Importance of Integrated Marketing
by Scott F. Geld
http://www.marketingblaster.com

Integrated marketing is not just a popular buzz word that has an empty meaning. Integrated marketing is actually the way that most smart companies implement their marketing strategies these days. Integrated marketing means that a company brings all of the marketing roles, resources and responsibilities under one umbrella so they all work together to deliver marketing, promotional and customer service activities aimed at internal, external, existing and potential customers. If your company still has separate departments for advertising, public relations, marketing and sales, then you really are living with a business model from decades ago. Similarly, if your company has decentralized marketing, where each department does their own promotion, your company is at a huge disadvantage in today's business world, and at the very least you are costing yourself a fortune in expenses that will be doubled and tripled up.

The key driver for implementing integrated marketing is that when everything works together, you have a higher chance of delivering successful outcomes on your marketing and business goals. Having several different departments who don't talk to each other does not send a unified message to your audience and can wreak havoc with your branding. You are also wasting resources by not pooling ideas or having a cohesive unit that is strong and manageable. Unfocused marketing efforts are ineffective and wasteful.

The main premise on which the integrated marketing works is, that all resources work together in unison to achieve the marketing goals of the company, and when all resources are working together for a common goal then chances of delivering the expected or planned outcomes are greater. There is another scenario where different departments work on their individual goals for one activity- marketing, and where these departments do not communicate to each other, and do not send one unified message from the company to the audience or the prospective customers. This can ultimately jeopardize the company~s branding strategy. In this kind of a situation the resources are not being used optimally as ideas from various departments are not being pooled and each department is trying to do their own thing. Here various departments of the company are not working as cohesive, strong and manageable units aiming to achieve a common goal. In a way this will be viewed as unfocussed marketing strategy which will not be very effective.

Also, it is important that all your marketing requirements should be undertaken by one single cohesive department. This department should be in the able hands of marketing professionals. Everyone should do the job that they are trained for accountants and IT people should not be involved in marketing and should be looking after only their respective fields of work. This way you can be sure that your marketing is being done well. Motivated, supervised and championed by the right kind of people. This also allows you to check and evaluate the progress that is being made in a single place giving you a clear picture. If you have separate departments then it becomes difficult to judge the exact position of your marketing strategy.

Integrated marketing helps the company to project a unified message and image of the company, and help to keep a strong brand image. Different divisions handling there own marketing activities will lead to sales people giving out a different a marketing message and the corporate department giving out another message. This kind of a chaos will lead to scattered effort, unclear messages and ultimately ineffective marketing campaigns. If this kind of situation is there in your company then you need to take corrective steps now - integrate the marketing activities of your company as soon as possible.

Scott Geld, the author, is employed as the V.P of Marketing at Marketing Blaster, Inc.. Feel free to email Scott with any comments about this article at: http://www.marketingblaster.com/contact.html