Integrated Marketing Communications Strategies

This assignment delves into the strategic aspects of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC). Students will examine the importance of a cohesive IMC approach, analyze various communication channels, and evaluate the influence of digital marketing. The assignment requires students to develop a comprehensive IMC plan for a hypothetical scenario, incorporating elements like target audience, objectives, strategies, and implementation tactics. It also encourages critical analysis of real-world examples and case studies.

Integrated Marketing Communication 1
[AIB subject title and subject AQF Level]
[Student name]
[Student number]
[Integrated Marketing Communication]
Word count: 3000
1

Integrated Marketing Communication 2
Executive summary
This report addresses creative strategy development of an integrated marketing
communication related to Fircroft. Fircroft has vast experience in placing professionals all
around the globe on contract and permanent basis. Integrated marketing communication
refers to integrating all means of brand promotion to promote products of company to the
target customers. In this method all the aspects of marketing communication are worked
together to increase sales and maximise cost effectiveness. The advertisement and
communication objectives are explained to support business marketing plan. An integrated
marketing communication plan is used to overcome objective and technical issues of
company. The key communication message and creative strategy determines the message of
advertising. The company uses recommended marketing communication tools to support
advertising efforts. It also explains the advantages of integrated marketing communication
plan compared to the current programme of company.
2

Integrated Marketing Communication 3
Table of contents
Contents
Executive summary...............................................................................................................................2
1. Introduction...................................................................................................................................4
2. Advertisement and communication objectives...............................................................................4
2.1 Awareness and education............................................................................................................4
2.2 Appeal.........................................................................................................................................5
2.3 Branding......................................................................................................................................5
3. An integrated marketing communications campaign.........................................................................5
3.1 Digital marketing.........................................................................................................................6
3.2 Direct marketing..........................................................................................................................6
3.3 Public relations............................................................................................................................6
3.4 Personal selling............................................................................................................................7
3.5 Sales promotion...........................................................................................................................7
4. Development of key communication message and creative strategy.............................................7
5. Recommendation of marketing communication tools......................................................................10
6. Advantages of recommended integrated marketing communications campaign compared to the
current campaign.................................................................................................................................11
7. Adequate information about Fircroft...............................................................................................12
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................13
References...........................................................................................................................................14
Appendix 1 – Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) plan........................................................17
Appendix 2 – Contribution of digital marketing..................................................................................17
3

Integrated Marketing Communication 4
1. Introduction
Integrated marketing communication brings together variety of communication tools to
impact on behaviour of customers. Integrated marketing communications is part of
promotions. The central theme behind integrated marketing communications is persuasion.
Persuasion makes people to believe in something or desire to do something. The effective
marketing communication is goal oriented and allied with organisation’s marketing strategy
(Fill &Turnbull, 2016). It also aims to deliver specific messages to the targeted group. It
makes marketing more effective as it more relies on multiple communication tools. Fircroft
places people in the specialist technical industries for contract and permanent basis. The
company is specialist in offering placements in oil and gas industries. It fills job vacancies in
sectors like oil and gas, infrastructure and construction, automotive, petrochemical and
chemical, nuclear and renewables and mining and mineral industries.
2. Advertisement and communication objectives
Advertisement supports to the business marketing plan so that objectives can be united. By
organising all the communication objectives, Fircroft can engage in integrated marketing
communications. The issue faced by company is that it not successful to advertise it’s
services in every country. The advertising is a paid source to reach target markets and getting
done all the required activities (Belch, et. al. 2014).
2.1 Awareness and education
Whenever Fircroft introduces new talent and skill then it is required to inform and educate
prospective customers. Creating awareness is the first step in lifecycle of company when it
enters in the market. The advertising communication objective is used to support public
relations communications objectives to create awareness. The advertisement at this stage is
informal and influences target market for company’s products. It might include broadcast
commercials and a print ad which portrays the image of company and tag lines (Ewing &
Ramaseshan, 2015). The target market for Fircroft is all the companies which hire staff to fill
4

Integrated Marketing Communication 5
vacancies. The company creates awareness through advertisement in such a way that the
customers think of them first at the time of hiring staff. It is deliberated as a low level
communication objective. The Models of response process is useful for the awareness of
products and services. Models of the response process explain the advertising response
process of consumers. It includes the journey of consumers from awareness to purchasing of
products. It includes the stages of awareness like, cognitive, affective and behavioural (Arens,
2004).
2.2 Appeal
The advertisement appeals stimulate a person to buy products and services of a company by
speaking need and interest of customers. The goal of advertisement is to convince customers.
There can be various types of appeals which can be used in advertising such as humour, fear
and emotional appeals. When customers find something humorous, it causes them to watch.
Fear appeals increases interest of customers in ads by creating suspense. The emotional
appeals have approach to convince customers by creating their feelings related to product
(Zabkar, Mumel & Vanita, 2015). Fircroft can make use of appeal in advertisement to
persuade customers. Elaboration likelihood model is useful for a customer as it makes a
customer to pay attention, logical and conscious thinking for decision making. It leads to
change in attitude of customers.
2.3 Branding
Branding involves naming service, creating brand equity so that the brand has positive
perception for customers. It creates brand loyalty and creating brand loyalty enables
repetition of buyers even if the company raises price in future. The advertising
communication objective generates positive feeling about the brand. For instance, the
objective should be communicated to the companies that hiring professional engineers
can result in better productivity (Ang, 2014).
3. An integrated marketing communications campaign
The integrated marketing communication campaign defines Fircroft’s target customers,
objectives, goals, cultural and technical issues. It analyses competitors of the company and
conducts investigation to evaluate effectiveness of company’s marketing strategies. At the
time of planning integrated marketing communication strategy, the company should have
conversation with customers regarding time taken for delivery of service (Šerić, Gil-Saura &
5

Integrated Marketing Communication 6
Ruiz-Molina, 2014). The product life cycle of company is not on the initial stage. It is on the
growth stage. The company is already developed and want to expand service further in more
nations. Fircroft want to generate more awareness as the company has different name in other
nations. The company need to make sure about clarity, direction and consistency of
messages. These factors are going to support company on the behalf of customers to avoid
any confusion about the benefit of company’s service. The integrated marketing
communication campaign diagram has been defined in the appendix 1.
3.1 Digital marketing
The digital marketing tool should be united with advertising messages when the target
market depends on the internet for the service. These are the online promotions. It adds
links to the website of company and Facebook pages in ads. Attracting customers to visit
website of company finds way to interact with them. The social media sites such as
Facebook and twitter builds relationship with customers (Percy, 2014). It is the ideal way
of sharing information about availability of professional engineers. It also encourages
customers to ring in and sharing tips to the services offered by the company. Fircroft can
even advertise on Google, Facebook or yahoo for geographical coverage.
3.2 Direct marketing
Direct marketing can enable Fircroft to communicate straight with the end users. The
tools used for direct marketing are emails, brochures, text messages, promotional letters,
brochures, direct response to television and radio (Armstrong, et. al. 2015). It enables
messages to reach end users directly. The company can utilize direct marketing to reach
target customers. It is going to help company to increases it’s sales. Fircroft is already
developed. The product lifecycle of company is on the growth stage. Direct marketing
can be helpful for company to increase sales.
3.3 Public relations
A third party is permitted for marketing products and services of Fircroft. That person
mentions services of company in their article. Public relation activities are helpful in
promoting brand through press releases, blogs, news, search engines, online news sites,
events and public appearance. The public relationship officer is responsible to present a
company in the best light. The company can make use of sponsorship by sponsoring in an
event to create brand awareness. Sponsorship is used by commercials (Darley, 2016).
6

Integrated Marketing Communication 7
3.4 Personal selling
It is one of the effective tools of integrated marketing communication. It includes sale
appointment and meetings and making presentation to reach customers. It will take place
when Fircroft sells service to customers. It helps in strengthening relationship between the
company and end users (Madhavaram, Badrinarayanan & Bicen, 2016). The following steps
are included in personal selling, prospecting, making first contact, sales call, objection
handling and closing sale. Prospecting helps company to find the prospective contacts. The
first contact can be established with the potential contacts through calls, email and messages
(Luxton, Reid & Mavondo, 2015). An appointment is essential to convert perspective
customers in real. In sales call Fircroft shares the uniqueness of their service to customers.
Before expecting customers to invest in brand, it is essential that the company itself be
convinced with the service of company. The company handles customer’s query in the part of
objection handling. Time should be given to customers before closing the sale.
3.5 Sales promotion
Fircroft can promote brand by discount coupons, membership, incentives, profitable schemes,
loyalty points and attractive packages. These techniques can be helpful for company in the
growth stage. The company can also promote through newspaper inserts, displays, banners,
samples, coupons or demos (Csikosova, Antošová & Čulková, 2014). It is used to speed up
short term sales by creating brand awareness.
4. Development of key communication message and creative strategy
The key messages are core communications which a company want to set in in the mind of
consumers. The creative strategy determines the message of advertising and how message
will be executed or how an advertisement campaign needs the advertising objectives of the
business. It defines the strategic choice required to develop marketing message. The
important part of creative strategy is to decide the campaign theme which becomes the major
selling idea of advertisement campaign (Blakeman, 2018). The idea behind creative strategy
is to strategic and creative. The creative strategy defines what a company defines about it’s
products and services. It also explains how a company want customers to think about brand.
The key messages are part of communication. The process of developing key communication
message:
7

Integrated Marketing Communication 8
Why company needs key message: Messages are the words a company want to deliver
customers. The message helps to focus on communication. It focuses on the effective
frequency that is the advertisement has to be seen multiple times before a consumer notices
and responds by showing interest to buy. The advertisement should be keep repeating
because the company says it tenth time may be the first customer has heard it. Repetition is
the key part of framing. If the need arises the company has to say hundred times (Ashley &
Tuten, 2015). The company have to stick with the idea or the message trying to communicate
customers.
Creating key message: When the key messages are created it is made sure that they are clear,
concise and consistent. The key message should be clear, relevant, and free of jargon and
without any technical language. It should be in brief and key message should be delivered in
7-8 seconds. The message should be reliable and repeated. The message should be unique and
grab attention. The key message should have a purpose behind it. The key message of fircroft
is “Connecting people to power the world”. It is the first impression so it should leave a
positive impact. The language should be easy to understand so that it can be accessible to
largest crowd.
Development of creative strategy: It is the formal procedure for creating productivity and
innovating output.
Appeal: The message should have appeal that is an idea to motivate audiences to repeat. The
idea is all about to creatively and influentially communicate message to the target audience. It
is message strategy.
Clarify primary objective: Firstly the company tries to solve the primary problem. It should
be kept simple as it cannot be solved in one or two sentences. As in case of Fircroft, the
objective is to increase sales along with building brand awareness and services. The objective
should not only be limited to increase sales. The company should have a vision to increase
sales by 40%.
Define target audience: Fircroft target companies that require fresh talent. The company
guide the customers through the hiring process. It involves the stages a consumer goes to hire
service and designing promotion strategy to capture attention of consumers. Once a company
decides method of promotion, it can decide the further approach (Keller, 2016).
8

Integrated Marketing Communication 9
Call to action: It is the important part of creative strategy. It decides action of customers by
putting impact of visual ads. It asks audience to remember something. The company is not
improving it’s bottom line if it does not ask audience to do something. It decides the next step
of what target audience is going to take. It enables customers to hire professionals from
company.
Break down offer: By this point the company has stated what it wants to do. It has defined
what it expects from the target audience and what it wants them to do. This point defines
what a company should do to respond their products and services (Parente & Strausbaugh-
Hutchinson, 2014). It helps to break down offer of company into features. These features help
to improve life of consumers. Example of features with benefits:
 Branches in local market: The customers do not have to waste time to find a branch.
 24/7 phone support: The customers can talk at the support centres whenever they need
help.
 No payment for 90 days: It’s just like getting free service for 3 months.
List media channels: Fircroft can use marketing media like digital marketing, public relations,
personal selling and direct marketing as a part of campaign. The customers make use of more
than one agency to get expertise in various areas. It is beneficial for the company to know
other agencies as well so that association can be done with other contributing partners.
Provide budget: The important part of information is marketing budget for the campaign.
More money is invested on campaigns because senior management likes creative kind of
advertisement. It is important to share amount of budget on the front end because every phase
of campaign is forced by the amount of money available (Valos, et. al. 2016). It is waste of
time and money not discussing budget with the front end.
Attach relevant reference material: Fircroft can include a set of relevant reference material to
avoid scenarios such as the idea used in different promotion and similar concept used by
competitors. From data and research features can be inserted in the documents of company.
The company is required to inform agencies about the research available. The company’s
website also helps in advertising as it shows the vacancies desired by company (Baines, Fill
& Page, 2013).
9

Integrated Marketing Communication 10
5. Recommendation of marketing communication tools
The marketing communication tools such as digital marketing and public relations are
suggested to support advertising efforts.
Digital marketing: The digital marketing refers to the marketing through various digital
channels. It is the modern communication tool of marketing. It is effective for Fircroft to use
digital and widespread marketing with just one click. It has massive approach like the social
sites such as Google, Facebook displays ads. These are paid ads and are paid for every
repetition. Digital marketing also includes online job sites such as LinkedIn. Fircroft can put
job vacancies on LinkedIn and desired companies can contact. The digital marketing is a
good and innovating approach for company to reach customers. The youth is already active
digitally so it is an efficient communication tool to achieve goals of company. The company
can also make use of digital marketing by advertising on it’s website. E mail is also the
quickest and direct method to reach customers with critical information. The customers are
updated to their emails. The email campaigns can help company to succeed but it should be
trustworthy, relevant and informative. Mobile applications can also be used by Fircroft in
which can help in providing professionals according to the sections divided based on the
skills and experience. Digital marketing is more successful and innovating than the current
effort of company as currently it does not rely on digital media. It contacts itself to companies
for vacancies which is actually very time consuming and next to possible (Clow, 2004).
Figure 1: The contribution of digital communication as an IMC plan
10

Integrated Marketing Communication 11
(Explanation is given below in the appendix 2)
Public relations: Fircroft can use public relation tools and activities to promote products and
services of company effectively. It can promote positive attitude and behaviour of customers
towards company. This tool is cost effective and gives a greater degree of control than other
targeting campaigns. It can help company to build reputation. It helps to promote idea and
convinces customers to purchase products of company. It can actually help in building
beneficial relationship between company and public (Seitel, 2017). It is way farer than the
current efforts of company as it can help company to give shape the way wanted. The
company do not use public relations and is not able to expand it’s service in every nation. The
current strategy is not helping company to face challenge of advertising and promotion in
every country to enhance sales. The public relation person can actually help company in
promoting it’s service. It can help to protect and build reputation through media and self-
produced communications. The public relation persons can promote service of company by
mentioning opinion of the service in their experience, trade magazines, and articles or by
issuing a press release. It is rare source of communication that Fircroft can use to enhance it’s
services (Jones, 2016).
6. Advantages of recommended integrated marketing communications campaign
compared to the current campaign
Integrated marketing communication is the most powerful form of marketing and includes
digital marketing, direct marketing, public relations and sales promotions. The current
campaign of company includes broadcast and print to communicate with target market
(Kitchen & Burgmann, 2015). The integrated marketing communication has advantages over
current campaign in these terms:
Develops trust: Trust is everything now days in marketing. Most of the customers
recommend company they trust to others. The trust can be gained by consistency and
reliability (Blythe, 2006). By providing customers what they want at desired time can help to
build trust. By providing service through public relations can actually help in building trust
personally as the public relation person provides the reliable and consistent information.
11

Integrated Marketing Communication 12
Brand recognition: The integrated marketing tools drive brand recognition by sales
promotion. It gives recognition and promotes brand by discount coupons, distributing sample
packages, incentives, attractive packages, demos and coupons. Sales promotion scheme
speeds up the sales of company by creating brand awareness (Turner, 2017).
Cost saving: Integrated marketing communication is a lean approach where the company can
save cost of staffing by putting vacancies on social media. It is more effective and cost of
campaign can be reduced as the transactional costs are very less.
Focus: The integrated marketing campaign is more focused internally and externally. It
focuses better by direct marketing such as email, text messages, brochures, promotional
letters, direct response to television and radio (Trenholm, 2017).
Increased revenue: The companies using integrated marketing communication tools enjoy
competitive advantage. It may result in doubling sales every year as the customers respond
better and familiarly with digital marketing and personal selling (Vernuccio & Ceccotti,
2015). Hence it increases the revenue of company.
7. Adequate information about Fircroft
Fircroft places people in the specialist technical industries by providing mid to senior level
engineers on contract or permanent basis. The speciality Of Fircroft is oil and gas and the
company have vast experience in placing professionals with largest companies of the world.
The company has over 10,000 contractors around the globe. Fircroft has offices in the
specific locations worldwide. It also fills permanent job vacancies. It also has contractor
recruitment worldwide. It serves important clients throughout UK by providing service in
power and energy industries. The company is capable to satisfy global power and energy
project supplies. The company matches the client needs by providing fresh talent. The
company also offers integrated and market leading information and communication
technology service to the industries. It provides differentiated services and client focused
solutions. Fircroft has strong connections with the high-status OEMs and is constantly
growing in the automotive sector. It understands the requirements of prominent automotive
manufacturers and supplies to Bentley Motors from last 9 years. The major automotive
clients are Jaguar Land Rover and Bentley motors. The company’s office of Australia and
Canada serves to the world’s largest mining and mineral projects. The increasing number of
offices in world is supporting mining and mineral industries. Fircroft has good understanding
12

Integrated Marketing Communication 13
of infrastructure and construction sector and contributes effectively towards it. The company
supports professionals by building skills and fulfilling their potential with the work culture
which suits them. It has award winning approach towards workforce solutions.
Conclusion
From the above report it can be concluded that integrated marketing campaign is much
effective than the current campaign of Fircroft. The integrated marketing communication
campaign can help company to face it’s challenge of advertisement and promotion in every
country. By following the current strategy of company the challenge cannot enhance sales of
company. The company can lead it’s functions successfully by adopting marketing
communication tools such as digital marketing, direct selling, public relations, personal
selling and sales promotion. The company can positively achieve goals by development of
key communication strategy and creative strategy. From the above communication tools,
digital marketing and personal selling can be used effectively for the advertisement and
promotions.
13

Integrated Marketing Communication 14
References
Ang, L., 2014. Principles of integrated marketing communications. Cambridge University
Press.
Arens, W.F., 2004. Contemporary advertising. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015. Marketing: an introduction.
Pearson Education.
Ashley, C. and Tuten, T., 2015. Creative strategies in social media marketing: An exploratory
study of branded social content and consumer engagement. Psychology & Marketing, 32(1),
pp.15-27.
Baines, P., Fill, C. and Page, K., 2013. Essentials of marketing. Oxford University Press.
Belch, G.E., Belch, M.A., Kerr, G.F. and Powell, I., 2014. Advertising: An integrated
marketing communication perspective. McGraw-Hill Education.
Blakeman, R., 2018. Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to
implementation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Blythe, J., 2006. Principles & practice of marketing. Cengage Learning EMEA.
Clow, K.E., 2004. Integrated advertising, promotion, and marketing communications.
Pearson Education India.
Csikosova, A., Antošová, M. and Čulková, K., 2014. Strategy in direct and interactive
marketing and integrated marketing communications. Procedia-Social and Behavioral
Sciences, 116, pp.1615-1619.
Darley, W.K., 2016. Brand Building via Integrated Marketing Communications. The
Routledge Companion to Contemporary Brand Management, pp.201-217.
Ewing, M.T. and Ramaseshan, B., 2015. Integrated marketing communications: Conflicts of
interest, politics and performance. In Proceedings of the 1998 Academy of Marketing Science
(AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 265-272). Springer, Cham.
Fill, C. and Turnbull, S.L., 2016. Marketing communications: brands, experiences and
participation. Pearson.
14

Integrated Marketing Communication 15
Jones, B.A., 2016. A Comparative Analysis of Curriculum Content Among Undergraduate
Integrated Marketing Communications Programs (Doctoral dissertation, University of
Mississippi).
Keller, K.L., 2016. Unlocking the power of integrated marketing communications: How
integrated is your IMC program?. Journal of Advertising, 45(3), pp.286-301.
Kitchen, P.J. and Burgmann, I., 2015. Integrated marketing communication: Making it work
at a strategic level. Journal of Business Strategy, 36(4), pp.34-39.
Luxton, S., Reid, M. and Mavondo, F., 2015. Integrated marketing communication capability
and brand performance. Journal of Advertising, 44(1), pp.37-46.
Madhavaram, S., Badrinarayanan, V. and Bicen, P., 2016. Integrated Marketing
Communication (IMC): Conceptual and Theoretical Lacunae, Foundational Premises, and
Framework. In Celebrating America’s Pastimes: Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and
Marketing? (pp. 335-336). Springer, Cham.
Parente, D. and Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, K., 2014. Advertising campaign strategy: A guide
to marketing communication plans. Cengage Learning.
Percy, L., 2014. Strategic integrated marketing communications. Routledge.
Seitel, F.P., 2017. Practice of Public Relations. Pearson Education.
Šerić, M., Gil-Saura, I. and Ruiz-Molina, M.E., 2014. How can integrated marketing
communications and advanced technology influence the creation of customer-based brand
equity? Evidence from the hospitality industry. International Journal of Hospitality
Management, 39, pp.144-156.
Trenholm, S., 2017. Thinking through communication: An introduction to the study of human
communication. Routledge.
Turner, P., 2017. Implementing integrated marketing communications (IMC) through major
event ambassadors. European Journal of Marketing, 51(3), pp.605-626.
Valos, M.J., Haji Habibi, F., Casidy, R., Driesener, C.B. and Maplestone, V.L., 2016.
Exploring the integration of social media within integrated marketing communication
15

Integrated Marketing Communication 16
frameworks: Perspectives of services marketers. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 34(1),
pp.19-40.
Vernuccio, M. and Ceccotti, F., 2015. Strategic and organisational challenges in the
integrated marketing communication paradigm shift: A holistic vision. European
Management Journal, 33(6), pp.438-449.
Zabkar, V., Mumel, D. and Vanita, N., 2015. Is Management Involvement in Integrated
Marketing Communications Reasonable?. In Advances in Advertising Research (Vol. V)(pp.
283-294). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.
16

Integrated Marketing Communication 17
Appendix 1 – Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) plan
Appendix 2 – Contribution of digital marketing
As given in the figure above contribution of digital marketing in the marketing
communication plan has increased over time. The customers respond well through digital
marketing. LinkedIn is a popular job site and got the most response that is 58% in2015 and
75% in 2016. YouTube also showed good percentage in terms of response and is equally
popular. Facebook is the popular social site and shows average response to the company.
Google+ is also a good option to attain it’s objective.
17