Online Integrated Marketing Communication Essay Example for Free

Online Integrated Marketing Communication EssayIntegrated marketing dialogue the evolution of a concept The IMC approach has received almost instant recognition at the end of the 1990s, as a result of the existing trends to reduce the budget allocated to mass advertising campaigns and to concentrate on segmented or personalised communion with final consumers. The increased fragmentation of media and customers, as well as the revolution introduced in mass communication by the crude communication channels profits and mobile communication technologies has created the consider for a new approach to marketing communication, that fag insure centralised management and a consonance of corporate messages sent towards various sense of hearings. The concept of IMC was defined in many different, often contradictory, ways Pickton and Broderick (2001) take in that synergy is the principal benefit of bringing together the various facets of marketing communications in a mutually supp ortive way.Definition proposed by Keegan et al. (1992, p. 631) Integrated marketing communications is the strategic co-ordination of all messages and media employ by an government activity to collectively influence its perceived brand value. At the heart of this definition is the speculation that the credibility and value of both the company and its brand(s) will increase, when messages transmitted to various audiences become consistent across time and targets. A nonher definition proposed by Duncan (2002, p. 8) demonstrates the current conceptual perception of IMC A cross-functional process for creating and sustain profitable relationships with customers and other stakeholders by strategically controlling or influencing all messages sent to these groups and encouraging data-driven, businesslike dialogue with them.The notion of stakeholders implies the shift in the IMC concept from customer target audiences to the inclusion of key stakeholder groups such(prenominal) as employe es, investors, suppliers, distributors, media and the social community.The most significant organisation barriers for the implementation of the IMC concept * lack of horizontal communication * functional specialisation * decentralisation * lack of IMC planning and expertise * lack of budget * lack of database engineering * corporate culture and * fear of change.The impact of the internet technology on marketing communication The fast development of the internet in the last ten years has changed the classical communication procedures (Blattberg and Deighton, 1991 Holtz, 1999), because of three limited and co-existent characteristics that differentiate it from any other communication channel * Interactivity. The internet offers multiple possibilities of interactive communication, acting not only as an interface, but also as a communication agent (allowing a have interaction between individuals and software applications). The traditional communication channel was uni-directional, Ev en when communication was considered a nonpartisan process, the institutions had the resources to send information to audiences through a very wide pipeline, while the audiences had only a minor pipeline for communicating back.Now, the communication channel is a network, not a pipeline. Communicators have grasped and even embraced this new proximity, fact demonstrated by the vast number of meshwork sites which display Contact Us buttons and links. However, in most of the cases, these new facilities are not fully used. * Transparency. The information published online can be accessed and viewed by any internet user, unless this information is preciseally protected. * Memory. The weather vane is a channel not only for transfer information, but also for storing information in other words, information published on the web stay in the depot of the network until it is erased.The new realities of how audiences get and use information * The audience is connected to the organisations * The audience is connected to one another * The audience has access to other information * Audiences pull information (info has to be available where audiences can find it, and it must be customizable) Today, we get messages from multiple media channels email, voice mail, faxes, pagers, kiosk phones, interoffice memos, overnight courier packages, television (with hundreds of channels), radio, internet radio, etc. As a result, the media that used to provide an effective channel of communication for practitioners have become now only noise that most of the audiences have intimate to filter outDifferent definitions of IMC Some retail organisations track the interaction between the online user and their web site the time spent by a client on a specific web page can represent an indication of his/her present interest. We use the results provided by our online behaviour bring in system to create personalised promotions targeted to individual customers.The meaning is not simply trans mitted, but has to be negotiated on an individual basis with all(prenominal) online audience. The message needs to be adapted to the specific level of understanding and interpretation of each public, but, on the other hand, has to express the same core organisational values, in order to display a pellucid organisational imageIf the company attempts to reach foreign audiences, the message needs to be adapted to the cultural specificity of the overseas public. This raises important questions regarding the possibility of combine online marketing communication in the global context we often transmit with customers from various cultural and economic backgrounds. In these conditions we must apply a clear segmentation and pose strategy, in order to match the needs of every cultural group with our marketing messages.The specific characteristics of the internet therefore create two conflicting tendencies (1) the fragmentation of audiences and communication contexts requires the custom isation of online marketing messages but (2) the interactivity, transparency and memory of the web necessitates the accordance of communication and the coherence of the transmitted meaningBelow figure presents the place of integrated online marketing communication in the online CRM process of the firm. The customer data/feed-back collected online is used directly to burst design and implement the online integrated marketing communication, which are then targeting selected online audiences. Correctly implemented, the IMC program is a unvarying cycle of gathering data and implementing response-generating marketing communication which is based on previously gathered consumer data.the specific characteristics of the internet are making the implementation of integrated online marketing communication both inevitable and cost-effective for an online organisation. The transparency, interactivity and memory of the internet force the organisation to adopt a proactive-reactive attitude in online communication, and to combine consistency and continuity with flexibility and customisation. These characteristics can be integrated by designing and implementing a specific illustration of integrated online marketing communication.The use of advanced online applications to collect customer data and feed-back information is paramount for the achiever of the online communication campaign (OMalley and Mitussis, 2002). Because of the high interactivity of the internet, the communication process has become a real-time dialogue.Important issues germane(predicate) for the implementation of integrated online marketing communication have not been addressed because of space and methodology limitations. These areas can represent the subject of future research projects investigating the management process of integrated online marketing communication the criteria used for selecting and combing various channels in the online communication mix the relation between the organisation and w eb advertising agencies or the challenges raised by the general integration and co-ordination of online and offline (traditional) communication.