Marketing Governance

Vitrue, a provider of cloud-based marketing tools for centrally planning and running campaigns of any size and scale on sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Vitrue manages more than 1.3bn social interactions for over 500 brands, with customers including AT&T, the telco, McDonalds, the fast food chain, Procter & Gamble, the FMCG group, and BBDO, the agency. Thomas Kurian, EVP, Oracle Development, said:

The proliferation of social media and an increased demand by consumers to engage with brands across multiple social channels is driving chief marketing officers to look for an integrated social marketing platform. Read More

Cantos Digital Asset Management solution Cumulus seems a pretty straightforward, no-frills DAM system. It is an online library for all business related assets: images, files, documents, audio or video media. It manages access rights, making some information available to a limited number of people, if necessary. And Cumulus is a cloud-based system (as the name indicates), which allows quick and easy collaboration world-wide. .

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Cloud, social, mobile and information are the four key IT forces — alongside the continued impact of consumerization — that are combining to produce a nexus in which Cool Vendors will operate, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartners 2012 Cool Vendors research series identifies the innovative companies, products and services that will shape business and consumer strategies in the future. Cool vendors are minor software vendors that nonetheless deserve some attention and recognition for the pioneering work they are doing, according to research institute Gartner.

This year Gartner has profiled more than 320 Cool Vendors, which offer innovations relating to data analysis and management, marketing, cloud services brokerage, people-centered computing, software infrastructure, consulting, outsourcing, and telecom operations management, as well as other markets. By definition, Cool Vendors are small vendors that offer innovative products or services. The innovation may be in how the product works or in what can be accomplished by those using the product or service. Read More

You control your brand, its assets and its information with just a few clicks. MRM vendorBrandworkz demonstrates its features in this (rather modest) video. It covers multiple areas of the marketing production process, from production to reporting. Customizable for each organization, it includes web-to-print, an extensive DAM function with access rights, a planning and workflow tool and a reporting function.

Brandworkz promises to increase brand consistency, quicker time-to-market, and fewer man hours required to do the same tasks. The system looks fresh and easy to use, but this video also create the impression that the benefits will are attainable by simply implementing a marketing software tool. And thats not true. While a well-oiled marketing system is certainly a requirement for a smooth marketing production process, it must be backed up by a solid organizational structure, with clearly defined tasks, roles and responsibilities. .

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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

During an economic downturn, marketing and comms budgets are the first to be cut, leaving companies with fewer resources to reach their customers. When the budgets limited, and the expectations are high, how do you deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time?

Software vendor Fision has the answer. In an interview with business program 21st Century Business, CEO Mike Brown lists the advantages of his system. It allows marketers to utilize resources efficiently, so they are able to do more with less. It offers greater control for marketing departments over how the brand is advertized, and how the brand image is presented to the world, and a greater autonomy for sales people and customer reps, who have relevant content available to them.

It may not be top-notch reporting (So Mike, can anyone use Fision?), but it give a pretty good idea of what the marketing automation solution has to offer. .

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Turning marketing into a profitable revenue growth engine for your company requires a nimbleness in thinking and action. With a wealth of technologies and channels available to both marketers and consumers, there are more opportunities for marketers to reach their audience, but its also becoming easier for customers to opt out, toss out and tune out your promotional activities.

Plan, execute and optimize are the keywords for this vendorbasic idea, but the SAS solution seems to involve more than project management. Which campains drive most revenue for the business, and how can they be executed more cheaply without impacting profits? How do you ensure a consistent customer experience across multiple channels? And how can customer desires best be balanced against the needs of the business?

SAS promises to finetune your marketing organization into an engine for profitable revenue growth or, in simpler words: make money and keep the customer satisfied.

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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

SproutLoud takes a wide view. Marketing their software solution to both brand marketers and local businesses, SproutLoud highlights the importance of timeliness, local relevance, and brand consistency. A nice touch in this video are the two case studies, demonstrating how their software may be used by marketers operating in completely different markets: from the small local jewelers to a global cruise line,  SproutLoud claims to empower local marketers with the resources of national brands. .

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