ABSTRACT
Integrated marketing communications (IMC) is a valuable concept for strategic writers. The philosophy of IMC maintains that the people target audiences receive many messages from their organization: ads, news stories triggered by news releases, speeches, tweets and other social media messages, and random exposures to products. For example, a luxurious product with a shockingly cheap price would send mixed messages to a target audience. Strategic writers often use a document called a strategic message planner to help develop the clear, consistent message that will be used to promote a particular product. Recent studies show that the wide variety of social media outlets can pose a challenge to the integration of marketing messages. Strategic writing begins with the philosophy that a document's message should be on-strategy. IMC extends that philosophy to all related messages, ensuring that a variety of coordinated communications will send the same message to a target audience.
