Best Practices — IMC²

As a manager/marketer back in the 1970s, I learned to use various techniques to promote the several small businesses I was involved in – research, PR, ads, direct mail, etc.  It didn’t take a genius to see how the power of blending different techniques could have more impact on the customer.

I carried that concept into the agency business when I founded Crosby Marketing Communications.  Coupled with the fact that our small clients couldn’t afford different agencies for different types of marketing, the concept grew into an agency best practice.  It was “Integrated Marketing Communications” (IMC) long before the term became fashionable.

We always saw it as making all marketing communications work together as a unified force, rather than permitting each technique to work in isolation.  This maximizes the impact of the messages on the customer’s mind.  It’s an example of the numerical definition of synergy, 1+1=3, i.e., the sum is greater than its parts.  It’s also an example of thematic consistency being a key to remembrance.  Originally, I defined integrated marketing communications as a means of making all of your communications speak with one voice to guarantee your message gets through to your target audience.  But I’ve come to realize that definition is too limiting.

The definition used in the Integrated Marketing Communications curriculum at Northwestern University goes a step further, calling it, “The process of managing all sources of information about a product/service to which a customer or prospect is exposed that behaviorally moves the customer toward a sale and maintains customer loyalty.”

Including “all sources of information” gives it a broader scope.  The definition from the American Marketing Association is even broader and even better.  It calls integrated marketing communications “a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time.”  The combination of the terms “planning,” “brand,” and “consistent” with “customer” describes IMC’s holistic approach to marketing.

The holistic approach should involve more than marketers.  Business functions such as sales, finance, and distribution must work with marketing to ensure that they are consistent in customer contacts and communications.  All too often, such functions go their own, separate ways, sending conflicting messages to customers.  Some companies have solved this problem by using cross-functional teams to work with the marketing department and the outside marketing agency on client segments.  My agency has facilitated it by involving a client’s key executives and managers in the strategic marketing process so that in the end, we’re all on the same page.

Of course, in today’s digital marketing world, the channels of communications have expanded exponentially.  But that has only enhanced the value of Integrated Marketing Communications.  More and more, a variety of channels work together to drive the customer to action.  To get the best returns from marketing campaigns, the touch points with customers will be from the integration of both traditional media and new media.  I call that IMC².