Week 10. IMC

Hellooooo everyone! Welcome back again to another week of my blog 🙂 There have been so many devastating news lately including Italy’s recent lockdown because of the country’s wide spread infection of COVID-19. My heart goes out to those who are being affected and meanwhile, hope everyone stay safe and guarded! Now for today’s topic, I will be talking about Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)!

WHAT EXACTLY IS IMC?

It is the process of managing customer’s relationship that drives customer value

Duncan, 2002

In other words, IMC would require integrating all promotional tools so they work together in harmony and promote your brand effectively. This implies developing integrated marketing strategies across multiple channels.

Over the years, the social media landscape is constantly evolving. As such, this calls for a shift towards ‘omnichannel marketing’.

OMNICHANNEL MARKETING

” Emphasises the importance of seeking to reach and interact with customers across touchpoint in all channels”

WHY THE NEED FOR OMNICHANNEL MARKETING?

THE CUSTOMER OF TODAY IS OMNICHANNEL. This acknowledges the fact that your average customer shops from various channels and it is important that your brand seeks to engage your customers through the various channels. Through the use of different channels, it allows for the reinforcement of brand marketing and if executed properly, it slowly builds customers’ loyalty towards your brand.

The golden question of the day, or rather this post, would be:

“How can companies implement a successful IMC?’

LETS TAKE A LOOK AT A REAL LIFE EXAMPLE OF IMC:

1. Domino’s Anyware

Anyone a fan of Domino’s pizza? I am a hugeee fan of their pizza especially their New York cheese crust! Before I stray away from the topic, let’s talk about Anyware’s campaign. Domino acknowledges the fact that it can be a hassle for customers to choose their toppings, enter their address etc whenever they want to order pizza. As such, customers can use Twitter, text messages or even their smart TVs to order their pizza! Ordering pizza is just one click-away! The effectiveness of this campaign was proven through the increase in pizza orders through digital devices!

*Let me share some good news! This service is currently still available and continue to evolve to include multiple channels such as Google Alexa Home etc*

IMC APPROACH AND ASSOCIATED BRAND STRUCTURE:

There has been an evolution of IMC approach and as of today’s modern society, most marketers are the ‘mediators’ that mediates the conversations customers may have with the brand. Ultimately, customers who have conversations without the presence of the marketer drives the meaning of the brand. Instead of exerting control, marketers act as a mediator in steering control and allow for conversations to happen about the brand.

Now, back to our question! Let’s talk about how to implement a successful IMC. Do note that there are more than just the steps discussed below! I will also be sharing some of my marketing experiences to relate better to the strategies below.

1.Know who are your target audience

This is really important as it provides you the direction of your campaign. As I was interning for 3M few months ago, we were working as a team to market Futuro’s brand (a brand that sells sports guard, knee guard etc) to like-minded sports individuals. Knowing where to reach out to them, how do they like being communicated to and which channels they were mainly using were very important. Instagram, was of course the channel that they were using however, were there any other channels we can reach out to them? Was there, perhaps a sports channel / community, that they frequent? As such, I have to stress the importance of in-depth research and adequate knowledge about your consumers for effective brand communication.

2. Select your channels

After understanding your target customers, it’s important to pick the important channels. An important point to note would be to prevent pollution of marketing efforts. If most of the targeted audience, for example is not on Facebook, then Facebook should not be selected as one of the channel. There are many strengths and weaknesses of the channels. One of the weakness of Instagram is that is website is self-contained. That means there is no way to drive traffic from the platform to your site. This is crucial as web traffic is the bread and butter of the company. Using Instagram as a channel would hence require one to engage customers on the platform.

3. Pay attention to brand consistency

It can be confusing when marketing across different channels. Facebook and Instagram are essentially two very different channels and would require different marketing strategies. However, this still requires a consistent brand identity. Most companies usually have brand guidelines in place. Designing collaterals for both Futuro’s Facebook and Instagram was difficult at times as details such as the style of graphics and photographs have to be consistent. The typography has to be uniform and it is important that it provides the same feel across both channels.

4. Developing content with repurposing in mind

Creating content for one channel can be difficult and more so in the case of creating content for multiple channels. As such, content created must be able to re-adapt to fit different channels but still base on the same core content. The content has to be Clear, Compelling and Consistent! A video I have created (linked down below!) was to promote an app download and it was a long process of deciding what content was interesting to sport individuals and if the message in the video was clear for the intended purpose. More importantly, it has to be a video that captures the targeting audience attention!

5. Make sure everyone is on board!

In terms of executing the IMC, it is important to make sure that everyone is on the same page so the messaging and brand image stays consistent!

6. Track and adjust

Lastly, with any campaign, an integrated effort requires the right analytics to determine if there are any hits or conversions for the brand. If the ROI is not met, then it requires further readjustments to the campaign and re-looking into the strategy.

In a real organisation context, these steps are often not executed in order and some steps may not be followed through. However, it is important to understand the fundamentals and follow the guideline to prevent an unsuccessful IMC or a waste of marketing budget.

As I have come to the end of this blog, I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions about IMC! I personally think that a company, such as Dominoes has effectively carried out their IMC because of their in-depth understanding of their customers. What do you think about Dominoe’s IMC? Any other similar brands which you have interacted with? leave them down in the comments below!

Thank you for reading 🙂 Take care!

Love,

Sandy