Nowadays, most people come into contact with information through a variety of channels each day, including online news articles, blogs, social media, and videos. Compared to 10 years ago, we probably naturally choose to consume far more information.
People today spend their lives moving list of aruba consumer email between online and offline, so B2B marketing methods need to keep up with these changing environments and integrate traditional and digital marketing techniques.
In this article, we will explain the basics of "integrated marketing communications (IMC)" that marketers should know, provide examples, and explain five steps to take to get started.
What is Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)?
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is a methodology that implements various marketing strategies at customer touchpoints, such as advertising, social media, the Web, direct mail, exhibitions, and in-house staff, based on a unified concept.
Image of integrated marketing
Background and Concept of Development
IMC is a concept defined by Donald Schullz of Northwestern University, who is known as the "father of integrated marketing."
Schultz has been advocating IMC since the 1980s. He advocated that companies should consider all points of contact between consumers and brands and companies as channels for transmitting messages and communicate with them. In 1991, IMC was recognized as having academic significance in the academic field.
Schultz also categorizes IMC into three types, taking into account the subsequent spread of the Internet, social media, AI, and other advances.
IMC 1.0: A concept that unifies marketing communications that are vertically divided within a company, such as advertising, PR, direct marketing, and sales promotion.
IMC2.0: IMC that implements channel strategies and marketing communications that are more customer-oriented
IMC3.0: IMC that considers customers, media, channels, and internal organizations as one platform and maximizes marketing results by utilizing big data, etc.
(Reference: Data management is essential in the age of IMC 3.0 – HBR )
Considering the above classification, companies that have not put much effort into marketing would be best off starting with IMC 1.0. Companies that are already working on data utilization can take advantage of support tools and other tools to further evolve their data management, and undertake integrated marketing initiatives that match the phase of their own marketing organization.
