Integrated marketing communications

      Organisations engage with  a variety of audiences in order to pursue their marketing and business objectives. Telecommunication companies for example, markets across various economic sectors. They  adopt the use of  communication strategies that enables them to put their products and services  to their consumers . These organisations have managed to provide services for every group of people and the avenue has been  created to get a feedback from their consumers. The process of getting the feedback and the platform to advertise their services is what in the communication parlance is known as  Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC).

An organisation  advertising what they stand for.

      IMC is the management process through which an organisation engages with it's various audiences to understand their communication environment and then seek to develop and present messages for their identified stakeholder groups. (Chris Fill and Barbara Jamieson 2006)

       IMC is also defined as a concept of marketing communications planning that recognises the added value in a program that integrates a variety of strategic disciplines for example; general advertising, direct response marketing, sales promotion, public relations etc.  These disciplines combines to provide clarity, consistency and maximum communications impact. (Susan K. Jones)

        From the above definitions, it could be seen that to have an integrated marketing communications, certain disciplines must be used. They are; public relations, advertising, sales promotion, direct response marketing and personal selling. However in recent times, the media has also been included.

        Public relations (PR) refers to the art and social sciences of analysing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organisations and implementation of planned programmes of action which will serve both the organisations and the public interest (Mexican statement 1978). This suggests that PR should be part of a wider perspective of corporate strategy.

        Advertising is any paid form of non personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, and services through the mass media with an identifiable sponsor. This offers a high degree of mass communication since adverts aired reaches a large audience. Adverts are run daily to keep consumers informed about available products and services.

         Sales promotion comprises various marketing techniques that are often used to provide added value to an offering with the aim of increasing sales. This is a non personal form of communication but has a greater capability to target smaller audiences. For example, telecommunication companies tend to offer a lot of promotional services like increase of airtime credit.

          Direct response marketing shows the shift in focus from mass to personalised communications. Where there is the use of telemarketing which aids in the area  fast development of interactive communications. This seeks to target individual customers. Through the use of media  platforms.

            Personal selling is traditionally perceived as an interpersonal communication tool that involves face to face activities undertaken by individuals often representing an organisation in order to inform or persuade their audience to purchase their products or services.

            In conclusion, integrated marketing communications indeed forms the basis for the survival of every organisation. It is important for every institution to make its audiences aware of the products and services they offer thus they must employ; Public relations, advertising, sales promotion, direct response marketing and personal selling to aid in their affairs.





Reference;
Chris Fill and Barbara Jamieson ( Marketing Communications, Edinburgh business school).
Susan K. Jones ( Ferris state university )