The concept of integrated marketing communications (IMC) is now popular in the field of marketing because of the competitive advantages it provides to companies(Kitchen, 2005; Mcgrath, 2005). However, deciding for mix elements (advertising, sales promotions, personal selling and public relations) and media options (traditional media, new media, outdoor media, and promo items) maybe too expensive for some companies. Thus, this research explores how firms with limited promo budget like small and medium enterprises (SMEs) adopt IMC.

Through a survey among 93 of the “300 Dynamic SMEs” of Taiwan, it was found out that even though SMEs face some resource limitations, they have their own ways of implementing IMC. They frequently use new media to increase coverage, sales promotions to increase coordination, advertising to increase contribution, and personal selling to increase strategic consistency. Furthermore, industry type is found to be a moderating factor on how SMEs come up with their IMC mix decisions.

This research contributes to the marketing field by providing a client-based empirical research which explores how companies overcome financial barriers to implement IMC. The results also serve as a guide for marketing managers in deciding which marketing communications mix elements and media options they can frequently use to increase coverage, coordination, contribution and/or strategic consistency.

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