Generally speaking, integrated marketing communications (IMC) – as defined just a few years ago – is the coordination of a variety of promotional vehicles and tactics (e.g. Web, email marketing, search, print, broadcast advertising, public relations, direct marketing, onsite promotions, etc.) and multiple stages in a campaign to help ensure that marketing messages are consistently received and acted upon by the greatest number of people in target market segments.

This discipline is still relevant but has evolved given that there are new, interactive channels and technologies on the scene, including corporate blogs, micro-blogs, social networking sites, online services and mobile devices. In many cases, these new channels and related technologies are not under the full control of marketers or their businesses, which creates both challenges and opportunities. We at Lyris believe the earlier-defined discipline of integrated marketing communications has evolved into something we refer to as integrated marketing, and this includes integrating a wide variety of analytics, business processes, channels, deliverables, teaming practices and technology solutions with software as a service (SaaS) as a platform.

Mobility is clearly a driving force today because end users have more choices as to when, where and how they engage with brands, products, services and people. Further, online conversations and tones (vs. sales pitches) are becoming more influential in the marketing mix. This requires a shift in how marketers think, collaborate and measure performance across teams, disciplines and touchpoints to best engage and respond to target audiences throughout relationship life cycles. If any of this seems a little confusing or overwhelming, you’re not alone. Shifts of this nature often require organizational adjustments, education and simply breaking down issues into intuitive topics and scalable best practices. 

That said, let’s focus for a moment on one component of integrated marketing and think in terms of messaging. To set the tone, I think you’ll agree that all marketing strategies and campaigns include key messages and supporting content, and your messages today are likely being distributed and accessed via email, social and mobile channels – whether you know it or not. For example, many of your prospects and customers are reading your email-marketing campaigns on their PCs and mobile phones, then sharing and discussing hybrid-perspectives of your information and offers with friends, colleagues and family members via email, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and personal and corporate blogs. And the exponential sharing continues when these messages and offers resonate with other people.

Your campaigns and marketing operations may not be currently optimized to manage, measure and monetize this level of information sharing and conversations online, but I can assure you it is happening and does influence business results one way or another. In fact, we recently announced a new feature in Lyris HQ to make it easier for our customers to harness the power of social media; this capability is available now and we leverage it in our Inside Lyris HQ newsletter. Organizations including Alliance for the Arts, Industry Wizards and PC Recycler are also extending their messages across a number of email, social and mobile channels.

If you can relate to this point of view and evolution, then consider marketing strategies and tactics that apply what we call “tri-messaging” – a catalyst for conversations and marketing ROI across multiple channels. Tri-messaging is essentially marketing messages that are written, packaged, orchestrated and unleashed for email, social and mobile channels. An example of tri-messaging is a subject line, Tweet and mobile text. All three have common denominators: They’re easy to consume, they pique interest and they stimulate action. However, tri-messaging is not just about crafting short messages that make people curious. Instead, it is all about understanding how your audiences prefer to engage, interact with and discuss your brands, products and services via a wide variety of channels and conversations online, offline and everywhere in between. If you’re unsure what your audiences want, experiment with tri-messaging to see what kind of response you generate and use Lyris HQ to help you manage and report results.

We believe there are five significant forces that will continue to influence the way marketers strategize and execute demand generation, commerce and loyalty-building campaigns in our connected world:

1. People engage and solve problems with conversations. This has been true since the dawn of time with the earliest civilizations. In the 21st century, more people are engaging and conversing online with a range of devices, automated triggers and information sources.
   
   
2. Email has become a way of life. Millions of people worldwide rely on email as a primary communication channel, regardless of spam and various online threats, because it’s a proven and acceptable way to communicate with individuals, groups and businesses.
   
   
3. Networks become more valuable with increased user adoption, also known as the network effect. Positive network effect is influenced by the quality and quantity of end users, content and connections.
   
   
4. People demand ubiquity and immediacy with laptops, online services and mobile phones. Modern society has come to rely on anywhere, anytime communications and computing – an irreversible trend with economies of scale.
   
   
5. Social media and social networking, inexpensive or free, fulfills an innate need to connect with others. This is especially true in a recession or challenging times as people and businesses strive to create and sustain mutually rewarding relationships through affordable strategies.
   
   

Tri-messaging is not a fad but instead an integrated marketing best practice for 21st century businesses to listen, interact with and serve target audiences via email, social and mobile channels. This approach facilitates conversations, commerce and loyalty that can be managed, measured and monetized.

Our mission is to help marketers succeed in 2009 and beyond. Let’s discuss how the Lyris HQ integrated marketing suite can enable you and your team to lower marketing costs, increase revenue, drive operational ROI, and gain a competitive advantage in any economy.

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