Just how important is communication in Integrated Marketing?

He had problems with communication but the point of this article is that some people, without his background, in marketing systems never ever communicate with other people in the same system.

In IT there are systems integrators as well as integration architects whose job it is to make things like systems and databases talk to each other. Some of these were installed many years prior to the others and use different languages and protocols.

This seems like an impossible task to the layperson and yet getting people in the same marketing system to talk to each other can be even more thankless.

According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the word integrate means 'combine parts into a whole' which explains why the term integrated marketing came about.

Integration does not only apply to agencies but also to firms that have in-house marketing, PR and communications. A misconception about this concept is that the process must be integrated once and for all and remain that way indefinitely.

Achieving integrated marketing is actually about people in the different disciplines and areas talking and communicating, finding common ground for leveraging and combining ideas to get synergy.

The last paragraph had more than the legal limit of buzz words and yet without resorting to these tools the concept of integrated marketing is a non-starter.

Flexibility is another key word here as integrated does not mean all disciplines combining for every client or campaign. It means combining when the opportunities arise to create more value.

It means making decisions about goals and targets in a plan or strategy and deciding which disciplines to use. After all some messages don't work through the advertising medium just as others don't work through PR.

But a message that works through promotions just might be amplified with a small ad or some editorial that is driven by PR or even an event.

The possibilities are endless and the only people that get left behind are those that never try working with the word integrate and those that try it once and say the words "till death do us part".