Introduction

Integrated Marketing Communications is a strategic business process that is used to create, implement and evaluate measurable and persuasive brand communications programs with customers, employees and other target audiences. Online marketing is one of the most valued new tools in Integrated Marketing Communication. Online marketing when reinforced with other forms of marketing, it adds value and strength to the IMC.  Online is the company effort to promote products and services with the aim of building a good customer relationship over the internet (Moriarty, Mitchell & Wells, 2015 Chapter 16).  The online marketing efforts comprise the use of emails, developing online marketing ads to consumers to create brand awareness but one issue that is affecting it is that of the privacy of information.

Privacy as an Issue

With the advent of the internet and video equipment, people have given up privacy for convenience. The concept of personal privacy has changed in the last few decades. People are more connected than ever thanks to social media, phones, and video cameras. Companies have also been hit by this threat whereby some of their sensitive information is being leaked to their competitors. It is then used against them in the competitive market, and this has led to their downfall due to lack of information and data privacy. Technology, especially in the marketing segments, have been working tremendously but the illegal access of information is halting the entire process (Moriarty, Mitchell & Wells, 2015 Chapter 16). Both the company’s and its client’s data should be kept private to maintain a proper working relationship between the two.

Life is more convenient with all the new technology. People can stay in communication with each other over great distances, and they can put up photos of their lives online. Social media is also a top place for employers to look up potential employees. Anytime an individual goes online and visits websites, and a “cookie” is left behind. The “cookie” tracks your every internet move including each time you enter your email address and personal information. This personal information includes bank and credit card information (Andrews, & Shimp, 2017). Tracking technology has stolen away people’s privacy bit by bit over the years. Many people do not realize this is happening over the internet.

How to overcome the threat as a direct response manager

Lack of data privacy has led to the downfall of many companies, especially in the integrated market segment. Due to this, as a direct response manager, one thing I can do to avoid this threat from befalling to our company is to regulate the amount of data at disposal. Sometimes the companies put up a lot of their personal information on their websites and portals for public viewing. This can end up hurting the company where their competitors may use what they see to bring down the company from the competitive market. Another way to overcome this is to regulate and state the people who are supposed to gain access to sensitive information about the company (Andrews, & Shimp, 2017). Sometimes competitors use insiders to gain information about a specific company. By letting employees only to know what is necessary to them and leave the rest helps so much to avoid such scenarios.

Conclusions

Integrated marketing tactics wish to generate a positive relationship with the customers through proper communication channels. However, the menace of data privacy has in a big way derailed this practice where companies are falling due to the bleach of sensitive information. Internet marketing mainly targets to promote a good relationship and long term relationship with the customers. The rapid transformation in marketing communications through the support of electronic and internet marketing has dramatically influenced the behavior of customers towards a particular product or service.  The attitude of customers has been positively affected by the evolving interactive market space.

References

Andrews, J. C., & Shimp, T. A. (2017). Advertising, promotion, and other aspects of integrated marketing communications. Nelson Education.

Moriarty, S., Mitchell, N., & Wells, W., (2015). Advertising and IMC: Principles and practice (10^th ed., Chapter 16). Pearson.