The document discusses the evolution and definitions of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC), highlighting its significance in contemporary marketing strategies that go beyond traditional advertising. It outlines a four-stage model of IMC development, from early tactical coordination to advanced financial and strategic integration, emphasizing the need for a synergistic approach in utilizing various communication tools. Additionally, the document addresses the importance of data-driven insights and understanding diverse audience segments in crafting effective marketing communications.

1. Chapter Two
What we Know About IMC

2. Learning Objective
• AN EARLY DEFINITION OF INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS (IMC)
• A MORE CURRENT DEFINITION OF INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS (IMC)
• Why has IMC become more important?
• THE FOUR STAGES MODEL OF INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS (IMC)

3. AN EARLY DEFINITION OF INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATIONS (IMC)
The following definition is from 1989 and it was developed by
the American Association of Advertising Agencies:
Integrated marketing communications is a concept
of marketing communications planning that
recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan
that evaluates the strategic roles of variety of
communication disciplines – for example, general
advertising, direct response, sales promotion, and
public relations – and combines these disciplines to
deliver clarity, consistency, and maximum
communications impact.

4. Let’s explore this definition a little further. Firstly, it lists the main
communication tools are available at that time (obviously before
the time of online marketing and social media). At the end of its
definition, it highlights that the goal of IMC is to act effectively in
a synergetic manner and deliver consistency and maximum
impact. This is consistent with the first stage of IMC
development, which is discussed in a separate note.
It assesses the strategic impact of IMC, as highlighted in the first
part of the definition, by stating “evaluates the strategic roles of
variety of communication disciplines” – while this sounds
strategic, and is really suggesting that each communication tool
has a different role to play in an overall communications plan.

5. A MORE CURRENT DEFINITION OF INTEGRATED
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC)
Here is an IMC definition provided by Don Schultz, which
more accurately reflects the current understanding of
integrated marketing communications:
Integrated marketing communication is a strategic business
process used to plan, develop, execute and evaluate coordinated,
measurable, persuasive brand communications programs over
time with consumers, customers, prospects, employees,
associates and other targeted relevant external and internal
audiences. The goal is to generate both short-term financial
returns and build long-term brand and shareholder value.

6. Learning Objective
How has the concept of integrated marketing
communication evolved?

7. Broader than just consumers
The audience is much broader than just consumers. While
communicating to consumers obviously remains very important
and probably the focus of communication for most firms – firms
also need to consider
 internal marketing communication (employees),
 current and potential strategic partners,
 influencers,
 financiers,
 the media,
 lobby groups, and so on.

8. A more strategic process
• It operates at top level and is now considered a key
strategic process.
• The goal of being “integrated” refers to much more
than just a tactical coordination of various
communication tools, but essentially becoming an
organization that integrates marketing into its core
operations and central strategy.

10. Data-driven, measured and provides
a financial return
Marketing communication strategy, which is obviously a
subset of the overall marketing strategy for the
organization, needs to be
• more analytical,
• data driven,
• utilizing marketing experiments – to enable clear
decisions to be made (in regards to the media and
message strategies) that are based on real consumer
behavior.

11. Online shopping Behaviors

12. Long and short-term goals
The end goal of IMC
activities is to build
both short and long-
term value in primarily
in terms of ongoing
profitability, growth
and brand equity.

13. How has the concept of integrated
marketing communication evolved?
Therefore, we see the need to trade off short-term and long-
term objectives (which can sometimes be in conflict) and we see
the basis of profitability and growth stemming from a strong
brand equity – where brand equity delivers high brand
awareness, price premium, greater market share, stronger
customer loyalty and so on.

14. Why has integrated marketing communications
(IMC) become more important?

15. A WIDER CHOICE OF COMMUNICATION TOOLS
With the advent and adoption
of the Internet and social
media, business organizations
have a much broader range of
communication tools that can
be effective. It is possible in
today’s world to build a strong
brand using online means
without the aid of advertising
support – and Google would
be a good example of this
phenomenon.
This means that firms need
• to have a greater
understanding of the array
of communication tools
available to them,
• understand their individual
roles,
• understand how they can
work together in synergy,
and
• structure them together
appropriately.

17. A WIDER CHOICE OF COMMUNICATION TOOLS
With the advent and adoption
of the Internet and social
media, business organizations
have a much broader range of
communication tools that can
be effective. It is possible in
today’s world to build a strong
brand using online means
without the aid of advertising
support – and Google would
be a good example of this
phenomenon.
This means that firms need
• to have a greater
understanding of the array
of communication tools
available to them,
• understand their individual
roles,
• understand how they can
work together in synergy,
and
• structure them together
appropriately.

18. LESS EFFECTIVE MASS MEDIA
Along with the shift towards
other media and
communication choices, the
overall impact of mass media
(primarily TV advertising) has
reduced. In the old days, it was
possible to have a TV
commercial exposed to a large
proportion of the overall
population through TV
advertising alone.
media consumption has
fragmented and people are
consuming a greater diversity
of media, this is no longer as
effective and requires the use
of additional communication
tools.

19. SMALLER MARKET SEGMENTS
The traditional family structure has given way to
a greater diversity of household and family
structures – in addition, there are greater
variations in lifestyles and consumer needs. This
means that the average brand needs to more
selectively target small market segments. This
obviously creates the need to use more
specialized media and communication tools to
more directly target the end consumer.

20. CUSTOMER DATABASES AND MARKETING
INSIGHTS

21. CUSTOMER DATABASES AND MARKETING
INSIGHTS
Technology is not only provided people with
broader access to information and alternatives to
shopping behavior, but it has provided companies
with an enormous amount of information and
data about consumers,
their behavior, and
their responsiveness to marketing mix changes.
This means that the communication strategy can be
more based on research and database analysis, than a
creative big idea as would have been the case in the
past.

22. TWO-WAY MESSAGES WITH CUSTOMERS
INFLUENCING BRAND EQUITY
• communication messages are essentially a two way
interactive media in the current world. In the past, brands
would push out appropriate communication messages to try
and persuade consumers to buy and like their products.
• But in today’s world of social media, bloggers, forums and
lobby groups – much of the forming of the brand has passed
to consumers and influencers. Therefore, it is vital companies
understand this and consider this new market structure when
developing an integrated marketing communications plan.
• Mommy Bloggers

23. THE FOUR STAGES MODEL OF INTEGRATED
MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC)

24. Stages of development

26. Tactical coordination of marketing
communications
The organization is primarily focused on using
IMC to achieve
“one sight, one sound, one voice”
• To delivery message more effectively
• To apply the strength of each communication
discipline.

27. Tactical coordination of marketing
communications
• The first stage in the
progression towards
integrated marketing
communications approach
inside a company is a
simple coordination across
specialist areas, where they
agree upon the use of a
standard logo, a company
slogan, corporate colors,
and a general message.

29. Tactical coordination of marketing
communications
It is likely that various areas of marketing
communication –
advertising,
direct marketing,
sales,
online and social media, and
public relations – still act quite independently,
yet a similar look and feel and message.

30. Tactical coordination of marketing
communications
Each of these functional areas would have their own goals and targets
to achieve.
For example,
• the advertising function might seek to improve brand awareness,
• the direct marketing area may be focused upon sales conversion
rates,
• the public relations area might be measured upon earned media,
and so on.
Despite these areas using a similar approach of message and brand
elements, they still generally act independently and are not
strategically integrated to achieve an overall goal.

32. Redefining the scope of marketing
communications
• the company starts to consider a broader set of
touch points than its main communication tools
(several of which were mentioned above).
• In the first stage, the company is mainly
concentrating upon the main communication tools.
Second phase is when the company considers how
and where a potential or current customer can
become exposed or engaged with the brand.

33. Redefining the scope of marketing communications
• to effectively understand brand contact or brand touch points,
the company tries to look at the brand through the eyes of a
consumer. So in this stage, the company might consider
 email contact,
 interaction with staff,
 sponsorships,
 unplanned media attention,
 competitive comparisons,
 Information and comparison websites,
 retail sales people,
 after sales service contacts,
 signage on buildings,
 staff uniforms,
 word-of-mouth, and so on.

35. Application of information technology
• The third stage is really trying to integrate the overall
communications approach, as achieved in stages one and two,
across the knowledge and practices of the organization. To do
this, greater use of data and information is generated and
shared across their distribution channels, even extending to
their retailer and supplier partners.
• Probably the best example of this would be in the banking
sector, where the banking customer databases allow them to
track each customer’s progression – either towards or away
from using the company and certain products.

36. Application of information technology
• Therefore, over time, with the use of information, a
company can get very effective about understanding
and even predicting the customer’s behavior when
they come into contact with various marketing
communications.
• Part of this knowledge is built through market testing
and experiments, where different communication
mediums and messages and combinations are tested
on a small scale before being ramped up and exposed
to larger numbers of customers. Therefore, we end up
with a relatively scientific approach to marketing
communications.

38. Financial and strategic integration
• The final stage really reflects that the overall marketing
function inside a large company becomes strategically and
financially integrated. The starting point for all marketing
communications is essentially driven by the top-level strategic
plan, which then feeds down to the marketing strategy and
plan, which is then effectively executed through the
marketing mix elements, including marketing
communications.
• Contrast this to the first stage listed above, there are various
marketing communication specialists act relatively
independently to achieve their own targets and KPI’s.

39. Some renown KPI
• Return on Investment (ROI)
• Incremental Sales
• Traffic Sources
• Purchase Funnel
• Goal Completion Rate
• Cost Per Lead
• Email Marketing Engagement Score
• Social Interactions

40. Return on Investment (ROI)
• Measure the ability of marketing campaigns to generate
new revenue.
• o calculate ROI, you will need to track the number of leads
generated through each of your marketing campaigns, such
as a banner ad or AdWords campaign. Next, you will need
to determine the opportunity value of each lead. To
calculate this, find your average value per win and divide
that value by your average lead to win ratio.
• For example, if you know that the average value of a win is
$20, and your lead to win ratio is 10:1, then you can say
that the average value of a lead is $2. This number will
provide an approximate value to help you assess the
performance of your campaign as you bring in each new
lead.

41. Success Indicator: Incremental sales are greater than
campaign investment.

42. Incremental Sales
• Demonstrate how your marketing campaigns are resulting in
increased sales revenue.
• For example, a banner campaign with a large volume of
impressions may encourage people to complete what is called
a "view through conversion." This means that a visitor may
see an ad, visit the website in a separate browser tab or
window, and then complete a goal without actually clicking on
the banner ad. The result is the same, but the path and credit
for the completion are very different.

43. Success indicators:
a. Incremental sales that exceed the initial marketing
investment.
b. Indirect increase in sales that can be attributed to a
marketing campaign.

44. Traffic Sources
• Understand which traffic sources are driving visitors to your
website.
• The Traffic Sources metric measures which traffic sources are
driving visitors to your website, and provides a comparison of
each of those sources. The three main traffic sources are
direct, referral, and search.
• a high volume of referral traffic shows that your brand or
website is being talked about frequently by 3rd party websites
or on social media sites.

45. Success indicators
• An increase in volume from any traffic source, while
maintaining consistent traffic from other channels.
• A high or improving goal conversion rate related to any
traffic source.

46. Purchase Funnel
• Understand your customer acquisition process from
awareness to purchase.
• he Purchase Funnel analyzes your customer acquisition
process to help you understand how potential customers
discover your product or brand and, more importantly, how
they eventually become a loyal customer.
• The purchase funnel (alternatively called the marketing
funnel) is typically broken down into five stages: awareness,
interest, consideration, preference, and purchase.

47. Success indicators
• A high conversion rate through all stages of the funnel.
• High volume through each stage of the funnel.
• Improving conversion rates for stages performing poorly.

48. Goal Completion Rate
• The Goal Completion Rate (GCR) metric measures the
number of people that complete a specified marketing goal,
such as signing up for a trial or subscribing to a mailing list.
• Marketing metrics like GCR are an important part of
the purchase funnel as it typically demonstrates your
conversion rates from the awareness stage to the
consideration stage.
• Similarly, GCR should be paired with sales KPIs such as your
lead to win rate to provide an indicator as to the quality of
leads your marketing efforts are attracting.

49. Success indicators
• A high goal GCR shows that your campaign is encouraging
your target audience to act.
• A high lead to win rate shows that your campaign is
generating highly qualified leads for your sales team.

50. Cost Per Lead
• Measure the cost-effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
• The Cost per Lead metric measures how cost-effective your
marketing campaigns are when it comes to generating new
leads for your sales team. This metric is closely related to
other key business metrics such as the cost to acquire new
customers.
• The purpose of this metric is to provide your marketing team
with a tangible dollar figure so they understand how much
money is appropriate to spend on acquiring new leads.

51. Success indicators
• A low cost per lead with a high volume of quality leads.

52. Email Marketing Engagement Score
• Measure how effective email marketing campaigns are at
engaging your audience.
• The Email Marketing Engagement Score metric measures
how effective your campaigns are at engaging your audience
by tracking key metrics like open and click rates.
• Each of these metrics represents a different type of
engagement which will help you assess the performance of
your campaign.
• Open rates are linked to subject line performance, the
credibility of the sender, and the time the campaign was sent;
click rates, on the other hand, are indicative of how well the
content resonates with the audience and the relevance of the
message.

53. Success indicators
• A high and/or improving open rate.
• A high and/or improving click rate.

54. Social Interactions
• Measure the engagement levels of your social media
campaigns.
• For example, one could argue that a "retweet" is more
valuable than a "favourite" on Twitter because a retweet
ensures the content stays in circulation longer. Similarly,
different social media sites will have varying importance to
your brand. One brand may find that Facebook is a hotbed of
positive engagement, while another brand really hits its stride
on Pinterest. As you can see, each social platform allows you
to interact with your audience in a number of different ways.

55. Success indicators
• A high level of engagement that corresponds to the
completion of key marketing objectives.
• Viral posts that require little or no nurturing on your behalf.
• Sustained engagement over a long period of time.

56. Financial and strategic integration
• At this level of the final stage, not only are all the
improvements from the previous three stages being
implemented, but the organization becomes very financially
and marketing metric driven in terms of its overall marketing
communications. This would mean it would look at the ROI,
for example, of increasing brand awareness by 5 percentage
points – and work out what impact that has over time trial
rates and brand loyalty and therefore bottom line impact.
• This becomes increasingly challenging when companies have
multiple target markets to pursue the need to consider a
range of strategic initiatives. As pointed out earlier in the
article, only explore percentage of organizations truly operate
at the fourth stage of the model.

57. • Question?
• CT?
• Presentation?