Integrated Marketing Communications and Digital Marketing
One voice, many channels
Integrated marketing communications means every touchpoint - advertising, branch signage, website, email, social, statements, call scripts, sponsorships - delivers a consistent positioning. The creative brief is the control document: target, insight, single-minded proposition, support, tone, mandated disclosures and logos, and success measures. Paid, owned, and earned media should be planned together rather than in silos.
Media vocabulary matters: reach (unique people), frequency (average exposures), GRP = reach × frequency, CPM (cost per thousand impressions), plus channel-specific cost metrics. Brand campaigns optimize reach and frequency against a defined audience; direct-response campaigns optimize measurable conversion.
Digital execution spans SEO and paid search, content marketing, email and marketing automation, social and influencer programs, programmatic display, retargeting, and landing-page conversion optimization. Track funnel stages - impression, click, lead, application, funded account, retained customer - and define success at the business outcome, not the vanity metric.
Worked example: 2,000,000 impressions at an $8 CPM = $16,000. A 0.5% click-through rate yields 10,000 clicks; a 3% click-to-funded-account rate yields 300 accounts; cost per acquisition = $16,000 ÷ 300 = $53.33. Judge that against the account's expected value, not against another channel's CPC.
Traps: comparing channels on CTR instead of CPA or lifetime value; skipping compliance review of creative (Reg DD rate disclosures, Reg Z trigger terms, Member FDIC, Equal Housing Lender); texting or autodialing without the TCPA consent required; sending commercial email without CAN-SPAM elements (identification, postal address, working opt-out honored promptly); and undisclosed paid influencer content, which the FTC treats as deceptive.