Integrated Marketing Communications Analysis

This assignment tasks students with critically analyzing Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). It requires a theoretical review of IMC, focusing on identifying its key drivers and examining their impact. The analysis should delve into the practical implications of IMC and its effectiveness in achieving marketing objectives.

Running head: INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 1
Integrated Marketing Communication
Student Name
Institution
Report on Integrated Marketing Communication for Altium Limited

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 2
Executive Summary
An integrated marketing communication (IMC) is marketing communication strategy that
links various aspects of communication to foster product awareness. IMC plan, therefore, is
marketing communication strategy that looks into various aspects of communication aiming at
increasing product position in the market hence high sales (Newman & Ober, 2013). This is a
marketing communication plan for Altium Limited. Altium Limited is an Australian software
company that has some other branches in other countries such as United States of America,
Netherlands, and Germany (Altium Pty Ltd, 2001). The company mainly deals in circuit marker
software for designing a circuit board for electronic. The plan defines marketing objectives as to
adventure into unreached market widening the company’s market beyond current limit. The
target market is categorized into the industrial electronic market, mechatronic, communication
segments and medical and the segment is local customers, regional customers, and global
segment. The company positioning strategy is shrouded in the statement of being the global
leader in customer-centered software (Chandra & Ulrich, 2014). The business creative idea that
the plan focuses is “Follow your passion, a visual reality” while the message will be “What’s
Your Passion? Try it with Altium”. This marketing plan highlights the communication strategy
mix giving communication mix and media mix as the main areas of focus. Another area of the
plan is a budgetary allocation that is suggested for the IMC plan. The evaluation plans are also
set giving various methods that will be used to evaluate the impact and the success of the IMC
plan upon implementation. To ensure high chances of success, that feedback from some
stakeholders within the company are also incorporated into the plan. Finally, the plan concludes
by making some recommendations to the company.

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 3
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Altium Limited.........................................................................................................................................3
1. Communication objectives..................................................................................................................4
2. Segment and target market.................................................................................................................4
3. The creative idea and message............................................................................................................5
4. Positioning strategy.............................................................................................................................6
5. Communication strategy mix...............................................................................................................6
5.1 Communication mix...........................................................................................................................6
Personal selling....................................................................................................................................7
Product promotion..............................................................................................................................7
Public relation......................................................................................................................................8
Direct marketing..................................................................................................................................8
Event sponsorship...............................................................................................................................8
5.2 Media mix..........................................................................................................................................9
6. Basic budget......................................................................................................................................10
7. Evaluation metrics.............................................................................................................................11
7.1 Social media feedback.....................................................................................................................11
7.2 Website statistics.............................................................................................................................11
7.3 Purchase or sales data.....................................................................................................................12
7.4 Customer rating and customer opinions.........................................................................................12
8. Feedback from owners of the Altium Limited...................................................................................12
8.1 Employee’s feedback.......................................................................................................................13
8.2 Former director feedback..........................................................................................................13
8.3 Feedback from Altium Limited subsidiary........................................................................................13
8.4 Changes based on feedback............................................................................................................14

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 4
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................14
Recommendations.....................................................................................................................................14
Reference..................................................................................................................................................15
Introduction
Integrated marketing communication refers to the marketing communication that
combines many different communication elements. This is a communication strategy that links

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 5
together various marketing mix and advertisement mix. This implies that various communication
methods such as promotional tools, advertisement, personal selling and other disciplines of
marketing communication. Integrated marketing communication ensures that marketing
campaign allows all the marketing methods work in harmony to bring high impact on the product
awareness and sales. An integrated marketing communication plan, therefore, is a marketing
communication strategy that outlines various communications aspects including the possible
budget that is required to implement the plan (Clow & Baack, 2002). The IMC can work better
when designed for the specific company. The paper seeks to develop an IMC plan for Altium
Limited, an Australian software company.
Altium Limited
Altium Limited deals in software and is headquartered in Sydney, Australia though the
company has other branches in united states of America, China, Germany, and Netherlands. The
IMC plan is projecting an increase in the product awareness by more than 20%. Some of the
major focuses of the IMC are communication mix, media mix citing objectives and positioning
strategy for the product. Some of the products of the company include CircuitStudio, Altium
Designer, Vault and TASKING among other more products from Altium (Altium Pty Ltd, 2001).
The company has also acquired many other companies that mainly forms its subsidiaries such as
Accolade Design Automation and Accel (Morris, 2010). The company recently launches a new
product, Altium Designer that is momentarily gaining market and this needs high product
awareness. Therefore the company needs a good marketing communication strategy or plan to
increase the awareness. The following is an integrated marketing communication plan for Altium
Limited (Miller, 2007).

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 6
1. Communication objectives
Altium Limited main communication objective is to adventure into unreached market
widening the company’s market beyond current limit. The objective of the company is to
increase the brand awareness by 20% both locally and globally. To achieve this objective the
company intends to attract the attention of the market that has not been reached by the company
communication within Australia and internationally. This will help the company to reach more
than 20% customers globally while maintaining the already reached market segments (MMC
Learning, 2015).
2. Segment and target market
The market segment for the Altium Limited can be grouped into local customers, regional
customers, and global segment. The market segment for the company’s software products begins
with the local customers that are mainly electronic industry who design various circuits for the
purpose of production. Secondly, the company also seeks to reach regional customers that
dominate the South Pacific Region through our adverts and regional branches offices located in
China for instance (Chandra & Ulrich, 2014). Thirdly, the communication aim to reach global
customers and partners that are spread in some other location such as the United States of
America and this will also be made possible through our base in San Diego, USA.
The segment for the Altium Limited is a mainly industrial electronic market, medical,
mechatronic and communication segments. The organization targets basically small scale
business in Australia, international branches and globally. Firstly, the company targets local
electronic engineers who design electronics circuit. Through this initiative, the company mainly
target institutions of learning that make and design electronic either for learning or through
business. This will ensure that the products are sold to these universities are part of

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 7
communication aim (Venter, Wright & Dibb, 2015). Secondly, local electronic industries are
also our main target market that the communication needs to reach with the expectation of good
feedback. Medical electronic and equipment industries are other growing market that has also
attracted our attention and the adverts will aim to reach this market with the best way possible.
Communication segment is another good market that the company target as the industry is a
larger consumer of software especially the company’s smart studios software (Nagra et al, 2012).
3. The creative idea and message
The creative idea for the communication will be “Follow your passion, a visual reality”.
The company normally has core value statement that is engraved within the statement, Design
with Purpose, create with passion. The main aim of the ideas is to continue the value of passion
for designers. Therefore, the communication aims to fan the flame of passion as opposed to the
carrier among your designers (Moe, 2013). In addition, this idea is meant to encourage customers
to follow their passion until it becomes a reality that can be seen. One of the products that will
form the example of a product is Altium Designers that was recently released by the company.
The message will be “What’s Your Passion? Try it with Altium”. This message is most likely to
encourage customers to try our product while following their passion (Luxton, Reid & Mavondo,
2015). To ensure that the message sinks deeper into the market, the visual element for the
message will have the trial version of the product especially Altium Designer attached to it.
4. Positioning strategy
The positioning strategy of the Altium Limited is based on the statement “Customer’s
centric software development”. Customer-centric software development position will make the
company becomes leading developer of customer oriented software. The company intends to
become a global leader in the software development and this will be facilitated by the customer-

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 8
centered software development. To put this forward the marketing communication is based on
customer-oriented development. The integrated marketing communication plan is meant to
assure customers that the products developed by the company are different from other software
for other company since they factor in customers need more than own need. The market targeted
to place the company in this posting are developers that have minimal development experience
hence assuring that customer that product is based on their needs (Moutinho, 2000).
5. Communication strategy mix
The Altium Limited intends to launch a communication that basically consists of
communication channels and media channels. Some of the major aspects of the communication
mix and media mix. Communication mix elements are advertisements, personal selling, product
promotion, public relation, direct marketing and event sponsorship. Media mix includes
newspapers, social media, television, billboard, and emails (Arens & Michael, 2012).
5.1 Communication mix
Advertisement
The communication mix refers combination of various product marketing
communications elements. Firstly, the advertisement will carry the main message as it touches
nearly all other aspects of the communication mix. Company’s communication team will launch
various adverts both locally and internationally with the aim of reaching nearly all the areas that
the company has not previously reached. The advertisement will be both audio and visual. For
instance, in the social; media the company will display advert that has website link attached to it.
This is meant to allow conversion of both advert views and the real customers or those will to try
our product (Belch, 2014).

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 9
Personal selling
Personal selling will mainly focus on the distribution, retails and sales force to ensure
they promote the product. Customers who order the products will have the software distributed
through the distribution channel and this also gives the salespersons chance to promote the
product and much more from Altium Limited. Secondly, the company’s customer care or
retailers that are based on the various outlets both locally and internationally will market the
product to customers and viewer who visit the website (Bhatia, 2000).
Product promotion
Product promotion is another element of communication mix that will use the already
trial version of software as the promotion to customers. Through the message “What’s Your
Passion? Try it with Altium” the team will allow customers to try the software for a specific
period of time after which the customer will purchase the full version of the product (Clow &
Baack, 2002). The objective of the product promotion is to reach as many new customers as
possible. This initiative will ensure that the main target of 20% awareness is reached within the
shortest time possible. The promotion also targets to retain existing customers through
introducing to the new product that was just released in the year 2017 (Dahl, Low & Eagle,
2015).
Public relation
The public relations department is also integrated within the communication mix and this
is to ensure that the company profile reaches the public. To boost the public relation the
company will use press release and media coverage. The company will frequently invite the
media for coverage in various offices that are not only in Australia but also in places such as a
united state where the company also has a good base. A press release will also be made

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 10
periodically to influence the general public about the product and services available. The overall
aim of the public relations is to take the company abet higher in the public face (Moriarty &
Nancy, 2014).
Direct marketing
The direct marketing communication mix will also form part of the integrated marketing
communication plan. Under this initiative, the company will use emails and direct mails to
customers inviting them to try company’s products. Direct marketing will be tied to the
company’s website and social media pages where viewers are invited to subscribe to new letters
or mail (Habibi et al, 2016). For every user that writes their email address, these customers will
be prompted with product message that appeals to them to try some of the products. Direct mails
and emails are generated with the link that is tied to the website where products are located
(Goldfarb & Tucker, 2010).
Event sponsorship
Though the company has not been participating in various events, the marketing team
will ensure that the team book space in many events on the local platform and internationally.
This will ensure that the products are also marketed to events visitors and awareness is boosted.
For instance, various sports events and trade fairs will be part of the marketing team destinations.
This is meant to boost the company’s awareness through handing promotional products and
printed media to event visitor (Saunders, 2014).
5.2 Media mix
Media mix refers to the combination of various communication channels that will be used
to relay the marketing message to customers. Firstly, the marketing team will launch television
adverts that expected to run not only within Australia but also other major television with global

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 11
reach. The audio part of the advert will be designed to meet the listeners of the radio with the
message retained. This will ensure that the message remains the same to foster impact on the
many radio listeners. Secondly, the message “Follow your passion, a visual reality” is expected
to rock the internet with the encouraging message of “What’s Your Passion? Try it with Altium”.
Another is that the message will dominate is the internet where the company target to reach more
than 15 million users on Facebook alone. There are many online users that open market for the
company’s products. Social media alone has more users than any other platforms in Australia
and globally. The main aim of the media mix is to reach as many potential customers as possible
giving them chance to try products. The primary target is Facebook and Twitter which has the
highest users globally than any other media (Chaffey, 2006). By this, the company will ensure it
reaches more users than any other communication channels. Finally, the message also targets
newspapers in the print media initiative. In addition to the company’s printed papers that will be
released monthly, other public newspapers will also have the message for the product (Kitchen &
Burgmann, 2015).
6. Basic budget
The budget concept considers various elements of marketing communication that include
communication mix, media mix, and other communication elements. This budget can calculate
depending on the period of time. Communication mix has several media that will cost. For instance, the
budget can be for two months expense or quarterly.
Categories Expense
Advertisements National $ 2000
Internationally $ 500

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Personal selling and sales
promotion
Personal selling $ 1700
Media mix $ 1200
Public relations $ 1800
Social media $ 600
Online $ 800
Total $ 8600
7. Evaluation metrics
The performance evaluation is another important aspect of the integrated marketing
communication. Various business metrics are specific to the media and channel for
communication will be applied to measure the success of the awareness strategy.
7.1 Social media feedback
One way to determine the success of the awareness campaigns will be on the social
media feedbacks. Most of the social media allow users to comment or ‘like’ the message after
view. This is one area that the team will use to determine the number of viewers or users reached
by the message. Though this may not be effective in determining users reached the target will
also utilize the new technology used by social media sites that state the profile views. Followers

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 13
of the social media pages or subscribers will also be used to evaluate the number of people that
are reached by the message (Koc, 2002).
7.2 Website statistics
The website has the subscription options that allow users or viewers to subscribe to
mailing or new alert and this also automatically sent mails to clients who write their email
address on the subscription popup page. The higher the number of mails sent to the client, show
the number of people already reached in the initiative. The number of direct mails also indicates
the number of customers reached through direct mail campaign. This will help evaluate the far
the awareness campaign has the reach and its success. The website also has chat platform that is
also incorporated that allow live chat with customer care personnel and this will allow viewers to
ask any questions or assistance from the customer care (Pieters, 2008).
7.3 Purchase or sales data
The number of sales or purchases during the campaign period is also very important for
evaluating the communication success. Personal selling often sells products directly to customers
and the number of customers that buy a product through the company's outlets based in Australia
and another country will be used for evaluation. At the evaluation stage of the campaign, all the
offices and agents will submit data to the project team for evaluation. Moreover, the number of
events sponsored and media coverage will also be used to evaluate the initiative (Verhoef,
Kannan & Inman, 2015).
7.4 Customer rating and customer opinions
Through the company’s outlets, customers and subscribers will be allowed to express
their level of satisfaction. Customer rating will also be used to determine the number of
customers using the product and the number of potential customers reached during the period.

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 14
This is also used to determine the taste or preferences of customers who are ready to use our
products (Laird, 2001). At the personal selling level, the sales force are supposed to interview
customers on their opinion about the product and this is meant to ensure that customers that give
their opinion are reached by an awareness campaign. The moving target also events where the
numbers of customers that give their opinion are a direct number of people reached by the
campaigns.
8. Feedback from owners of the Altium Limited
This plan also includes the feedback from a former director, employees and one current
director of the company who also gave a view of the marketing plan. The Altium Limited
through a number of its employees was assessed on their opinion on the integrated marketing
communication. These feedbacks were collected from various stakeholders within the
organization and assist in evaluating the integrated marketing communication plan.
8.1 Employee’s feedback
The plan sorts view from the employees currently working at the Altium Limited their
opinion on the implementation of the plan. The EMEA Channel Manager indicated that the plan
has a high potential of increasing their product awareness especially outside Australia where the
company currently working to gain more momentum. Moreover, based on its areas of coverage
the campaign will reach a larger market segment as compared to other previous communication
strategies.
8.2 Former director feedback
An interview with former director also cites the success potential of the strategy keeping
in mind the many areas that the campaign is most likely to venture into during the campaign. The
director cites some initiatives that have been implemented in the company though some of them

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 15
show average success and therefore the plan needs to focus on success capability to avoid any
wastage of funds invested in the implementation (Sheehan, 2013).
8.3 Feedback from Altium Limited subsidiary
Morfik is a subsidiary of the Altium Limited, one employee from this organization also
gave feedback. Upon accessing the marketing plan the staff indicated that model product that
will be used during the campaigns should also include products from subsidiaries as this will
ensure that the product portfolio of the company expanded and reach a number of customers. The
plan should consider marketing range of products during the marketing campaigns (Yousofi,
2010).
8.4 Changes based on feedback
From the feedback, it is evident that the marketing plan has high potential in terms of the
awareness campaign. The evaluation aspect of the plan needs some reconsideration as it focuses
mainly on the broader metrics without considering the conversion of people reached to those
people to a number of funds invested in the project. The former director indicated that there is a
number of a campaign that has been used though not all lead to increasing profit to the business
and this need to be considered when implementing. This leaves no doubt but to ensure that the
campaign return can match the funds that were used in its implementation (Nagra et al, 2012).
Conclusion
In conclusion, the integrated marketing communication (IMC) is currently an important
product marketing strategy that links together many marketing strategies in harmony ensuring
good marketing campaign. An IMC plan, therefore, summarizes all the elements of IMC strategy
that include budgetary allocation that can be used upon implementation of the plan. The plan also
factors in the core idea that carries message also about the product. To ensure that the plan is

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 16
workable some stakeholders within the company are also allowed to gives their feedback about
the plan citing any possible changes to the plan. The IMC plan focuses on improving the
customer product awareness by 20%. This is also expected to lead to increasing in sales of both
the model product on campaigns and many other products within the company’s portfolio.
Recommendations
The integrated marketing communication strategy reveals the possibility of increasing the
product awareness by more than 20%. Therefore, the Altium Limited needs to implement the
IMC since the strategy has the potential of reaching both new and old customers within Australia
and globally. To do this the company can apply communication mix spiced by media mix. The
company can adopt the suggested evaluation metrics combined with other feedback mechanisms
based on online platforms that the company uses an evaluation strategy for the plan. The
company needs to focus on advertisement as the major aspect of IMC and also has wider
coverage as compared to other elements of the marketing strategy. Finally, the creative idea of
“Follow your passion, a visual reality” and the message of “What’s Your Passion?, Try it with
Altium” is promising if implemented.

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS (IMC) 17
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