In this powerful word of business, communication plays a pivotal role. And that is where IMC comes in. Integrated Marketing Communication, or IMC.
As most people call it, is the plan that almost every business uses to link up their communication across all social media platforms to reach their targeted audience.
Learning about IMC is crucial for all MBA students majoring in Marketing. However, sometimes, they need help developing an IMC plan, especially when required to do an assignment on this.
These objectives frequently include expanding demographic reach, keeping consumers, converting leads, and developing brand champions. Therefore, this guide will make it easier for them as the steps below are crucial and required when developing a strong IMC plan for MBA Assignment writing.
7 Steps Required For Developing An IMC Plan
IMC is an important plan for brand-building as it helps reach the target audience of a particular brand across all social media platforms. Hence, creating IMC requires certain important steps, and with them, IMC would work. The 7 crucial steps that every business must follow, and you should also involve them in your MBA assignment writing.
1. Know Your Target Audience
The priority step while creating an IMC plan for any business is understanding its target audience. Any organization wants to know what kind of audience is interested in its products and services.
Therefore, always analyze your buyer persona, previous sales history, and marketing data like conversion rate. Also, consider demographic factors like age, gender, income, race, education level, and geographic location.
Also, look for behavioral and psychological traits like hobbies, interests, and values. Take your time to understand what kind of audience you want to target.
You can also research your current clients, like what they prefer and why they chose your services or products.
2. Identify Your USP
A unique selling proposition or USP is important in developing an Integrated Marketing Plan. When a company identifies its unique selling proposition or USP, it helps reach its target audience and expand its products or services to new markets.
A business needs to know what differentiates them from their competitors and how they can make their products stand out. Such elements can include different pricing strategies, additional functions to the existing products, etc. Moreover, they can increase their conversion rates and demand for their products or services.
3. Set Up Smart Goals
The third step when it comes to developing an IMC plan is to set clear objectives. Ask yourself what you want. It can be anything like building brand awareness, developing good customer relationships, expanding the reach driving the revenue, etc.
Once you have cleared these questions, convert them into SMART marketing goals. Ensure your goals are detailed enough to identify opportunities, threats, and issues easily.
Furthermore, select goals with quantitative and qualitative metrics that are easily applicable. Also, ensure that your actions are reliable and applicable to different marketing strategies. Lastly, make sure to set some milestones so that you can easily see your achievements.
4. Define Your Marketing Communication Methods
Marketing communication is also important when you are planning IMC. But it is only possible if your objectives are clear. There are some factors to consider while choosing your communication methods
- Select the channel to promote your products and services. There are many communication channels available for you to showcase your content, generate leads, etc. So, try choosing the correct one as through this you are going to attract customers.
- Secondly, the message tone and style you choose while communicating are also important. Therefore, select the tone and conversation style that fits perfectly with your needs.
- When it comes to targeting your products, it is also important to identify your target audience and how frequently you will target your customers. Furthermore, you would also have to select how you will receive customer feedback.
- While marketing and advertising is important for business, selecting a proper platform where they will market their products is also important. Therefore, determine what platforms your clients prefer. For example, whether or not they like receiving mail, etc.
5. Maintain a Proper And Attractive Brand Element.
Your brand is your identity, and even though this step seems less important, it still plays a crucial part in attracting customers. , therefore, always ensure that your brand and brand elements are always in the correct form.
Make sure that you speak to your customers, from your logo to your business cards, in a relevant manner. Also, they should represent your USP and brand identity. Also, choosing the correct logo design and color palette for your brand is better, etc. This will showcase how passionate you are about your brand.
If you are going for a low-cost option, do not mislead them by showcasing a premium brand. Moreover, ensure your brand element is maintained throughout the marketing phases and even after that.
6. Manage Leads And Client Data
Now that you have identified your target audience, set clear goals, developed a brand element, and chosen your marketing communication, you need to organize your client data.
CRM, or customer relationship management, is a database where you can store information about your clients, their contacts, records, emails, etc., to streamline and scale your sales easily. Moreover, you can easily understand your clients and close more leads through this.
7. Evaluate and Monitor
Now that you have completed all six steps, it’s time for you to evaluate and monitor them. No marketing plan is completed without monitoring. Use a robust mechanism to evaluate your marketing plans.
Ask yourself questions like, are the objectives being met? Are the marketing communication methods effective? Are leads being generated? Is the message clear to the audience? Etc.
Moreover, use integrated methods to track down the progress of every communication channel.
Conclusion
The IMC plan is important in developing a strong brand presence and standing out among competitors. But not all IMC plans work.
An Integrated Marketing Communication plan requires proper steps to make it work. Therefore, remember the seven steps mentioned earlier while making an IMC plan. They will help your business expand.
