IMC means that if your solution is about luxury, all of your marketing communications should consistently depict that.
Integrated marketing communication is a broad marketing concept that outlines the basic expectation within effective marketing that all communications are integrated. MMC Learning's website elaborates by explaining that IMC means integrating all of your promotional tools "so that they work together in harmony." This helps avoid confusion in the marketplace about interpret your messages.
Basics
Two key "C" words are important to applying IMC through marketing. These are consistency and coordination. Consistency refers to the requirement that your messages offer a consistent depiction of your brand and its meaning across all communications. This consistency helps customers more easily recall what they see and hear. Coordination means that your communications are not made separately from each other in a fragmented manner. Instead, all communications under your control are communicated through a well-outlined marketing plan that includes discussion of common themes to use throughout marketing.
IMC and the Marketing Mix
IMC fits well with the basics of the marketing mix and the promotional element. The marketing mix, commonly known as the 4 Ps of marketing, involves the integration of four core marketing elements -- product, place (distribution), price and promotion. While promotion relates to the specific tools you use to convey your marketing messages, the consistency and coordination factors of IMC are critical in building a marketing mix. Your marketing messages must demonstrate, through effective promotional tools, a clear message about how your product, distribution channels and price point work together to provide value.
Horizontal
MMC Learning outlines two critical paths of integration relative to the marketing mix. They are horizontal integration and vertical integration. Horizontal integration involves looking at integration of core business functions as important to the marketing mix. Thus, areas such as product development, production, finance, distribution and marketing must collaborate to ultimately deliver the value that is promised through the organization's marketing efforts. This seamless collaboration is vital to the ultimate success of IMC. For instance, if product development fails to develop a high-quality solution that is promised by marketing, consumers will see the disconnect between the message promised and the message received from using the actual solution.
Vertical Integration
Vertical integration relates to the correlation between marketing and communications objectives, and corporate goals and missions, which are established at the top of the organization. If a company understands IMC, you should see coordination and consistency between top-level goals and marketing objectives. As an example, if a company's mission is to provide the best quality solution to a certain market, it does not makes sense that advertising attempts to depict a low-cost solution. Instead, the solution itself and marketing messages should support corporate goals through the presentation of luxury, status or other high-quality messages.
Tags: marketing messages, that your, consistency coordination, corporate goals, marketing communications