What are the 4 key points in planning and managing marketing communications?

Marketing managers in the past drew strict boundaries between marketing and promotion functions. The company plans and manages marketing and promotional activities with separate budgets.

Here the company fails to understand that various marketing and promotional efforts must be coordinated in order to carry out the communication function effectively and to provide a consistent image to the market.

Integrated marketing communication (IMC)

Currently companies are starting to move towards a process called integrated marketing communication (IMC), which includes coordination efforts of various promotional elements and other marketing activities (Morissan, 2008).

According to (Chitty, Barker and Shimp, 2008) IMC is a process that includes planning, implementation, integration, and implementation of various forms of marketing communication such as advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, sponsorship and publicity, as well as direct marketing that delivers to the target and prospects for the company's customers.

According to (Shimp, 2008) IMC is a process of developing and implementing a persuasive form of program to customers and prospective customers on an ongoing basis. The purpose of IMC is to influence or have a direct effect on the behavior of its target audience.

The American Association of Advertsing Agencies developed a definition of integrated marketing communications, which is a concept of marketing communications planning that evaluates strategic messages from various communication disciplines. Marketing communication as a concept that aims to add value to a comprehensive planning that is able to evaluate the strategic role of various communication tools, with the aim of providing clarity, consistency and optimal communication impact.

For example: advertising marketing, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations and combining these promotional tools to provide an explanation for consistency and maximizing the impact of communication (Belch and Belch, 2012). A marketing relationship includes the creation, maintenance and enrichment of long-term relationships with customers and other interested parties.  The main task of a market-oriented company is in order to build and maintain a relationship or relationship with its customers, so for this purpose, marketing communications are needed. The marketing communication design should be integrated appropriately in the sense that it can coordinate all promotional elements used and all other marketing activities, so that all activities and marketing elements used by the company can convey the same message to customers.
For example: advertising marketing, direct marketing, sales promotion, public relations and combining these promotional tools to provide an explanation for consistency and maximizing the impact of communication (Belch and Belch, 2012). A marketing relationship includes the creation, maintenance and enrichment of long-term relationships with customers and other interested parties.

The main task of a market-oriented company is in order to build and maintain a relationship or relationship with its customers, so for this purpose, marketing communications are needed. The marketing communication design should be integrated appropriately in the sense that it can coordinate all promotional elements used and all other marketing activities, so that all activities and marketing elements used by the company can convey the same message to customers.


Purpose of marketing communications

In line with this explanation, marketing communications aims to direct all marketing activities and promotional activities carried out in order to have consistency, unity in the message and image conveyed to customers. Thus whatever the company says and does will communicate the same message and positioning to customers.

4 points in planning and managing a marketing communication program

In order for the above to be achieved, there are some basic things that need to be done when planning and managing a marketing communication program, namely:
  1. select the target marketing audience or message recipients,
  2. establish a positioning,
  3. determine the source of the message and
  4. plan the right marketing communication media.