8 steps to integrated marketing communications!

Marketing communication is the communication with customers on behalf of a company or brand’s reputation. It is an important way to break information asymmetry and deliver information of interest to the audience, so it is also called communication value.

Case Study: 2017 Sony Product Launch – A Classic PR Event

Sony held a press conference in 2017. The layout and lighting of the entire venue were very formal and ceremonial. It was also a classic public relations event.

• With a sense of form and value
• Sony's positioning of its products and brand tone

Case Study: Nut Phone Launch Conference - Luo Yonghao's Personal Talk Show

Let’s look at another type, the launch of the Nut phone, which Luo Yonghao made like a personal talk show.

• Before every press conference, the public seems to be looking forward to an entertainment show.
• Reflecting Luo Yonghao's own characteristics (outside Shanhaiguan, everyone is Zhao Benshan)

So let’s take a look at what is integrated marketing communications?

Schulze-Tanleibaum and Lauterborn once proposed the following definition:

Integrated marketing communications is a new way of looking at the whole, where in the past we only saw the individual parts, such as advertising, sales promotion, personal communication, point-of-sale advertising, personal communication, etc. It is the reorganization of communications to make it appear more in line with the way consumers view communications, like a stream of information flowing from an unidentifiable source.

In today's era of highly fragmented attention, highly enriched contact channels, and information overload, integrated marketing has become even more valuable and contemporary.

So how do we accurately grasp integrated marketing communications? The essence of communication is strategic, which means it must be closely aligned with and integrated with the company's market strategy, while the means of implementation are tactical.

However, when doing communication, companies often make efforts at the tactical level but pay insufficient attention to the strategic level, resulting in many tactical activities failing to achieve their original goals. Moreover, the implementation of such tactical activities undermines the achievement of the strategy. This is a fundamental reason why the importance of communication work in the company cannot be effectively enhanced.

So, how to carry out integrated marketing communications systematically?

Eight steps to integrated marketing communications

There are eight steps, including audience confirmation, determining the overall communication goals and the goals of each activity, designing communication strategies, selecting communication channels, determining communication budgets, and finally determining your media mix, then measuring the results after delivery, and overall subsequent management and release.

Here we will focus on four steps, namely determining communication goals, determining strategies, selecting channels, and determining budgets. Today we will take a look at the first step.

Determine communication goals

Before doing anything, think clearly about why you are doing it and what goals you want to achieve. Don't fall into the misunderstanding of methods and approaches, but let methods and approaches serve the goals and the achievement of goals, and do things in a targeted manner.

This may seem long-winded to you, but the problem for many companies is that they ignore this all-too-common problem, so that the results we see are not satisfactory.

What are common communication goals? There are four common communication goals.

Goal 1: Create product demand

When a company launches a new product or promotes product sales growth, it shapes the product's selling points, focuses on promoting certain products and directly targets product sales.

Metric: Product sales

Goal 2: Build brand equity

The overall image of the enterprise and the transmission of intangible values ​​establish the overall values ​​and overall positioning of the enterprise.

Metric: Corporate Image

Goal 3: Continue to strengthen brand attitude

Continuously strengthen the established brand attitude, strengthen customers' favorability and loyalty to the brand, and strengthen the brand's visibility and contemporary influence.

Metric: Brand awareness

Objective 4: Influence consumers’ purchasing intention

Influence consumers' purchasing intention and prompt them to enter the purchasing decision stage as soon as possible.

Metrics: Consumers’ purchasing intention

Communication goals can cover multiple purposes at the same time, but the main purpose should be strengthened.

In the process of communication, many companies jointly cover several of these goals, but no matter what the goals are, you must think clearly before communicating. Is your product based on sales promotion, image building, popularity building, or selling point building? You must be sure of this.

In fact, each goal only states which point in the customer's purchasing process it will focus on. Product demand is more focused on shaping based on selling points; while brand assets tend to convey the overall image. It may not focus on your sales, does not necessarily reflect product discount information, and does not necessarily say how many products the company has.

The third is to continuously strengthen brand attitude. Although we cannot continue to work only around the so-called integrity of your brand in the market, a lot of work is to focus on strengthening the selling points of the product, but in this process you also need to find opportunities to strengthen the brand attitude you have established. For example, whether your brand is aging or forgotten by the market, you need to remind and strengthen it, rather than making your company look like a company full of products. This is a process of trade-offs.

The fourth is to influence the brand’s willingness. For example, when I conduct promotions, it is actually a job to influence consumer willingness. The distribution of discount coupons is actually to influence customers’ willingness to buy and prompt them to enter the decision-making stage as soon as possible.

This is a distinction between different goals. Don't confuse them in this process.

Author: Internet Market Operations

Source: Internet Market Operations