Interactive IMC: The Relational-Transactional Continuum and the Synergistic Use of Customer Data In a business-to-business context in the auto insurance industry, the synergistic value of the continuum of relational-transactional data in developing interactive Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) relationships was assessed. While all types of data were found to be important, relationship-oriented factors contributed more to perceived quality of the relationship than did mixed or transaction variables. The study also investigated the ability to segment business customers employing a combination using the relational, mixed, and transactional data. The customer segments differed in their evaluations of the firm’s performance on the various relational, mixed, and transactional factors, but not on their overall evaluation of the relationship. This finding provides support for the notion that different customer segments are interested in different types of relationships. In addition, the segments were significantly different in terms of the amount of insurance written with the company, underscoring the financial importance of segmenting customers on these variables. INTRODUCTION Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) has received significant recent interest in the advertis- ing and marketing communities (cf. Gould, 2004; Kim, Dongsub, and Schultz, 2004; Kitchen, Brignell, Li, and Jones, 2004; Swain, 2004). IMC assesses the integrated role of diverse communication me- dia and how the merger of these media can en- hance the overall effectiveness of buyer-seller relationships (Kliatchko, 2005). Not only has IMC impacted the way marketers communicate with customers and prospects, its extension into an “interactive” marketing realm has placed great value on bringing together multiple data touch- points, media, and messages (Peltier, Schibrowsky, Davis, and Schultz, 2002). However, the mass com- munication nature of IMC is no longer sufficient for developing buyer-seller relationships in to- day’s data-driven and customer-oriented world of marketing (Peltier, Schibrowsky, and Schultz, 2003), particularly with regard to how best to tailor and deliver marketing communications that maximize a “return on marketing investment” (Cook and Talluri, 2004; Swain, 2004) and how multiple touch- points can enhance an organization’s selling ef- forts and customer retention strategies (Reinartz, 2005). The growth in the use of interactive IMC is in part a function of emerging technologies that af- ford businesses the opportunity to tailor how they communicate with exchange partners and the form in which this interaction takes place (Kim, Dong- sub, and Schultz, 2004). Transactional and com- munication media can take many forms, including mail, in-person, over the phone, fax, online, and via an ever-increasing number of wireless technol- ogies, with the resulting exchange information stored in the firm’s database. The information collected from multiple touchpoints can then be utilized to create individualized exchanges and longitudinal contact strategies (Peltier, Schi- browsky, and Schultz, 2003). Despite the increased attention given to interactive IMC, little research has investigated how buyer-seller communications JAMES PELTIER University of Wisconsin-Whitewater peltierj@uww.edu JOHN A. SCHIBROWSKY University of Nevada, Las Vegas schibrow@nevada.edu DON E. SCHULTZ Northwestern University dschultz@ northwestern.edu DEBRA ZAHAY Northern Illinois University zahay@niu.edu 146 JOURNAL OF ADVERTISING RESEARCH June 2006 DOI: 10.2501/S0021849906060193