Week 10 – When is it best to use social media in an IMC campaign

Integrated marketing communications is when businesses’ promotional tools use multiple forms of communication collectively and work together to give consumers the correct perception of the business . Many of these marketing campaigns are now choosing to include social media. Social media marketing has become extremely popular with businesses of all sizes, with statistics saying that 73% of marketers saying that it is at least somewhat to extremely effective . This is due to its ease of access and the amount of consumers it has a the possibility to reach. However, these factors alone does not mean that all businesses should be using it. There are select products and target markets that should be using social media for marketing purposes.

Baby Products

Social media and websites will be more effective in our integrated marketing communications campaign when the target market for our product or brand is parents with younger children. Taking care of children is an extremely difficult task and parents are always looking for ways to improve their child’s development and happiness without putting them in danger or distress. This causing them to often do tons of research on products such as bottles, cots, toys and other essential items for babies to see what is the best in terms of quality and cost and utilising the internet do to it as shown by over 90% of parents using the internet to do this research.  For example, there are a large amount of Facebook groups dedicated to the best products for their kids like Kmart Mums. It involves mainly mothers sharing the best products (in their opinions) available at Kmart, which is usually children’s products but also involves Kmart’s cleaning products and home wares. If businesses are aiming to target these groups of people, they should post information and uses of their products so this target market is able to read about them when researching what they should buy for their children or homes.     

Millennials

Millennials are also an appropriate target market to advertise using social media as well as other forms of marketing communications. Millennials use the internet far more than any other generation with 90% of them use the internet daily. They are also more likely to respond to online ads such as social media posts or clicking banner ads in comparison to other generations, especially if they are about travelling like flights, hotels and getaway packages. With being around 21 to 37 years old as of last year, products such as banking services, insurance and furniture would be most appropriate and marketers of these products should use social media to gain their attentions as it is something they desire considering the points they are at in their lives

Electronics

Social media marketing should be used in an IMC campaign when the product involves electronics such as phones, laptops and other innovative technology. Many consumers before purchasing products choose to research their products before going into stores to get an idea of what they are looking for in a product which is referred to as research online, purchase offline or ROPO . Statistics show that over 35% of consumers stated that they research their products online before they go in store to purchase it with and majority of these consumers researching electronic products. This is due to many consumers not knowing much about electronic products at all, for example, what qualities to look for that make a good quality laptop such as weight or ram. Businesses, similar to the baby products, should post as much information about their products online to ensure consumers come across their products when trying to find out more information about a certain electronic products.

Overall, social media marketing can be extremely effective but it must be used correctly or with the right products or target markets.