Purpose

An integrated communications marketing plan makes all aspects of an organisation’s communications work together. This combines the obvious advertising, promotions, public relations and marketing components aimed at customers with other less obvious communications tools directed at all stakeholders.

The goal is to create and maintain a consistent brand and message and use them in all communications to leverage marketing efforts. Thus all communications are used to help market the organisation’s products or services.

Method

How does this work? To be effective your marketing must:

• capture the consumer’s attention from your competitors;
• motivate the consumer to purchase; and
• emphasise brand so that the consumer only purchases your product or service.

Your brand is how your organisation, products or services are recognised and, with your key messages, how your organisation is perceived. Your brand symbolises, and should represent, your unique selling proposition.

To leverage your marketing, every opportunity should be used to promote and emphasise your brand. This supports your marketing and promotes sales. The better your brand is recognised the easier it is to sell your product or service.

Supporting your brand and your unique selling proposition

The effects of good practice are subtle and can be hard to attribute to components of your plan but the effects of bad practice are very obvious.

For example, I did some marketing work for a small business in trouble. I soon realised why it was in trouble. Each week I met with the proprietor he wanted to sell a different product using a different business name. He had a sign over the door that was different to his trading name, different again to his website and different to how he answered the phone. All efforts in his marketing were unrelated and therefore undermined by the others. If buyers were uncertain about buying from this business, that lacked a clear unique selling proposition, they would go to a competitor.

An extreme case? Yes! But many of the businesses I see show similar symptoms. Some of their promotional material says they are the cheapest – some says they are the best. Some have said they are both when they are neither.

Businesses need to focus all their communications on supporting and strengthening their unique selling point. For assistance in developing an integrated communications marketing plan contact Madrigal Communications.