This book is all about today's IMC - what it is, what it means to you, and how to use it to power your organization's growth and financial success! With his breakthrough book Integrated Marketing Communications, Don Schultz first showed marketers how to integrate internal and external communication into a dynamic, value-adding asset. In IMC - The Next Generation, Schultz teams with Heidi Schultz to offer updated insights on today's newly powerful business and communication model using the IMC approach. Let it show you how to focus on identifying the right customers, determining their value, investing in them with communication programs, and then measuring the impact of and returns on those communication activities.'Having pioneered the concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC), Don and Heidi Schultz now show all of the strategic and tactical steps that will make the 'new marketing' work for you. I will gladly recommend this book to CMOs and CEOs who want to win using a combination of strong brand building and direct-to-customer marketing' - Philip Kotler, Professor of International Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, and author of Marketing Management. 'Don and Heidi Schultz have placed IMC where it belongs - at the center of the organization as a core business strategy to drive long-term shareholder value. The book is fundamental in scope, detailed in its analysis, and far-reaching in its implications' - Shekar Swamy, President, R K SWAMY/BBDO Advertising Ltd.'A marketing book that every senior executive has to read. Don and Heidi have the ability to communicate IMC principles with compelling simplicity, using practical examples to support well-thought theories' - John Wallis, Senior Vice President Marketing, Hyatt International Corporation. 'In this new centerpiece for IMC, Don and Heidi present a comprehensive and actionable road map to build, manage, and measure integrated marketing communication programs and link them to what really matters in business: value creation' - Javier Trevino, Vice President for Corporate Communications, CEMEX.'Unlike any other business model - including the highly touted customer relationship management approach - IMC uniquely integrates all the pieces of an organization around a single factor: the wants and needs of customers. Satisfying those wants and needs leads to the core business objective of creating value for shareholders. And that is the objective of this book: helping practitioners move from seeing IMC simply as a means of coordinating communication to viewing it as a core business strategy that is based on measurable communication inputs and outputs' - From Chapter 1.With today's increased emphasis on technology, branding, and globalization, communication is more than just a tactical corporate activity - it becomes a key element in ongoing success. Results-driven communication now allows you to treat each of your customers as individuals with distinct wants and needs, then answer those needs as you build both sustainable competitive advantage and measurable return on your marketing investments.IMC - The Next Generation outlines a step-by-step process for combining and coordinating every method through which your organization communicates with customers. Built around the strategic ideas and insights that author Don Schultz used to help launch the IMC revolution, this hands-on book combines research-based insights with real-world examples to explore how businesses can leverage the IMC model to: seamlessly integrate all internal and external communications programs; communicate positive messages to customers at every contact point, for every reason; implement value-based business approaches that generate cash flows and shareholder value; since its introduction over a decade ago, integrated marketing communication has progressed from a communication-only approach to a full-fledged business strategy, one that combines and focuses all of the organization's functions and activities around its customers. IMC - The Next Generation reveals how IMC can be implemented in organizations of virtually any size, in any economic climate, and in any geographic area to determine how much to invest in marketing communication, how to increase the returns on those investments, and how to deliver measurable and identifiable outcomes - to position and prepare your organization for success in today's evolving, undefined, and virtually limitless business landscape.