Integrated Marketing Communication Advertising Strategy And Planning Marketing Essay

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To achieve larger Organization goal, it needs to create and communicate constantly throughout its own employees and its customers. The main focus of the company is to communicate to its customers about its offerings. Effective communication attracts and increases awareness with the potential customers and consumers about their offerings. It is vital to specify how the product was going to help the customers and it is also very important to make the consumers feel that they really need the product.

In depth understanding of the customers' needs, emotions, interests and activities is essential to ensure accuracy and relevance of any communication. Communications are in realitymulti-layered, multi-staged and multi-manoeuvring. Opinions are formed through word of mouth amongst potential consumers and various other trade influencer.

Advertising is one of the most important parts in today's world for building the relation between the company-customer and the consumer. However, there are many other forms of marketing communication like sales promotion, public relations, direct marketing and personal selling. Advertising also happens by word of mouth by one to one conversations or passing on the information just with a thought or mention about it. Therefore an integrated and consistent communication is essential to ensure efficiency.

Company need to ensure the consistency of message and the complementary use of variousmarketing communication tools both in terms of its impact on customers and cost.

Consistent images and relevant, useful messages help building a credible and nurture long term relationships with customers.

Communications tools work better in harmony rather than in isolation. The synergy is achieved when all tools are effectively used to voice consistently the same message all the time, every time.

To achieve harmonization between Company and its customers, a marketing plan is created based on Company objectives, its marketing strategy, communication budget to spend and performance evaluation.

Integrated marketing communication wraps communications around customers and helps them move through the various stages of decision making. The organisation simultaneously consolidates its image as credible partner, develops a dialogue and nurtures its relationship with customers.

Integrated communication also makes messages more consistent and therefore more credible. This gives clarity in buyers' mind to compare various available brands in the market and decide.

Un-integrated communications might send disjointed messages which confuses and dilute the impact of a coherent message. This may also confuse and arouse suspicion in customers' mind. On the other hand, an integrated communications present a reassuring sense of order. The key here is coordination or integration of all marketing tools or else there will be confusion.

The question is then how an integrated Marketing Communication works without stifling the creativity in an orderly environment?

A survey in 1995 revealed that most managers and agencies dealing with communication lack expertise in IMC. This lack of know how is also compounded by a lack of commitment.

Despite the many benefits of Integrated Marketing Communications there are also many challenges; the biggest challenge is to ensure integration of all marketing tools and stay integrated. Selection of tools in an

integrated marketing communications is to create a campaign that is effective and consistent across all media platforms.

Although integrated marketing communications is more than just an advertising campaign, the bulk of marketing budget is spent on the creation and distribution of advertisements. Advertising has to be tactically planned in order to reach the right customer at the right time and in the right place to have a greater collision (Joep P. Cornelissen Andrew R. Lock (2001))

Advertising is a way in which a product, its features, its USP is communicated to its prospective customers. Various social networking and other self-prorating sites like the You-tube have been used to promote products that are relevant to the customers of the particularly defined age group using the site. (article3)

Over the recent years advertising has been ensuring, reaching its customers fulfilling their requirements and wants. Advertising is increasing market and what it meant to achieve has run for decades. (Eagle, L., Kitchen, P.J., and Bulmer, S. (2007))

Other tools in the marketing mix like the sales promotion, public relation, direct marketing and personal selling doesn't cover up as large a market as advertising does. Though advertising is directly or indirectly in direct link with the other marketing communication mix it reaches the crux of every area.

Integrated Marketing Communications is a data-driven approach that focuses on identifying consumer insights and developing a strategy to forge a stronger brand-consumer relationship. An in-depth knowledge of right touch points to use to reach consumers and understanding how and where they consume different types of media.

In today's date to make this a success, technology has made it possible by providing various features like flash and server-side language making it more effective and to make advertising look as a more attractive opportunity to convey the products message to its customers.(Hye-Young Eun* and Hyun-Suk Kim)

The link between marketing and public relation in an organization created by the usual proclivity focusing on individual's communication specialities determines the brand. (Joep P. Cornelissen Andrew R. Lock (2001))

Marketing in today's time refers to analysing, planning, implementing and controlling. Marketing products in today's date comes with a dated life. Advertising also needs to realise that the customers are not inactive targets but are artistic partners who help them to sustain in the market. (Lars Thoger christen, Simon Torp and A. FuatFirat (2005))

A variety of techniques are being used in order to communicate to the customers. Various other aspects of advertising that include the target audience, positioning the product media strategies and the budget and since the impact of mass-media advertising can be measured it should be used. (Don E. Schultz (1995))

Brand creates a psychological impression in the buyers mind which results in buying the product repeatedly over and over again. Advertising ignites this action by creating a space in the buyer's mind through a memorable description in the form of a television advertisement, a spoof or just an attractive tag line relating to the product which helps the customer identify himself with the product. A customer or consumer often watches a television advertisement because he likes the product of the same brand or having known the product being good he might perceive that the advertisement may be worth a watch. In the olden times when television did not occupy our life space, even advertisement through radio transmission did wonder to creating some brand. Radio advertisements were never able to create the same impact like a Television does but it is again a cheap and effective way of communicating the product to few numbers of limited audiences.

It is argued that IMC can restrict creativity. All Marketing functions including Public Relation will have to work within overall marketing communication strata. The joy of boundless creativity may be stifled, but the

creative challenge may be greater and ultimately more satisfying when operating within a tighter, integrated, creative brief.

(http://www.multimediamarketing.com/mkc/marketingcommunications/-website referencing)

There are quite a few ways to overcome the challenges and enjoy benefits of integrated marketing communications which is also said to be becoming the main stream marketing.

(Don E. Schultz (1996))