I received a LinkedIn request the other day from a good friend of mine from Bentley University, located in Waltham, MA. We graduated together and now she, Carolyn Hannus, is working at Digitas in Boston. She’s also getting her MBA at Boston University. As part of one of her classes, she told me that she needed to survey Marketing professionals with the following question, “What does integrated marketing communications mean to you?”
I felt like the question and my response was relevant for the readers of the Catalyst Marketers blog, so I posted my response below. One thing to note, if you’re a small business owner, don’t get scared off by the marketing jargon, “Integrated Marketing Communications”. I break it down below and chances are, you’re already doing it in one form or another.
For me, Integrated Marketing Communications means the all encompassing process for communicating your message, ideals, beliefs, and value proposition to your community. Your community can be filled with both customers and prospects. In order to truly make an impact with your marketing message, you must first start by outlining the goals and needs of your business. Once those have been established, you can then move on to creating strategies that align to those goals and needs. Next comes tactics. These are the vehicles by which you get your information to your community. Finally, the most critical step, one which many don’t consider, is measurement. At set periods of time throughout the year, it’s always good to take a step back and look at the numbers to see how your tactics are tracking against the goals and needs that you originally setup. If something isn’t working so well, then iterate or scrap it completely. If another tactic is truly resonating with your community, then find ways to highlight it and even enhance it. By setting up a plan, whereby you establish goals, you now have something to measure against.
A big part of my marketing efforts, and the efforts of my clients, is content marketing. Content marketing can come in many forms, like written text, video, and even audio. As part of content marketing, you want to ensure that you are educating your community and providing information that they consider valuable. That information should tie-in to your business. If you’re an organic restaurant owner, then you should be blogging about the different ingredients you use in your recipes and why they are better for your patrons. You can shoot videos of your chefs preparing different recipes in a sanitary environment. All of this information is relevant to your business, but also relevant to your target audience. By providing valuable information, you create brand loyalists who are not only going to become customers, but walking, talking, billboards for your business.
Integrated Marketing Communications is the overarching term used to describe all of the different ways you communicate with your community. Each different marketing vehicle that you use, whether it’s YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter, Email, or Blogs, should tie into your overall plan. If you’ve setup your plan properly, then you should have goals that you can measure against. This will let you know how effective or ineffective your programs are. Either way, you’re learning something, which gives you the ability to make necessary changes. In this economy, and probably for the foreseeable future, those organizations that don’t listen to their community and constantly evolve their offerings based on their leanrings, will not survive. To ensure you don’t end up like that, it’s important to have a plan for your integrated marketing communications, check-in occasionally to see how you’re tracking against that plan, and don’t be afraid to listen to your community and make the necessary changes to satisfy them.
Tags: content marketing, integrated marketing communication
What is Integrated Marketing Communications?…
Integrated Marketing Communications is the overarching term used to describe all of the different ways you communicate with your community….
I ran into you on Twitter and stopped by at the urging of your DM. I am very glad I stopped in. I will certainly subscribe. Great information to explain the overall approach to Social networking, article marketing and the whole on line marketing approach. Thinking of your customers and prospective customers as your community is critical as people are done being treated like commodities.
Advertising is out as people want to feel part of a community of like minded people and contribute to that community. I received an invite to a new Twitter app called TweetSwell which helps to involve your community Twitter community through surveys in a new way. Have you heard of it? Anyway, great post and I look forward to learning more.
Shane – Thanks so much for taking time to read the blog AND post a response. I’m really happy that you find the information valuable. I also appreciate you subscribing to the RSS feed. I will continue to produce as much relevant content on this blog as possible.
I haven’t heard of TweetSwell, but I will check it out. Thanks for the heads up!
Best,
Ryan
During the 1980s, many companies came to see the need for more of a strategic integration
of their promotional tools. These firms began moving toward the process of
integrated marketing communications (IMC), which involves coordinating the various
promotional elements and other marketing activities that communicate with a
firm’s customers.9 As marketers embraced the concept of integrated marketing communications,
they began asking their ad agencies to coordinate the use of a variety of
promotional tools rather than relying primarily on media advertising. A number of
companies also began to look beyond traditional advertising agencies and use other
types of promotional specialists to develop and implement various components of
their promotional plans.