Why Integrated Marketing Communications is essential for small businesses

How can integrated marketing communications help the small business owner?

Integrated Marketing Communication is essential for small business owners, because, even more than the big companies can not afford to waste or waste money on a single isolated marketing effort.

For example, as a small business, you may be tempted to focus on one aspect of marketing - a new website, a direct mail campaign, radio ads or as a producer, just letting your market partners for you. However, what happens if a piece of marketing does not work?

ANSWER: Your entire marketing effort fails.

Instead, it would be nice to have an integrated marketing plan that takes the best parts of online marketing such as websites, email newsletters, search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising, and use your efforts to make traditional offline, such as direct mail, advertising and public relations more effective.

For example, this can be as simple as making sure that your site with the same keywords as your radio advertising and banners to your Little League games also have the same message. To internalize a message, a person must be exposed at different times. If they hit three times with three different messages is almost the same as being exposed only once. Even worse, it could be a source of confusion and disorientation, resulting in a negative experience with your brand.

Integrated Marketing Communications solves this problem by creating a plan with a consistent message and then delivered through the media as much as possible, online and offline.

What are the components of an integrated marketing plan?

An Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) plan should draw all the disciplines of communication, including online, offline, and interpersonal.

Online marketing channels include e-marketing campaigns or programs, from Search Engine Optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, affiliate, email, banner to latest web related channels for webinar, blog, RSS, podcasts, and Internet TV . Offline marketing channels are traditional print media (newspapers, magazines), mail, public relations, billboards, radio and television. Interpersonal marketing includes participation in community groups, networking organizations, your handshake, how you dress, and even how to answer or return phone calls.

Although not all disciplines of communication must be included for each country, it is important for any practitioner of integrated marketing to be well versed in the various components so that he or she can choose the most appropriate for the budget of a specific client requests and .

It 's better to go with an agency, or shop for individual services myself?

While both have benefits, an agency can be an advantage if you do not already have a network of trusted service providers including printers, promotional products companies, fairs, etc. designers who are familiar with the company. Often, an agency can get things done for a client faster, more efficiantly and with better quality at the same price or less. Furthermore, as an enterprise must take into consideration the time that can elapse shopping for the best price and read reviews to make sure that the best price does not give you the worst service.

However, the cost of each component should not be your primary concern when evaluating an integrated marketing plan. Instead, look at the cost and benefits the entire work plan together. For example, a web site could cost $ 2,000 to build and then you could spend $ 10,000 on pay-per-click advertising over the next year, but the site content not match the message to your direct mail, or your service customers, people are not able to answer questions about the website, you wasted a lot of money.

Instead, the site does not look like a single entity. Ensure that integrates seamlessly into marketing strategy:

* It is promoted at every opportunity. This includes not only pay-per-click ads, but also on business cards, advertising on radio, even place a sticker on your products let customers know they can download copies of the manuals of the product there, and print receipts on telling customers to download the coupon on the site.

* Develop a newsletter to offer your customers and potential customers news and information can be used - not just a brochure to sell your products.

* Create a blog and allow people to subscribe to it. In this way, build trust and familiarity between your customers and your company. Do not limit your post to the president, sometimes a post from a project manager or even the receptionist can keep the blog interesting and attention grabbing.

* Creation of a competition - but make sure the message is consistent with your marketing strategy integrated. They are people visiting your website to enter.

* If you run an ad promoting a specific service, make sure that customers can find more information on it quickly and easily. Maybe even put a graphic at the top of the page saying "Attention 99.5 listeners, Click here to learn more about Gutter Cleaning"

These are just some examples of how you can integrate your marketing plan and maximize the initial investment that you made with the construction of a website.

There is an integrated marketing communications like any other marketing plan?

A marketing plan may be just a marketing plan for a website or a marketing plan for an advertising campaign, but an integrated marketing communications plan involves all aspects of marketing across the enterprise. This means that they have integrated all aspects of society into a single coherent plan.

After all that could have a big marketing plan web site, an advertising campaign and an impressive award-winning PR agency, but if a client reads a press release or listen to your ad and decides to visit your web site that does not can find more information about your PR or advertising message what is the point of spending money in the first place? ......