Running head: DEFINING A COMMUNICATION PLAN

Defining a Communication Plan
Keller Graduate School of Management

Integrated marketing communications is a concept of marketing communications planning that recognizes the added value of a comprehensive plan. In a conversation with my colleagues, I learned when our companies create IMC's they sometimes forget about how important communication is when it comes to bringing in different companies. Graves Enterprise has to keep in mind that it is eight steps to involve developing effective communications. We must first identify our audience. We must know what audience we want to target. Then determine the communications objective, design the communications, select the communications channels, establish the total communications budget, decide on the communications mix, measure the communications results, and manage the integrated marketing communications process. When creating an IMC the major goal should be to create effective and efficient communication programs so that communications are truly integrated. Philip Kolter lists six factors to determine whether communication is being integrated properly. The six factors are coverage, contribution, commonality, complementarily, versatility, and cost. All these factors are important to make sure Graves Enterprise reaches their goal of success. We have to provide a lot of benefits as well as efforts. Creating a good IMC opens doors for competitive advantage, boost sales and profits while saving the company more time, money and stress. IMC wraps communications around consumers while helping the company move through the various stages of the buying process. Evaluating how to structure the delivery of your marketing communications depends not only on cost, but your marketing objectives
When setting up the advertising, Graves Enterprise needs to set a