Integrated Marketing Communication in Retail Marketing. MBA Marketing study material

There are numerous ways of planning the strategies for the retailers to communicate effectively with their customers. At the outset, the tactics which retailers are using to make an effective communication with the people are the tools of integrated marketing communication in a retail marketing environment. Let’s get first to know what is marketing communication?

What is Marketing Communication?

Marketing communication refers to the means implemented by marketer or retailer to strokes the marketing efforts like advertising, public relation, sales promotion, campaigning, publicity etc. to convey the information about the product or service either directly or indirectly to the customers with intention of sales.

It’s nothing but the exchange of information about the product or service and makes aware of the brand, organization and its policies. It is also a part of getting a feedback in the form of information from the customers.

What is Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC)?

Integrated Marketing Communication is a strategically planned process to ensure the implementation of marketing efforts are linked together to reach the overall marketing goal.

It’s important for retailers to convey a right message to the right target market and receiving a right feedback from the customers and it is possible only through integrated marketing communication. It is nothing but the integrating the marketing or promotional tools while applying the communication efforts to customers.

 Integrated Marketing Communication Tools:

·         Advertising:

Advertising is a non-personal tool of promotion to communicate with the target market to persuade them for buying the products or services. It is a paid form of marketing through which retailers can convey the message about the brand, product, and organization overall. Advertising mainly focuses on attracting new customers by outlining a target market. TV Advertising, radio advertising, banners are commonly used forms of advertising.

·         Sales Promotion:

Sales promotion is a set of schemes or tactics for the limited period of time to increase the sales by influencing the potential market. Basically, these tactics involve the campaigns that offering extra value, incentives to the distributor or end user which aims to an immediate sale. It rarely builds long-term customer loyalty.

·         Direct Marketing:

It is a classic tool of IMC in which marketers or retailers, in case of retail marketing, directly communication one-to-one with the customers or end users and provide the information about their products or services. There are many ways to communicate directly with the customers such as personal selling, email marketing, tele-calling or point of sale etc. In modern marketing, email is the most popular form of communication.

·         Public Relation(PR):

PR is a process of communicating with the audience or target market directly or indirectly through a media or press releases to increase the awareness of product and organization. PR mostly focuses on strong and long term relationship with the target market and maintain the positive image of the organization in the marketplace.

·         Internet Marketing:

It is a modern form of marketing communication through the interactive source of the internet where there is a two way communication possible with the contribution of the target market or customers. It also called as an online marketing. Website, social media, email blasts are the commonly used features for marketing.

In retail marketing environment, integrated marketing communication tools play a very important role in a reliable way to boost the sales and profit margin.