Integrating Marketing Communication isn’t an overly complex concept. It is a system that makes sure that all forms of communication, related to a particular company are carefully aligned together giving the same message. Thus, it is an integration of all promotional tools in a way that they work together in harmony.
Promotion is one of the 7 Ps in the marketing mix. It has a bunch of communication tools. Just like the saying, “United we are strong”, a company is always at an advantage if all these tools work in harmony focusing on a specific common business objective. Scattered efforts to achieve scattered results may not be effective and that is why the concept of IMC has come into the picture. Similar to the game of football, it doesn’t matter if Messi (the best communication tool) is in your mix if the other players (the rest of the communication tools) do not complement his shooting skills, the team won’t be able to score a goal in every match.
The concept of IMC was introduced in 1983 by Coulson and since then multiple additions to the theory of IMC have happened for years. Like with any new concept, IMC too faced a lot of backlash in the market as being called unnecessary and an extra burden to the finances of an organization. However, many organizations started seeing the bigger picture and deemed it important to adopt IMC, especially in the developed economies of the world. The opposers of IMC have called it an unnecessary complex build-up of the simple marketing communication concept. However, I feel that IMC was a necessity for many businesses who were having a scattered approach to marketing communication.
Many interpreters of IMC have tried to define it in different ways. However, Shimp has summarized it into five main points:
- Affect behavior through directed communication
- Starting the marketing process with the customer or the prospect and working backward
- Making use of all brand sources as prospective communication channels
- Synergizing strategies to achieve a strong brand image
- Building a relationship between the brand and the customer
The above points differentiate promotions of marketing communications from IMC.
Why prefer IMC over the traditional approach?
The reluctance of companies to adopt IMC in their strategy is the focus on output rather than the outcome. It is obvious that a company needs profit and therefore they would ideally want to focus all their resources on capturing the marketing and getting an ROI as soon as possible. However, IMC is a long game. It’s about taking time to ensure the resonance of existing communication tools. Simply following the traditional strategy with a scattered approach can also lead to discrepancies and in turn harm the company and make them inefficient. With the rise in popularity of Digital Marketing, there are so many avenues that a company can use to communicate. Therefore at present, it is simply common sense that the message delivered by the company needs to be the same among all platforms for the strategies to be effective.
However, IMC has become more complex and data-driven which is good as a very focused approach can be taken to target super-specific segments of a niche.
Advantages of IMC
- It can create a competitive advantage, boost sales, and make the optimum utilization of resources
- Facilitates customers through the various stages of the buying process
- Increase efficiency
- Facilitates targeting and re-targeting
- Builds long-term relationships
- Helps prevent the blunder of sending dis-joint messages
Disadvantages of IMC
- Resistance to change
- Needs greater resources and therefore might add to the cost
- Cause internal conflicts between teams
- Restricts creativity
Conclusion
IMC is an ideal concept, but not all businesses are in a position to adopt it. Various research is being carried out and therefore there is still much to know about it. Academicians have put a lot of emphasis on IMC and perhaps that is one reason why it has started being taught in various Marketing Degrees even in Nepal. However, the implementation side and resistance faced are still a matter of concern. The knowledge gap still needs to be filled as many people still aren’t able to differentiate between the regular marketing communication approach and the IMC.
As businesses get bigger and allot higher budgets to marketing efforts, a rise in IMC adoption is a possibility in Nepal as well.
Courtesy: Trilogy Digital Pathshala – Best Content Writing Certification Training Course in Nepal