Integrating Customer Journey Mapping and Integrated Marketing Communications for Omnichannel and Digital Marketing Education: An Abstract

There has been significant growth in the number of digital marketing courses, certificates, and programs in marketing departments. This growth is noteworthy as competency in digital marketing is increasingly important in the marketplace, and these skills can help job placement (Staton 2015). Reviews of marketing curriculums suggest there is a variety of ways of teaching digital marketing (Munoz and Wood 2015). We argue that integrated marketing communications (IMC) is a useful framework to use teaching digital marketing as it helps tie the tools to marketing strategy. Today’s omnichannel customer experience requires more sophisticated approaches to communication on how consumers reach purchase decisions with the existence of more complex IMC programs. A fresh way of structuring this framework is through tying IMC tactics to customer journeys.