Top 10 Concepts on Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

Ch17 Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

1. Modern marketing calls for more than developing a good product, pricing it attractively, and making it accessible to target customers. Companies must also communicate with present and potential stakeholders with the general public.
2. The marketing communications mix consists of eight major modes of communication: advertising, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, events and experiences, direct marketing, interactive marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, and personal selling.
3. The communication process consists of nine elements: sender, receiver, message, encoding, decoding, response, feedback, and noise.
4. Developing effective communications involve eight steps: (1) identify the target audience, (2) determine the communication objectives, (3) design the communications, (4) select the communication channels, (5) establish the total communications budget, (6) decide on the communications mix, (7) measure the communications result, and (8) manage the integrated marketing communications process.
5. In identifying the target audience, the marketer needs to close any gap that exists between current public perception and the image sought.
6. Communication objectives may involve category need, brand awareness, brand attitude, or brand purchase intention.
7. Formulating the communication requires solving three problems: what to say (message strategy), how to say it (creative strategy), and who should say it (message source).
8. Communication channels may be personal (advocate, expert, and social channels) or nonpersonal (media, atmospheres, and events.)
9. The objective-and-task method of setting the promotion budget, which calls upon marketers to develop their budgets by defining specific objectives, is the most desirable.
10. Managing the Integrated Marketing Communications is a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan.

Ma. Cerissa M. Nagui (December 8, 2009)