Integrated marketing is the way most of the smart and upcoming companies plan and execute their marketing strategies. Many companies are also adopting it afresh because it is not just a buzz word; it is a buzz word with meaning. Integrated Marketing entails the coming together of all the marketing related activities under one head. For example the marketing resources, responsibilities, and other marketing roles of the company work together to improve and deliver the company~s promotional, customer service and other marketing goals like increase in sales, retaining customers etc. Ultimately all the marketing activities are directed towards improving relations with the customers whether they are internal, external, existing or even potential customers.

The need of the hour is to have a centralized department that will take care of all your advertising, public relations, marketing and sales requirements. This centralization is very much the modern pattern giving you a cost effective edge over your competition. However, if your country is not following then pattern then there are strong chances that you are wasting a lot of energy and money is an age-old decadent pattern no longer prevalent.

Integrated marketing works best when all departments work jointly towards a common aim. In such a scenario, you can be sure of success in achieving all your targets, be it business or marketing ones. It is very important to focus all your marketing energies and resources in one direction otherwise, you can be sure you have wasted them. Be very careful that your unit works well cohesively or your brand identity may get adversely affected.

Also, it is important that all your marketing requirements should be undertaken by one single cohesive department. This department should be in the able hands of marketing professionals. Everyone should do the job that they are trained for accountants and IT people should not be involved in marketing and should be looking after only their respective fields of work. This way you can be sure that your marketing is being done well.
Motivated, supervised and championed by the right kind of people. This also allows you to check and evaluate the progress that is being made in a single place giving you a clear picture. If you have separate departments then it becomes difficult to judge the exact position of your marketing strategy.