Creating a solid marcomms plan is essential to building relationships with consumers, creating a dialogue around your products and services and keeping your marketing strategy on track.

With the Gartner 2022 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey revealing that marketing budgets have grown to 9.5% of overall company revenue in 2022, up from 6.4% in 2021, it’s clear that prioritising marketing for your business is crucial, and the key lies in planning. But to be successful, you need to understand your target audience and how to best communicate to those specific individuals in order to meet your business goals.

Want to find out what marcomms is, and how you can create a solid marcomms plan that works for your business? Here’s everything you need to know.

What is marcomms?
Marcomms is short for Marketing Communications – the specific tactics, channels and tools you use to implement your overall marketing strategy. Marcomms help to reinforce the marketing message and should be used as the voice of your business, helping to connect your brand with people, places, experiences, events, and emotions. A crucial part of any business’s marketing strategy, marcomms helps to define exactly how to deliver your marketing message to your target market.

What is the difference between marcomms and marketing?
Marketing is the activity, whereas Marcomms refers to the individual elements such as advertising, events, public relations, social media and sales promotions. To put it simply, marcomms includes marketing.

What is a marcomms plan, and how do you create one?
A marcomms plan is usually created for each campaign, whereas the marketing strategy is the overarching long-term goal and tends to be held in place for 3 -5 years.
So, what makes up a marcomms plan? There are four main pillars:

1. Audience – who is your target audience?
2. Objective – what do you want to achieve? Why are you doing this activity? What metrics will you use to measure success?
3. Message – what are you communicating? What’s your USP or what problem are you trying to solve?
4. Channel – which channels are moist relevant to your audience?

Once you have identified these, you’ll then need to establish a budget for your activity. But remember to consider both the market you’re trying to sell into along with the life cycle of the product or service you’re selling.

For example, when looking at the market, you need to determine exactly and how your audience like to receive communications. For example, B2B selling often requires more personal selling tactics and relationship building, whereas B2C marketers generally spend more on advertising and online marketing channels. Similarly, consider the life cycle of a product and where customers sit within the purchasing stage, as different marketing channels will be more successful – for example social media and advertising are more top-funnel approaches when people are at the introduction stage, but personal selling may become more essential the further into the sales funnel your customers are.

What are the different types of marketing communications?
There are plenty of elements that make up a Marcomms strategy, such as:

• Content marketing
• Social media
• PR
• Webinars
• Influencer marketing
• Website and digital marketing
• Interviews
• Events

What is an integrated marcomms plan?
Integrated Marcomms is simply the idea that all of your messages are consistent across various channels and among audiences, with each channel reinforcing one another.
Businesses that achieve great results have a coherent approach to corporate communications and branding. This means aligning your business or brand with companies and partners who reinforce your own values, and ensuring you are present in places where your customers are.

How will my business benefit from marcomms?

• A more targeted market – you can be more precise when identifying opportunities.
• Better customer retention – satisfied and engaged customers increases loyalty and returned revenue.
• Staff retention – if your team feel part of the journey, they will provide more value to the business and your customers.
• Industry awareness – the more the sector is aware of your products, services and positioning, the more you will be invited to be part of industry dialogue through press coverage or speaker opportunities.

Having a coherent marcomms strategy and plan can help build brand equity and create higher sales impact. If you or your business needs support with marcomms, get in touch with us today.