Integrated Marketing in the Workplace

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 sunder 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.

There are various models of marketing followed by different companies. Some companies have separate departments for advertising, public relations, marketing and sales, this is a very old model, where energies of different departments work at separate levels and may not be using all the resources to their optimum. Another model is where your company has decentralized marketing activities, and each department handles its own marketing activities. In such a model the company is at a disadvantage because each department handling its own marketing means that certain costs and expenses are being repeated and incurred twice or thrice by different departments. The economies do not work well in this kind of model.

Integrating all aspects of marketing into one department ensures that your company's strategic marketing plan is being followed because it can be led, driven, monitored and championed by one or two individuals. If each department does their own marketing, it's difficult to measure and evaluate the results effectively. Also, why leave the marketing up to accountants, assistants, and IT people? Marketing should be done by marketers. Accounting should be done by accountants. It just makes sense to get certain professionals to do the jobs they are trained for.

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.


Author, Scott Geld is the creator of /www.MarketingBlaster.com"Marketing
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