Importance of Integrated Marketing Communications

Managing and coordinating the entire communications process calls for integrated marketing communications (IMC). But what is IMC and why is it important?

By definition, integrated marketing communications is a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan. Such plan evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines and combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact through the seamless integration of individual discrete messages.

Considering that (a) the mass market can be fragmented into a multitude of mini-markets (with each mini-market requiring its own approach), (b) there is continuous proliferation of new types of media, and (c) there is growing sophistication of consumers, it is clear that there is definitely a need for marketers to utilize a wide range of communication tools to efficiently deliver messages to specific audiences. Marketers should therefore combine personal and non-personal communication channels to achieve maximum impact (i.e., employing multiple-vehicle, multiple-stage campaigns). Hence, it is clearly imperative for companies to move toward integrated marketing communications, and the absence of which results in uncoordinated communications and image diffusion.

A comprehensive integrated marketing communications plan can produce stronger message consistency. It can also help to build brand equity as well as create greater sales impact. Furthermore, it can unify the company's brand images and messages as they come through multiple company activities. In simpler terms, IMC improves the company's ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time in the right