INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PROCESS & PLAN

Transcription

1 INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PROCESS & PLAN NAVIGATING INDUSTRY BEST PRACTICES AND GUIDELINES By Rebecca L. Cooney, MSC Clinical Assistant Professor Washington State University Integrated marketing communications is a way for organizations to conceptualize, design, execute and measure the effectiveness of core brand and message strategies or campaigns that are consistent in look, message and feel across multiple channels

2 Infographic from SketchBubble

3 INTEGRATED MARKETING With the rise in importance of social media and online PR, we re seeing more companies change their method of budgeting, reporting and investing in media to reflect the types of sites where audiences spend their time online. The trend is towards a review of investments in the 3 main media buckets of earned, shared and paid which each give opportunities to influence customers. Dave Chaffey, Smart Insights

4 IMC PLANNING PROCESS (1) Foundation: Lay the foundation including core brand and message strategy, customer needs/attitudes/beliefs assessment and competitor review. (2) Situation Analysis: Preliminary research, SWOT, competitor review) (3) Audience: Define target audiences (4) Descriptors: Settle on vivid descriptors (USPs) (5) Geography: Refine the organization s target geography (6) Goals: Establish marketing goals (7) Plans: Write marketing action plans (8) Assembly: Assemble and edit the plan (9) Execute: Execute the plan and evaluate (monitor, adjust and report findings IMC plans can be short or longterm and specific to campaigns or overall company strategic goals. They are considered a living document and therefore monitored and referred to frequently by the marketing team and stakeholders.

5 COMPONENTS OF IMC 1) Foundation: audience analysis, target geography, brand, core messaging 2) Corporate culture: Shared values, attitudes, standards, and beliefs that characterize members of an organization and define its nature 3) Brand focus: A strong brand is memorable, repeatable and reproducible, implies real and perceived value, evokes a positive emotional response and serves as the center of organizational purpose 5) Communication tools: Earned, owned, paid media - mix of media as vehicles for delivering core messages and visual assets to their audience. 6) Promotional tools: Tools contribute a different way to reach customers and achieve communication objectives 7) Integration tools: Tools to monitor, track, modify and report on the progress, success or setbacks of their IMC strategy 4) Customer Experience: Customer decision process (awareness > advocacy)

6 The Integrated Marketing Communications Plan

7 1. Executive Summary 2. Problem Statement 3. Organizational Profile (company background, positioning statement, 5W s, situation analysis - current state, preliminary research, communications audit, SWOT, competitive analysis) 4. Marketing Objectives 5. Target Market and Target Audience 6. Strategies and Tactics (PR, grassroots, marketing, promotions, digital content (web and social media)) 7. Core Campaign Messages (brand platform, customer decision process, content strategy and storytelling) 8. Company Visual Identity 9. Company Digital Assets 10. Resource Impact 11. Budget Implications 12. Timeline for planning, implementation and evaluation 13. Monitoring, Metrics and Reporting SAMPLE IMC PLAN OUTLINE The goal of an integrated marketing communications plan is cohesion creating, implementing and measuring a series of earned, owned and paid messages, visuals and tactics that are consistent in look, message and feel across all channels.

8 PLAN BREAKDOWN (1) Executive Summary: Although the first thing you read in the IMC plan, it is typically written at the end of a campaign. Summary of the goals, execution plan and desired results of an integrated marketing campaign. Includes highlights of what was known before the campaign was launched, what was sought to learn, what was discovered during the campaign and a closing sentence that transitions the reader into the plan itself. Other potential areas of content include overall problems/opportunities addressed in the campaign, results of market research, recommendations and measurement metrics. (2) Problem Statement: Description of the brand and marketing issues faced by the organization stated in terms of underlying causes and framed in a way that leads to solution.

9 PLAN BREAKDOWN a. Company background (brief history of the organization) b. Company positioning statement: Connects your topic focus with those who want to engage with you. It articulates what they value and differentiates them from their competition. Key components include who you are, what you offer, your purpose, contributions, your impact and benefits. c. 5W s: Who Who is your audience? Who will you communicate with? Who do you want to sell to? Why Why does this company exist? What is your core purpose? What What do you offer? Products? Services? Innovations? Solutions? Where Are you local? Global? What is your industry? How How are you going to engage with your customers/audience? (3) Organizational Profile: A snapshot of your organization, the key influences on how it operates, and the key challenges it faces. It is the most appropriate starting point for self-assessment and for writing an application It helps you identify gaps in key information and focus on key performance requirements and results. Investor Words

10 PLAN BREAKDOWN The Situation Analysis section tells a story, or paints a picture, of what the brand is facing (relative successes, pitfalls, barriers). Company background (its high-level story of purpose, vision, longevity) Competition (who are they up against in the marketplace and beyond) Consumer (who buys, uses or otherwise partakes or cares about the company or product. What is their demographic profile?) Market conditions (what is the state of the industry this company falls within? Economic strength? Bad press? Popularity?) (4) Situation Analysis: The process of identifying and evaluating existing internal and external elements that may impact an organization's ability to achieve its objectives. Investor Words

11 Current state (report on where they are today) Preliminary research looking at defined markets, regional competitors, market saturation and size, essential core competencies and audience demand, reasonable price points, etc. Communications audit (taking stock of what materials, photos, documents and channels already exist): SWOT Analysis: The strengths and weaknesses of an organization revolve around resources such as sales and profitability, mission and vision, organization s orientation, finances, technology, human resources, market share, and sales trends. The opportunities and threats in an environment are those forces that may affect the organization and its IMC execution. (Jugenheimer and Kelley, 2010) COMPONENTS of the Situation Analysis (4) Situation Analysis continued : Current state Preliminary research Communications audit SWOT analysis Competitive analysis

12 PLAN BREAKDOWN (5) Marketing Objectives: Set the tone Should be specific, measurable and used throughout the rest of the plan to achieve alignment of overall goals Should not focus on sales but rather communication objectives such as increase web traffic by 20% or increase submissions of request information form by 10% Includes Marketing Action Plans (MAPs) outlining the activities that are designed to accomplish goals and answers who does what and when, target audience, associated cost, timeline and resources (6) Target Market: As part of the pre-writing and research process, practitioners must define the organization s publics or constituencies. Each public is a group of people with similar characteristics (demographics or psychographic) that can help meet organization and campaign objectives, provide barriers to achievement or otherwise hurt the organization or reputation.

13 PLAN BREAKDOWN (8) Core Campaign Messages: The ultimate goal with campaign messages is to achieve consistency across all channels repurposing core campaign message throughout all digital and print materials. Brand Platform (brand position, brand promise, brand drivers, brand personality) Customer Decision Process Narrative Formula & Narrative Platform: Telling the story of the brand and story of the product or service they are promoting. The ultimate goal is to create connection and inspire engagement and action. (9) Company Visual Identity: Logo and icon Color palette Font suite

14 PLAN BREAKDOWN Types of digital assets (Widen, n.d.): Product images Lifestyle photography Logos Illustrations Animations Audio & video clips, Presentations Page files (pdfs, jpegs) Office documents and spreadsheets CAD files (10) Company Digital Assets: A digital asset is any form of content and/or media that have been formatted into a binary source which include the right to use it. A digital file without the right to use it is not an asset. Digital assets are categorized in three major groups which may be defined as textual content (digital assets), images (media assets) and multimedia (media assets) a combination of different content forms. - A.J. van Niekerk

15 PLAN BREAKDOWN (11) Resource impact (12) Budget implications (13) Timeline (14) Monitoring, metrics and reporting Includes writers, designers, and other support staff. The main considerations for resource impact involve an evaluation of who is available and qualified internally vs. who needs to be hired (internally, freelance or contracted vendor) Includes a snapshot of anticipated hard and associated costs related to labor and production Established timeline for planning, implementation and evaluation Organizations review the metrics (user behavior) behind online advertising, customer engagement keyword effectiveness, site analytics and success and adjust accordingly to increase audience engagement and maximize budget.