Marketing Governance

Saepio Technologies, in  the whitepaper ‘MAM, Making Assets Actionable and Engaging’.

And why is that?

As a vital part of the advertising process, MAM combines digital asset management, collateral customization and marketing automation technologies into a single, seamless process that:

• improves brand compliance;
• advances measurable return on marketing investment (ROMI);
• eliminates repetitive tasks;
• enables speed-to-market; and
• engages distributed marketers.

In the white paper Thomson first defines where MAM fits in the Enterprise Marketing Management strategy. “There are many models that depict the component of an EMM system”, according to Thompson.”But this document focuses on CRM, business intelligence/analytics, MRM, MAM and customer nurturing as key components.”

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March 14-16, Research firm Gartner will host the Customer 360 summit in Orlando, Florida. The Customer Relationship Managment (CRM) event promises to deliver complete coverage of the new strategies and technologies that are enabling organizations to better understand and engage their customers, build loyalty and grow the business.

From the program:

Business and IT leaders can learn from the latest Gartner research and interact with 25+ Gartner analysts, peers and solution leaders. Experience new research and innovative thinking in a variety of session formats that drill down into your most critical CRM topics, including customer experience management, integrated marketing and sales, data quality and business analytics and mobile and social strategies. Read More

Adoption of social customer relationship management (CRM) systems is low among marketers, but it will grow quickly. This became apparent from a recent survey monitored by Awareness released in September 2012; a significant proportion of respondents are planning to use a system by the end of this year. Only 16% of the respondents said they are currently using a social CRM system, but another 21% plan to do so. 17% claim to be unfamiliar with social CRM, while 46% simply do not use a system. Adoption is higher among respondents with social media marketing budgets of more than $100,000: 44% of this group have adopted social CRM, and another 26% plans to do so by the end of the year.

March 2012 findings from Nucleus Research suggest that social CRM boosts sales productivity by 11.8%. 21% of social CRM users reported sales productivity improvements of more than 20%, and a further 37% cited productivity gains of 10-20%. Read More

CDC Software. This vendor video gives a few sneak peeks at the Customer Relations Management program. Integrated with Microsoft Office and Outlook, a customizable dashboard, its features include data management, document management, and social integration, with all social media channels accessible from a central dashboard. It even offers a Marketing Automation function, which is not a typical feature of CRM systems. And of course it also runs on smartphones. CDC does a good job of making Pivotal look like the system around which businesses revolve. .

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Salesforce.

This cloud-based dashboard is a central place where everything you need to run your business from contacts and accounts to sales deals and documents is stored. The demo below shows a clear, clean, easy-to-use system, which incorporates email, leads, accounts, and contact information. It seems that Salesforce also took a few cues from Facebook and Twitter: the system features a sort of Twitter feed that automatically creates new status updates when something is changed in a project. You can follow your colleagues and stay up to date about your assigned projects, without having to CC everyone every time you send an email. Nifty. .

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Remember Moe the CMO? It looks like he has a cousin: Mike the Napkin Guy. Mike is here to tell you about CRM software by Sage ACT. The systems brings all contact information (email addresses, conversations, social network profiles, memos and notes) together in one place.

And I like to plug in a few personal details, it gives me a little edge over the competition. ACT allows you to be personal without the hassle of having to remember every little detail about each of your clients. And if youve got your customer info straight in your CRM system, then it may become easier to attract and close new business, like it does for Mike:

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Although the adoption of social applications by sales, marketing and customer service departments continues to grow rapidly, Gartner, Inc. said that, by the end of 2012, only 50 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will receive a worthwhile return on investment (ROI) from their social customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives.

Adam Sarner, research director at Gartner, said:

For the 50 percent of Fortune 1000 organizations not determining, or even measuring, ROI, ignorance will mean failed projects. Among the companies who will not see a worthwhile return, only 20 percent will even have the data to evaluate where their social strategy is falling short. These organizations will be unable to justify future funding.

During the next two years, the success of social CRM will depend on how well companies and social CRM technology providers can make social CRM projects more than just social objectives by tying them to clear and measurable business objectives. Gartner predicts that by the end of 2012 three-quarters of new social CRM initiatives that receive funding will have a business case incorporating measurable ROI. Read More

When communications are shaping your customer relationships, how are you doing?

The way you communicate with your customer determines how they think about you, and, more importantly, your brand. What kind of impression do you leave if you send out standardized, run-of-the-mill offers that dont relate to the customer in any way?  Over half of customers feel you dont know them from the communications they receive, according to this vendorThunderhead. And if we are to believe the rest of their stats, customers demand your constant attention, with timely, relevant offers.

So what do they want? To be recognized and remembered by the brand, personalized service, and communication on their terms. Take a look at the video to see how Thunderhead promises to deliver just those things. .

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So what do your customers want? Simple. They want what they want, when they want it, and however is most convenient for them.

Thats easier said than done. Understanding and analyzing customer behaviour requires some heavy-duty data analysis, according to this vendorSAS. The first of a series of three on their Customer Intelligence solution, this video focuses on growth opportunities through the analysis of marketing and customer data. Because: in an age of increased marketing accountablity, it is not only ciritical that you act with speed and precision, but forecast accurate profitable growth across everything you do.

If you know what the customer does, you can more accurately predict what they want, and where to utilize your marketing assets. While its only part of Marketing Operations, its not a bad idea to take the customers behaviour and preferences as a starting point for your marketing activity and business growth.

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The MRM Vendor List has been updated again! There have been a lot of changes among the software vendors offering MRM solutions last year and it certainly has not been boring in MRM/MOM/EMM/IMM land. We took some time to sort everything out and can hereby present to you a brand new Whos Who of marketing software vendors.

Also new is that we now mention the main focus of the vendor. Some vendors offer a fully-fledged MRM solution that supports the entire marketing process, from the cataloguing of images to planning to budgeting, while others focus on a specific area of the marketing process, such as Digital Asset Management, Customer Relations Management, or Print Solutions. Read More