Integrated marketing communication strategies: A case of Telkomsel as the best mobile operator in Indonesia

Abstract

These days, a combination of numerous marketing activities is an essential concept that needs to be kept in mind especially with the rapid development of new technology, media, and social media. Also, with the high competition and costs, businessmen or marketers are looking for ways to improve the effectiveness of their marketing communications programs by carefully observing, selecting, and combining appropriate communications tools to maximize their marketing budgets. Not only to gain bigger profit, this strategy – Integrated Marketing Communication – also creates a reliable tool to communicate a product or an organization’s brand images to the relevant stakeholders. Here, effective communication is where messages are passed without any disruption and have the best clarity: it is important to thoroughly analyse and determine the target audience. Analyzing the concept in light of Telkomsel’s recently hijacked website, the paper examines how their strategies maintained their target audience as prospective customers. The findings found that it is also important to take into consideration determining the characteristics of the customer. The characteristics include: age, education level, gender, income and geographic location. Once they are determined, Telkomsel as one of the practitioners of integrated marketing strategy is set to address the needs of the customer through identifying the demographics needs. Further, an effective strategy envisages the objectives of the communications plan and sets targets for the drive. It is of overall importance for the developer of the strategy to remain within the budgeted investment.

Keywords: Integrated marketing; marketing strategies; communication plans; target audience;