Ok first off what is Marketing Integration? According to Wikipedia Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) is the coordination and integration of all marketing communication tools, avenues, functions and sources within a company into a seamless program that maximizes the impact on consumers and other end users at a minimal cost.
A marketing plan will consist on the following:
1. Situation analysis
2. Marketing objectives
3. Marketing budget
You have to understand what the consumer's wants and needs are. This might or might not be what your wants and needs to sell are. You need to be understanding to the fact that consumer's costs are to be a cost competitive solution to satisfy their needs or wants. It is using a variety of channels working together in harmony to present a unified message with the ability to give feedback and make communication a two-way street.
It is a strategy aimed at unifying different marketing methods and tactics such as mass marketing, one-to-one marketing, social media marketing, telemarketing and direct marketing with an objective being to complement and reinforce the market impact of each used channel, and to employ the market data generated by these efforts in product development, pricing, distribution, customer service.
So you are using 3 or more marketing channels. Wonderful, now let’s get them integrated and working syngeriously.
Integrated Marketing is not just grabbing some marketing tools out of the box and start using them but rather a strategy and implantation plan to coordinate each task in harmony with the other to construct your efforts like the construction of a building. It’s not a series of efforts that once you do them you cross them off the list of things you’ve done, but rather a series of unified efforts of vision, branding, positioning internal coordination and customer communication to propel your efforts better.
1st start by working internally with your own people. If you are big enough to have multiple customer touch points, everyone needs to be on the same page in being able to communicate your companies brand and its desired position in the customer’s mind.
2nd is to leverage your marketing consistently. If you can create a single point of attack message you want to get across to your market you stand a better chance of winning. Have 1 core message and have all channels tie into this one single message.
3rd part to this plan of attack is to standardize the customer experience. Ya, we can’t leave out the customer in all this, they are, after all, the reason we are doing all this marketing stuff, aren’t they? So take the time to evaluate your company’s core message and service / product offerings so at the times of interaction you control the conversation. Work to keep yourself consistent at every level of your company.
4th part of our attack is to consolidate your data. The can be no fiefdoms. Everyone MUST have access to what is happening so they have a part ownership in what is going on. There is no private sales information, there is no secret marketing stuff, there is no privy purchasing knowledge, it’s all for one and one for all. If you make this BIG step you and your company can find greater insights into all the parts of your customer’s experience
5th is to look for ways to be putting social median marketing to work for your company. Online social media marketing has not just captured the interest of consumers but some companies as well. Poke around and find where you fit in best and exploit the knowledge you find out.
You can be improving your prospects and customers experience with you. If you keep your eyes open, get your team working as one and pulling in the same direction. But you are still the boss and it all starts at the top.
Larson Notes & Satire: Yesterday I pulled out a statistic that most marketers are only working Social Media 6 hours or less a week. That in my mind does not cut the mustard. SM is where the people, your prospects, your customers are right now. I don’t care if you are B2B or B2C they are out there on line now.
Now I have been training for a marathon all winter long, and I’m going to tell you there were some days this winter where I just did not want to go out into the cold and run. Then I would think about all the other runners out there who are choosing not to run today and my race and training plan and how doing it now and my competition not running only makes me that much better and them that little farther behind. The same is true with Marketing. Each step you take that your competition does not makes you that much more visible. And in marketing being visible is a good thing. If you think that in a key word search there are only 10 listings on the first page and if you have 1 of those that is 1/10th of the page “real estate”! Get 2 (which when using a good Social Media marketing campaign is not as impossible as it might sound and you start to OWN 1/5th or more of a page. Now the more consistent your message and ALL your sites, your web site and your social media sites the more 1st, 2nd and 3rd page ownership you will start to own.
Just this morning when I did a key word search on just one word “telemarketing” for the very first time my site came up on the 1st page in the local search section! Am I excited or what? Yes like “oh ya baby, its working!”
Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program
Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
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P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.
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