Importance of Integrated Marketing Communication

The concept of Integrated Marketing Communication is well known in the marketing field which is the most important and systematic practice to achieve desirable ROI out of total efforts & resources spent.

All the components of promotional mix whether it was print media or mass media had to be tackled differently which led to many problems like budget, resources & time which makes it critical to implement IMC.

But again advent of digital media has altered the dynamics of advertising and it has forced companies to re-establish the rules on applying IMC. The rise of digital was seen as just another channel to be included in the mix but given its enormous outreach and characteristics it has been termed disruptive.

Building a reputed brand is the ultimate ROI which cannot be built without using IMC since every channel is now interconnected because of extensive use of technology.

Technically as we all know that there is use of computers in creation of content for any channel and now computers themselves have become a channel.

The characterisation of IMC is increasingly measured using digital media because the content across all the channels can be absorbed in digital media and the metrics of measuring success remains the same. Therefore it is to be noted that there is no requirement of creation of separate content for digital channel.

Each medium requires utilization of time, effort and content creation and most importantly dealing with different agencies and working with them so as to send the correct message.

Thus the need for IMC evolved so that it was ensured that uniform content or message is send across all the channels and  identifying the correct promotional tools.

The primary purpose of IMC as seen in many cases is not just uniform content flow but also the strategy to be followed across the board which would reflect not only the brand but also the company directly to the customer.

The uniformity of the message becomes a great challenge if the marketer gets swayed away by the different formats and started to make different content for each one of them.

This will confuse the end user i.e. the consumer as different message for same brand will be delivered.

Thank God now with advent of digital medium the creation of content is uniform across the mediums and the theme remains uniform.

Now it is possible to determine or analyse consumer behaviour using Analytics in Social Media which helps in determining the traction towards brand and the strategy to be followed in further ad campaigns. This information & strategy can be applied across all the mediums. 

It has been noted over the years with evolution of marketing that irrespective of which medium prevails or cease to exist the content creation is very critical and for uniformity across channels IMC is very important.