Integrated Marketing Strategy
The power of making your brand heard across multiple channels
“Integrated Marketing Communications is a way of looking at the whole marketing process from the viewpoint of the customer,” goes an insightful quote from Philip Kotler. Taking that insight as a guideline, a brand keen on developing an integrated marketing strategy should keep customers at the centre and ask: ‘Where is our target audience and what are the touchpoints where we can connect with them?’ Once you understand where your TG is, you develop a strategy for connecting with them using those channels. This strategic, collaborative and simultaneous marketing campaign that reaches the TG across multiple channels is called Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC).
Identify the touchpoints and communicate
Two broad categories of channels provide various touchpoints for customers. These are traditional and digital media. Newspapers, magazines, hoardings, bus shelters, TVC, radio, PR, events and others form the offline touchpoints. Website, social media, email marketing, content marketing and others form the digital touchpoints. Ideally, an integrated marketing communication should target all these channels for maximum impact. However, the world is far from ideal and there are always budget constraints. Hence the strategy is in identifying high impact touchpoints that complement each other at optimal cost. Having identified the touchpoints, use the brand strategy architecture to zero in on what you want to communicate to your TG so that the messaging does not appear fragmented across channels.
A day in the life of your TG
When your integrated marketing campaign is on, a day in the life of your TG looks like this: He notices your print ad in the newspaper while sipping his morning tea. He notices the same communication on a hoarding while waiting at a traffic signal on the way to office. While surfing the internet during some free time at office, google shows him your digital communication. While listening to the radio on his way back home, he listens to your radio jingle. At home, while watching his favourite serial, the entire family watches your TVC. Just before he sleeps, as he is scrolling through social media, he comes across your TVC or digital ad. Even if he misses one touchpoint, he won’t be able to miss another. The TG can’t help noticing your brand, and the multi-channel hammering solidifies their memory. That’s the power of Integrated Marketing Strategy.
Integrated Marketing Strategy at HCF
The culture at HCF is to think strategy, no matter how small the creative deliverable. We always ask ourselves, can we extend this creative communication seamlessly to other channels? Can the idea be developed to include other creative campaigns? The result? Our highly successful multi-channel integrated marketing campaigns for brands like Alife, Kalpana Agarbatti, Vasant Masala and Cravon to name a few.
