Picture this: you’ve just launched an expensive new ad for your business. The ad is everything you could ask for – slick, on brand and engaging – but you’re still not seeing an increase in customer interaction. Why?
Your website design hasn’t been updated, and it looks clunky in comparison. Your social media manager has been getting creative, but they’re failing to capture your brand’s key messages. When customers interact with your business, they’re getting a disjointed picture of who you are and what you do, and it’s preventing you from making a lasting impression.
Here’s where Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) comes in. IMC is a strategy that involves coordinating you various marketing channels to ensure they reinforce and complement each other. It can be as simple as making sure a key message is promoted across print, social media, and online, or adapting graphics to work across different channels.
IMC gives your brand a sense of consistency and credibility. It strengthens campaigns by reinforcing them across multiple platforms, ensuring your marketing is efficient and cost-effective. Customers will get a clear, reassuring sense of who you are and what you do. Better still, they’ll remember your brand.
We live in a world full of competing organisations, all trying to broadcast their own unique messages. Consumer attention is fickle and fleeting. It’s up to your business to make sure that when you do have your target audience’s attention, you’re always saying something clear, consistent, and on brand; something that matters.
IMC requires excellent internal communication. Throw out the silo mentality: your PR, marketing, sales, and design teams all need to be communicating with each other to ensure you’re projecting a consistent image.
How can you implement IMC? Effective organisation is key. Ensure senior management are briefed on the benefits of IMC. Make internal communications a key priority. Develop a new communications plan that involves all the departments in your organisation, and be prepared to discard anything that isn’t clear, consistent, or in line with your brand values.
Work smarter, not harder – that’s the principle underpinning IMC.