==================================================[ START ]==== The concept of Integrated Communications stems from Integrated Marketing Plan, but taking it to a different level. Let’s just say Integrated Communications is the “Art” of marketing and Integrated Marketing Plan is the “Science” of it… Or put it another way, Integrated Communications is like the art of cooking, planning all the right ingredients to be put into the cooking pot. Integrated Marketing Plan is the reality check presenting you with a budget which restricts the amount of ingredients.

The Integrated Marketing Plan is seen as a reality check for enthusiastic marketers. The Integrated Communications planning phase allows you great creativity in applying your marketing mix. The Integrated Marketing Planning phase helps you to apply your rational thoughts to justify your marketing spending. It helps you plan your budget by guiding you to match your financial and manpower resources, gives you a timeline for achieving your goals and helps you monitor your progress.

Integrated Communications is a term which defines a concept which consolidates and reiterates through one focused & unified message across all the marketing mix of advertising, public relations, direct marketing as well as all marketing collaterals.

The Integrated Communications concept works well for both the traditional as well as internet marketing. Large brick and mortar corporations will manage their Integrated Communication via synchronizing their TV, radio & press ads, publicity with direct sales initiatives with one single message. Past experience suggested that great effort must be executed to ensure that all marketing mix activities are aligned throughout with one single message. This is especially so when the corporation is large and adopts a decentralized business model.

By contrast, with regards to Integrated Communications for Small business Internet Marketing, there seems to be lesser alignment problems. You can standardize and focus your keywords in your scripts, online display ads, emails, newsletters to enhance search results via Search Engine Optimization (SEO), do your social book-marking, networking and viral marketing all within your control.

Successful Integrated Communications campaigns almost without fail (don’t mind the pun) consists of at least 4 aligned marketing tactics, namely extensive exposure advertisements, direct marketing, website, email marketing.

Hence, “Integrated” takes on a whole new meaning when you examine the various potential communications tools you can used, match it with your marketing budget plan, time it for implementation and review it over time for enhanced effectiveness. This effectively speaking, forms the Integrated Marketing Plan. ====================================================[ END ]====