What is Integrated Marketing Communication? How to Apply it in Business

What is Integrated Marketing Communication? How to Apply it in Business

What is Integrated Marketing Communication
What is Integrated Marketing Communication


For those of you who have a business and are marketed online, you must understand Integrated Marketing Communication. If you are an advertiser who must pursue sales targets, then, you also have to start learning them for the progress of your sales.


This is closely related to how potential customers can understand your product, and how they see your product in the long term. To understand a deeper understanding of Integrated Marketing Communication, we will describe the meaning and examples in full.


Definition Integrated Marketing Communication

Integrated Marketing Communication according to Kotler and Armstrong is a concept in which the company coordinates various communication channels to send clear, consistent, and convincing messages regarding the company and its products. Meanwhile, around the 80s, Don Schultz put forward this concept with the notion of a strategy to communicate the same message in all marketing channels.


From the two statements above, it can be concluded that what is meant by Integrated Marketing Communication is a process of forming a communication between brands and customers through various marketing channels. The messages given on each channel have the same band, although in different ways.


For example, if a brand is introduced as something fancy on social media, then other channels such as billboards or billboards on the street should also convey the same impression. The promotional image may be different, the advertising writing will be different, but the message conveyed is the same.


The purpose of Integrated Marketing Communication is to influence people to remember your product psychologically, and want it until they finally buy your product. There are two kinds of promotion methods, namely; soft sell and hard sell.


Soft selling is soft and unconscious, such as advertisements, aid funds, public relations, and so on. Meanwhile, the hard sell is open promotion, for example, such as selling directly to people, storing products in stores, and so on.


Examples of Integrated Marketing Communication in Business

To understand in more detail, you can see several types of Integrated Marketing Communication as below.


Advertisement

Advertising is a subtle promotion, the aim of which is to show the superiority of the product and how it stands from other competitors. In Integrated Marketing Communication, advertising is included in soft selling which aims to build a brand in the minds of potential consumers.


You must have seen cigarette advertisements that have nothing to do with the product. It is an attempt to show how the impression appears in consumers when using these products. Like cigarette advertisements that often smell like adventure, there is hope that when consumers consume these cigarettes, consumers can feel the nuance of adventure. That's the message the company wants to convey.


Public Relations / Public Relations

Have you ever called a company to ask for a product but the person on the other side of the line responded curtly? You will feel annoyed and don't want to contact him again, right? If so, then the company has failed to implement the Integrated Marketing Communication concept.


Customer Service is a part of public relations. They become a window for potential customers to get to know your company/business. Friendly and cheerful public relations will give a positive impression to potential customers and invite consumers to come back again. This is a form of Integrated Marketing Communication to increase consumer confidence in your brand.


Sales Promotion

The next example is sales promotion. This is a form of promotion from sales such as discounts and bonuses. Anyone likes a discount, it remains how you set it up as a businessman to stay profitable.


What is most often done, for example, is to apply buy 1 get 1 or a discount if you spend a certain amount. The most important thing is that you succeed in attracting existing customers and the interests of other potential customers.


Event & Experience

Marketing channels commonly used in other Integrated Marketing Communication concepts are events & experiences. For example, such as a brand that holds a music concert or event for young people. The brand usually acts as a sponsor, then subtly raises a figure who becomes a community idol as an ambassador for the product.


In essence, in this strategy, you must be able to maximize the events you create. Do not let you not take into account the losses, when you run the event you are targeting participants to become users of your product.


Direct Selling

The last example is direct selling or direct selling. That is, you openly sell your product, show its strengths, and influence people to feel they need the product.


Direct selling can be in the form of selling from person to person or displaying products in stores such as supermarkets. The point is you are directly asking other people to buy your product because your product is superior and good. That is the message to be conveyed to all marketing channels in Integrated Marketing Communication.

Definition of Promotion, Types And Benefits For Business

Definition of Promotion, Types And Benefits For Business

Definition of Promotion, Types And Benefits For Business
Definition of Promotion, Types And Benefits For Business


Definition of Promotion, Types And Benefits For Business - Promotion is the most important part of a business or venture. By doing this promotion, it is hoped that it will increase the sales figures of your product.


Without promotion, it will be impossible for a product to be known by many people. If the product is not known by many people, it will also affect the income level to decrease.


Because promotion is so important for business, on this page we will discuss many things about promotion.


What is Promotion?

Do you know what promotion means? If not, let's look at this article carefully.


According to Wikipedia, Promotion is an effort to inform or offer a product or service to attract potential consumers to buy or consume it.


Meanwhile, according to experts, the meaning of this promotion is different. There are 5 experts that we will discuss in this article. The following is the discussion.


Definition of Promotion According to Harper Boyd

According to Hyper Boys, promotion is an effort used to persuade people to accept products, concepts, and ideas


Definition of Promotion According to Swastha

According to Swastha, promotion is one type of one-way persuasion whose purpose is to influence other people to take actions that can create an exchange or marketing.


Definition of Promotion According to Boone & Kurtz

According to Boone & Kurtz, promotion is a process to inform, persuade and influence other people's decisions in making purchases of a product.


Definition of Promotion According to Tjiptono

According to Tjiptono, promotion is a form of marketing communication that aims to disseminate information, influence others, persuade others, and or remind the target market of their products to be willing to accept, buy, and be loyal to the products offered.


Understanding Promotion According to Kotler

According to Kotler, promotion is a process in marketing strategy as a way to communicate with the market.


From some of the above meanings, we can conclude that promotion is an activity in the field of marketing carried out by disseminating information on a product with the aim that the product can be accepted by the public, resulting in economic transactions.


Is Promotion The Same As Marketing And Advertising?

After reading the definition above, you must be wondering what is the difference between promotion, marketing, and advertising.


At first glance, the three definitions above might look the same. However, it turns out that the three are different. Then, what are the differences? The following is the discussion.


The Difference between Promotion and Marketing

According to Wikipedia, marketing is the activity and process of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offers that are of value to customers, clients, partners, and the general public. Meanwhile, promotion is an effort to notify or offer a product or service to attract potential consumers to buy or consume.


Marketing activities can be carried out using the 7P principle (Product, Price, Place, Process, Promotion, People, Process, and Physical Evidence). Meanwhile, in Promotion activities, you will use the principles of 6 other strategies which include advertising, sale promotion, publicity, personal selling, direct marketing, and interactive media.


In addition, between promotional and marketing activities, both of them have different priorities. Marketing activities will be more concerned with maintaining brand image. This is intended to maintain a positive brand image in the eyes of consumers.


Meanwhile, promotional activities, in general, are not too concerned with brand image. Promotion will be more concerned with how to attract consumer attention.


Promotion and Advertising Differences

Apart from being different from marketing, promotion is also different from advertising. Promotional activities are directly related to sales, therefore promotional activities are more likely if applied to small businesses. While advertising is more suitable for a large company because usually, it will require quite expensive costs from the advertising media provider.


Based on the timing, between advertising and promotion has a definite difference in deadlines. An advertisement has no deadline. Advertisements exist when a product is launched, aiming to introduce it to the general public with various advertising media such as television, newspapers, social media, banners, flyers, and so on.


While promotions always have a deadline. This is because promotion only acts as a stressing tool. The media for promoting and advertising themselves are almost the same, namely using television, newspapers, social media, banners, flyers, and so on. You can learn more about various promotional media in our article here. Get to know various kinds of promotional media for your business.


An example of a promotion is when a new food stall wants to increase its sales turnover, then it carries out promotion by giving a 20% discount to the first ten buyers for one week. After that one-week period runs out, the promo period is over too.


The hope is that such promotions will be carried out to get maximum profit results than these stalls selling their food at normal prices for the next week.


Why Should Businesses Promote?

Of course, a business must promote so that its products can be recognized by many people. Promotional activities help disseminate information to our potential target market. From the information that spreads, you can create new customers for your products.


With the information that is increasingly widespread as well, with promotions we can maintain the stability of our products when the economic presence is sluggish. However, don't just intensify the promotion of a product. You also have to maintain the quality of your product so that you can increase customer loyalty to your product.


Types of Promotion

There are many types of promotions that you need to know if you want to be successful as a businessman, including the following


1. Advertising Promotion

Advertising promotions are non-personal promotions carried out by using various media. An advertiser will convey information to consumers related to the features of the product being sold so that consumers are interested in buying the product


2. Personal Selling Promotion

Personal selling promotion is a promotion that is carried out face to face with prospective buyers. The promoter will make a presentation in front of his client or customer to convince him of his product.


3. Sales Promotion

Sales Promotion is a type of promotion in the form of direct persuasion using various incentives. Sales promotion is a type of promotion that has short-term incentives that are useful to encourage purchases from your customers.


You can use various media such as using coupons, competitions, discounts, and so on.


4. Publishing

Publishing is a type of promotion that is carried out to support the company's image, build the company's image and handle or counteract company issues that can harm the company itself. This is done by building relationships with the community (Public Relations).


Benefits of Promotion

There are many things that we can take advantage of for our business if we are diligent in promoting, among others


1. Generating Brand Awareness

Promotion can generate brand awareness for your business. With a good promotional strategy, your product will become more and more recognized by the public, because doing promotions, means that you also socialize your product.


2. To Build A Brand With A Positive Image

When many people recognize your product, and many people have started subscribing to your product, then your next task is to build your brand with a positive image that you give to your customers. This positive image can increase the value of your business.


3. To Get Consumer Loyalty

Consumer loyalty is very important in a business. So that your customers do not move - change places of subscription, try to provide points of reward at certain moments. For example, you will give your customers one portion for free after visiting your shop and eat five portions of food.


4. Means To Educate Consumers

For products that are still new, it is very important for you to carry out promotions, because this can be your step in educating your consumers, such as educating your consumers regarding the benefits of the products you produce.


That's what we can talk about promotion. How? Have you been promoting your product well? Immediately arrange your promotion strategy from now on properly to produce maximum results.


Thank you for reading the articles so far. Hopefully, this article can be useful for you, especially if you are planning to grow your business.


 Get to Know Various Kinds of Promotional Media for Your Business

Get to Know Various Kinds of Promotional Media for Your Business

Get to Know Various Kinds of Promotional Media for Your Business
 Get to know various kinds of promotional media for your business


In this article, we will discuss what promotional media you can use to promote your business, brand, or product.


This is important because by knowing what these media are, you can choose the right media for each promotion you run. If the media is right, then your promotional budget can be absorbed effectively and efficiently.


What is Promotional Media?

Promotion media is a medium that is used to support promotional activities in a business. Nowadays, it doesn't seem like a difficult thing to do promotion, because the media for promotion in the field are so very diverse. You just have to choose which media suits you the most.


Purpose of Promoting

Before promoting with available media, you must first know what your purpose is to promote. This makes your promotion more targeted and targeted. The objectives for promotion are as follows.

  • To introduce your product to potential customers
  • To get new customers who are loyal to the product or service you are selling.
  • To make the sales figures increase even more.
  • To promote products or services that are sold from competitors' products.
  • To influence consumer opinion on the products or services offered

Kinds - Kinds of Promotional Media

There are many kinds of promotional media that we can find in the field, including the following.


1. Television

Television is a promotional medium that can attract the most customers. In this day and age, almost every house must have a television, its point is to provide the most current information and entertainment. That means, by advertising on television, your product or service can be watched by many people. Until now, there are still many companies that use television to promote their products or services.


The advantage of advertising on TV is that it allows you to reach all groups because the TV can cover all geographic areas. In addition, the products or services that you offer can be displayed at the same time from one station to another. In delivering the message, advertisements on TV can also be more flexible.


However, to be able to advertise on television, you will need a lot of time and money, such as production costs and costs to pay for television stations that advertise your products. In addition, the duration offered by television to advertise its products is limited to only 1 minute.


2. Radio

Radio is also a promotional medium that is often used by many people. The resulting content is in the form of sound.


The advantage of advertising on the radio is that it allows your ad to be heard anywhere. As we know, we often find radio sounds in places or public transportation such as stalls, buses, and so on. The cost of advertising on radio is also relatively cheaper when compared to advertising on television.


However, if you choose to advertise on the radio, you must be smart to create advertising content with a clear and informative voice so that those who listen to your ad don't get the wrong idea. In addition, the public's attractiveness to the radio can be said to be quite low. This can cause listeners to overlook the message you've been conveying on the radio.


3. Newspapers

A newspaper is a medium for sharing news that has existed for decades. Apart from being used as a medium for exchanging information, newspapers are also used as a medium for promotion.


The advantage that is offered by newspapers as a medium for promotion is the low price. Advertising using newspaper media can also make you reach a more specific target market, for example, if you have a business in Solo Raya, you can advertise your business in Solopos newspaper for people all over Solo Raya to read.


The disadvantages of advertising promotion media are in the face of internet popularity. Currently, people's interest in reading newspapers has decreased. However, it also does not mean that you are in vain if the advertising in the newspaper.


4. Instagram

Instagram is a promotional medium that is currently being used intensively by many entrepreneurs.


The advantages that you will get if you do promotions on Instagram are the easy way. Then, Instagram also has many active users, and there are many tools that you can use to find out the effectiveness of your ads, such as seeing the number of visitors, insights, and Instagram Ads.


If you don't want to use Instagram Ads, because it's paid, you can also use the free version by promoting your products to your followers.


However, promotion on Instagram must expose you to fairly tough competition. In addition, you must also be diligent in creating content.


5. Facebook

Facebook is also almost the same as Instagram. The advantage that Facebook offers is that it allows you to do promotions for free. However, Facebook also has promotional media in the form of Facebook Ads which allows you to do paid advertising.


However, the drawback if you promote on Facebook may be that there are fewer people who see your promotion because now, Facebook is a medium that is rarely used by the public, unlike Instagram.


6. Banner

Banners are online promotional media that are displayed in the form of unique graphic ads and can be run using pay-per-impressions, pay-per-click, or pay-per-actions.


The advantage that this ad offers is that it is easy to bring traffic because banner ads allow visitors to click on it after which the visitor will enter your website. In addition, you can track the number of ad views more easily, because the IG banner ad has its tracking tolls.


The drawback is that these ads often look annoying and very annoying to visitors, so many internet users also use Adblock, this slows down the growth of your ad.


7. Flyer

The flyer is a media for print-based promotion. Usually, printed on HVS-shaped paper and A4 size. However, there are 3 kinds of flyer sizes, namely A4, A5, and A6.


The advantages of advertising using a flyer are that it is relatively cheaper, allows more comprehensive information absorption, and can be reviewed when the reader does not understand the contents of the flyer at one time.


However, advertising using a flyer also has a drawback, namely that it requires a high level of attention because flyers are not audio or visual. In addition, the paper is also prone to tears and readers will find it easier to ignore information if the flyer design is not attractive.


8. Billboards

Billboards are large-sized advertising media located on the side of the road. The advantages of advertising using billboards like this include that your ad is more easily recognized and can build brand awareness.


However, there are also drawbacks if you use billboards as an advertising medium, including the ineffective target market, the information contained in billboards tends to be overlooked by readers, and is easily forgotten.


Those are some kinds of promotional media that we can inform you about. Hopefully, this article helps you determine which promotional media is right for use in your business.


How to Get Started with Social Media Marketing for SMEs

How to Get Started with Social Media Marketing for SMEs

How to Get Started with Social Media Marketing for SMEs - What are the roles of social media marketing for SMEs? The first thing you have to underline is marketing for SMEs or small businesses, meaning that it is the work that you have to do for the business to grow. Here, you need to work hard to attract the attention of social media users to promote your product or business, within a limited budget, but still have to be efficient.

How to Get Started with Social Media Marketing for SMEs
How to Get Started with Social Media Marketing for SMEs


Of course, the skills in choosing channels and marketing tools that work the way you want, are very important. Then, when you talk about social media marketing for SMEs that you run, you need careful planning, so you don't have to spend time on the wrong social media platforms.


Social Media Marketing Guide for SMEs


In this article, we will share a social media marketing guide for SMEs, which can help you explain the purpose of using social media as a medium for online promotion. In addition, you can also find out the most appropriate way to do a practical marketing plan. 


Not only driving traffic or bringing in audiences but also increasing your business conversions. Here are some strategies you can take to get started with social media marketing:


Business Goals Must Be Clear

This is the first important thing you should do. When you already have a good idea about where the goals of the SME business you are running are, try to be more detailed about these goals, and how these goals can be achieved by using promotions on social media. Some notes that you need to pay attention to include:


 Mission

Consider the best way to organize targeted social media campaigns, so that people are aware of your brand or UKM. Why do they want to buy the product you offer? What makes you different from the competition? This is one way to find out how strong the brand awareness and brand of the voice of your business are in the community.


Market

Try to think back as best you can. Who will buy and use the products or services that your SMEs offer? Can you create a buyer persona in this regard? Approximately, how big is your potential market? Is this market share locally or globally?


It should be noted, the clear business objectives of SMEs will encourage operations to run well. After the goals are set, only then do you start implementing a social media campaign strategy, either by advertising, working with Indonesian digital marketing agencies, using influencer services or KOL management to increase engagement on social media, and so on.


Understand Who Your Audience Is


Not only do you know the market, but you as an SME businessman must also understand who your audience is and what they want to be treated. Here, you must carefully study the customer journey, their shopping behavior, and how they interact with your brand.


Next, find out also the best way to encourage the audience that you already have to convert so that sales increase. In this case, there are several important things you need to pay attention to, such as:


Demographics

This data shows different groups of people who use social media in different ways. One of the most important factors in finding out a particular social media platform user group is age. By knowing his age, you will have a good step in implementing a social media marketing strategy for SMEs.


Involvement

Here, you must find out, how the audience engages with your brand. Do they also interact by leaving comments on the content on your social media? Did they share the post? Are they also shopping for your product?


When you can understand the behavior and habits of the audience that you already have, then it is a great power to make the target of a more targeted social media marketing campaign.


Collect All Social Media Tools

How to start other social media marketing, you need to collect some tools or tools, which will be used to manage the social media campaigns that you are running. Pay attention to this:


  • To design the content that you will upload, use a special application to design the content to be more attractive. There are many free applications or design tools for creating social media content that you can try, for example, Canva, Piktochart, Venngage, and many others.
  • To manage your social media, you can use tools, such as CoSchedule's Social Organizer. By utilizing these mandatory tools to maximize social media campaigns, you can save time managing all the social media platforms that you use as promotional media, scheduling content posts, and even analyzing the social media insights you can get.


Selecting a Channel

The purpose of social media marketing for SMEs must be understood to know exactly what social media channels are most appropriate for your business, so they can give you the best results. Some important things that need attention:


B2B follower. If your SME business is engaged in other business services, then use promotion methods on LinkedIn or Facebook. These two channels are a gathering place for various types of businesses.

B2C Followers. When your SME business directly serves consumers, use Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram. To determine which channel is right for your business, you can also first discuss with the creative agency or our team.


Create Conversions

Try to be more focused on setting the objectives of organizing campaigns on social media. This will help you formulate the most efficient content strategy.


Brand Awareness. Lots of small businesses use social media to build brand awareness, as well as to get more followers. At the same time, you can simultaneously expand your market reach and add to your email list or customer database for further use in your email marketing strategy.

Conversion. Others use social media to increase and create conversions. In this case, of course, the hope is that there will be an increase in sales of business products and services. So, each post is designed in such a way as to make it immediately attractive to click and convert.


How to get started on the next social media marketing by determining the color nuances and type of content to use. You have to be consistent in doing it. If necessary, create a content calendar so you can publish content on a more scheduled basis. Good luck. May be useful.


What is CPC and its Benefits for Brands

What is CPC and its Benefits for Brands

What is CPC and its Benefits for Brands
What is CPC and its Benefits for Brands

What is CPC and its Benefits for Brands - One of the digital advertising metrics that are often measured by marketers to determine the effectiveness of the advertisements that are served is Cost Per Click or CPC. But what exactly is meant by CPC? And why is it important to measure CPC?

What is CPC?

According to Sprout Social, Cost per click or CPC is the term paid to advertise about the value that advertisers need to pay to publishers for every click that gets from an ad. CPC is also known as PPC or pay per click.

CPC is used to find out the number of costs for each user who sees an ad on a search engine, the Google Display Network for AdWords, social media platforms, and other publishers. CPC is an important factor in carrying out paid advertising strategies to maximize clicks associated with the amount of budget and target keywords.

Types of advertisements involving CPC

Many ad variants, such as text ads, rich-media, or social media, use CPC as a factor to calculate the total amount of costs that need to be paid from a digital advertising campaign.

CPC is an important factor in the following types of advertising:

  • Text ads
  • Shopping ads
  • Image ads
  • Video ads
  • Twitter promoted tweets
  • Facebook ads
  • Instagram ads
  • LinkedIn ads

How to calculate CPC

The way to calculate CPC is by dividing the cost of the paid ads campaign by the number of clicks.
Cost per click = ad costs / number of clicks

How does CPC work

There are two main models in CPC advertising, namely, fixed cost per click (fixed price per click) and cost per click based on bidding (price per click based on bidding).

In the fixed-rate model, advertisers and publishers from the beginning have been negotiating with each other about the exact price of each click obtained.

But the most widely used form is the price per click based on the bid. In this model, advertisers will determine the maximum price for a click that can be obtained. The higher the number of offers and also the quality score of the landing page, the higher the likelihood that the ad will be seen by the audience.

Average click costs are indeed different in each industry and type of business being run. Also, the average cost of these clicks depends on the competition in the industry. For example, for companies that promote products in insurance or financial services, the price of each click will be higher because of less competition and specifics.

The way these CPC-based ad works is, every time the ad is seen, the system will begin to auction internally and will show ads that have passed quality control and which have quite high bids. Besides, our ads will also be seen every time a user enters a keyword that matches the list of keywords that we entered.

We do not pay when an ad is seen, but only pay when a user clicks on the ad.

This method is a good way for companies so that they can control the advertising budget and can also evaluate campaigns that are run based on audience reaction.

Why measuring CPC is important

The first benefit that marketers can feel is, they can find out the effectiveness of advertising costs incurred against the amount of incoming traffic.

The next benefit is that you can also find out or measure which keywords, ad text, or banners are effectively used in the campaign you want to run.

Then, when we find out, the cheaper the CPC of a particular material or type of advertising, and can produce quality traffic, in the future we can focus on creating and distributing these advertising materials.

Running a digital advertising campaign can indeed be one of the tools for brands to bring quality traffic. Measuring CPC and analyzing it will certainly help marketers develop their business.