Before we start, let us just list the learning goals for this article. The goal is to understand what integrated markets in communications or campaigns means why we need to know about it and how we could go about using it. We will do this through establishing a general understanding of the essence and actual purpose of integrated marketing campaigns and it’s connection to the marketing mix.
Secondly, we will provide an overview of some additional available tools and theories. We as marketers can use when designing an integrated marketing campaign. So let us begin what is the purpose and essence of an integrated marketing campaign and what is the connection to the rest of the marketing mix? When you are asked to design the marketing mix, you need to make decisions on four or seven core elements, also known as the four of the seven P’s.
First of all, any issues concerning the product. This would include packaging and all other elements in connection with the products. Secondly, a decision on price. Thirdly, you will need to decide on the choice of place through which blogs will you distribute the product or service? We also need to make a plan of which promotional activities we will carry out, and this is where we talk about using integrated marketing campaigns if we’re dealing with an offering that is better described as a service or perhaps a product that includes large elements of service.
We might also want to look at the additional three P’s, the people that are involved in delivering the service, the process that our customers will go through in order to receive our service and the physical evidence any visible or tangible elements that the customer will see. Here. Point other ways experience when receiving the service. None of the four of the seven piece should be decided on in isolation.
However, promotion is the P which we will focus on in this article. So let us look at what an integrated marketing campaign is and why we as marketers need to know about it. We will use this cafe as an example. It is located in a large city close to a busy High Street. It is called the French cafe and it specializes in serving high quality, cakes and desserts. Let us imagine that the French cafe has asked us to help them design a campaign in order to increase sales.
The owner suggests three promotional activities and he’s keen to hear our thoughts. Firstly, he thinks that a TV commercial on national television would be great. Secondly, he wants to give discount vouchers to customers when they pay their bill. Thirdly, he would like to encourage customers to review the cakes online as marketers. We know that, before being able to give him any feedback or suggestions for an integrated marketing campaign, we would want to find out some more details.
First of all, we would like to know his objectives with the campaign. What does he want to achieve? He stated he wanted an increase in sales, but by how much and during which time frame, and would he like existing customers spend more? Does he want to attract a new target group or perhaps he wants to increase market share by stealing customers from the competition? If we don’t clarify the French cafes objectives, we are unlikely to carry out an effective campaign.
So let us say that the French cafes aiming for an increase in turnover by a hundred thousand euros over a six month period and that they want to steal customers from the competition. Another core element in planning a successful integrated marketing campaign is knowledge about the chosen target group. We need to know who they are and what makes them tick. For this short article, let us just give a brief description of the French cafes chosen primary target group.
They are 35 to 50 year old women who are out shopping with their girlfriends. They choose quality of a price they eat out, often, and although they will never admit to it its importance them that they are seen in the right places. This information is also valuable to us in more detailed planning regarding choice of specific media timings and the creation of the actual messages. This will enable us to carry out an effective campaign.
We are also keen on knowing the budget available to us. Let us say that the French cafe has allocated 5000 euros for this campaign. Knowledge about the rest of the marketing mix is also important. The French cafe serves high quality, cakes and desserts, created by educated confectioner’s prices are the level of high-end restaurants. The cafe is run by the owner himself and it’s located in a busy shopping area of the city.
The service and process is of a high standard and the interior matches. This will also guide us in the design of the integrated marketing campaign. So there must be a clear connection between the chosen activities and the objectives. What we want to achieve between the chosen activities in the target group. Will we catch the target group in the right place with the right message between the chosen activities in the budget and finally, we must make sure that the chosen activities, our choice of media and content, supports the rest of the marketing mix.
Another, and perhaps the most central aspect of the integrated approach is whether the different promotional activities are interconnected. Do they support each other? Maybe the different activities are aimed at different parts of the target group. Has timing been considered, or maybe they engage with the target group in different ways in different situations at different times or in different places? Is there perhaps a combination of online and offline activities? Does the combination of activities create synergy? So let us look at the promotional activities suggested by the owner of the French cafe: do they integrate with the objectives the target group budget and the marketing mix? Do the promotional activities interconnect as timing or synergy been considered? We can probably agree that we should be able to come up with a more integrated campaign than this.
So what might we suggest? One idea could be to encourage customers to review their French. Cafe experience not just the cakes, depending on some research on the type groups, media habits, a suitable online platforms such as TripAdvisor or similar could be used. We could prompt the customers to take part when visiting the cafe by personal contact and buy different types of print. We might also encourage them to post a review on selected social media platforms again depending on some research of the target groups – media habits.
In this way we would combine online and offline promotion. We would interact with the target group in various situations, various places and at various times this increases the likely success of an integrated marketing campaign. The allocated budget allows us to do more, so pause the article for a minute and consider what you might suggest in order to fulfill the objectives of this integrated marketing campaign.
We have now established the purpose of an integrated marketing campaign, what it is and why we need to know about it, and we have established that there are many factors about interconnections which we need to look at to ensure our campaign benefits from the synergy of an Integrated marketing communications approach, so let us move on in addition to the factors we have just discussed. We as marketers have some additional tools and theories.
We can use to guide us when creating an integrated marketing campaign. These will not be described in detail in this article, but let us just introduce an overview of some of those tools and theories we might want to use. We could use the framework for designing integrated marketing campaigns to guide us through the process. We should get to know the different promotional tools available to us, such as advertising sales promotions and so on, and we should study the advantages and disadvantages of each tool.
We have many media blogs at our disposal, such as the internet, mobile outdoor print and many others. So we should also investigate them in more detail, including the pros and cons of each. We also need to be very clear on the differences between push and pull strategy, as well as profile positioning strategy. We should learn more about how to create a good message. We might need to involve an ad or a media agency and therefore we would need to create a design brief, also known as a case or campaign brief.
We have now established an understanding of the purpose of integrated marketing campaigns. The different factors that make a campaign integrated and last we have presented an overview of some additional tools and theories available to us when designing an integrated marketing campaign, to learn more about integrated marketing campaigns and how to use the different tools and theories introduced. In this article, I recommend that you read chapter 14 in David Jabba and Fiona illest at wigs principle and practice of marketing manager.
Seventh edition, my name is Tina Wade. Thank you for reading
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