’s objective. E.g. make-a-wish foundation, St. Jude Medical Center, and so on and so forth.

Direct Marketing: direct marketing is somewhat self-explanatory. It is when you directly communicate with your target market and/or target audience to generate a response some form of response or transaction. If you’ve ever received print or electronic mail promoting sales or products, a call from telemarketers, text messages, brochures, or things of those natures, then you’ve likely been exposed to direct marketing.