IMC Strategy Exploring the Aspects of An

Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

Given the proliferation of marketing, selling and service channels, the need for orchestrating all of them together for a common strategic marketing goal is critical. The coordination of advertising, direct marketing, online advertising, social networks and media, sales promotion, publicity, public relations and personal selling all need to have a common platform to execute from. The emergence of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) strategies is specifically for the purpose of bringing together online and offline channels to ensure the attainment of marketing and selling goals (Anantachart, 2004). The intent of this analysis is to compare the pros and cons of each of these individual elements of an IMC.

Analysis of an Integrated Marketing Communications Strategy

Of the elements within an IMC, the most visible and often the most costly is the advertising. The pros of using advertising in the context of an IMC strategy are its immediate visibility and effectiveness at push-based marketing strategies, customization for specific needs within a given strategy,...

The cons include the cost, the time frames to implement the print and large-scale offline projects, and the rising costs of placement and continual frequency to ensure this aspect of an IMC is successful (Holm, 2006). Direct marketing including the use of marketing automation is the fastest growing area of IMC strategies today as marketers are concentrating on getting the highest Return on Investment (ROI) possible (Holm, 2006).
The advantages of direct marketing include the ability to precisely target customers, speed of development and delivery, greater control over the call to action for a given campaign, and the ability to integrate content and messaging quickly across an entire IMC strategy (Johnston, Tennens, 2005). Direct mail's cons include high cost, lack of real-time tracking as digital marketing provides, and low response rates (Anantachart, 2004).

Sales promotional programs are designed to capture customer's initial interest in a given product or service, leading to a trial of a product or service (Holm, 2006). The pros or advantages of this aspect of an IMC…