Marketing Governance

In today’s market marketing teams are under more and more pressure to perform and get results. ROI is a magic word in marketing now-a-days, while budgets and resources are under pressure as well. In the meantime customers are holding back and getting less and less faithfull to just one brand. So, pressure is on for the marketing department, because you can only do so much to get better results.

There are several trends today which cause this higher pressure, says a paper by SAS.

• Consumers are more empowered then ever
• Data volumes are exploding
• New contact channels add complexity and dissonance
• You don’t control all the channels
• There’s more opportunity for confusion and noise
• Marketing organizations are drowning in data

How can marketers keep their head up in all this turmoil? How can they identify the best strategy that will deliver the best returns on from marketing investments?

Wilson Raj, Global Customer Intelligence Director at SAS shed his light on how to improve ROI on your marketing investments during a webinar sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association and SAS.  Optimization is the keyword, he says.

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Distributed Marketing

In a recent survey by the Aberdeen Group, 67% of respondents said their marketing operates in a distributed marketing environment. By the traditional definition, distributed marketing refers to a marketing model in which both a central corporate marketing department and “local” organizations or business units share authority and responsibility for making marketing decisions and performing marketing activities. The stereotypical example of a distributed marketing organization is a franchise network, but distributed marketing models exist in many kinds of organizations.

The reality is, most large companies, particularly global enterprises, use some form of a distributed marketing model. For example, marketing operations is many multinational companies are highly fragmented. Most global enterprises have regional or national marketing organizations in addition to a central corporate marketing department. These regional and/or local marketing organizations often play a significant role in the creation of marketing content and the execution of marketing programs. They usually hire their own language service providers for translation services, and they may also contract with marketing agencies to create original content or adapt “corporate” content for the local market.

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If you are going to deliver Operational Marketing Excellence in your business you need to get your technology implementation right.

Here are the top 10 critical moves you should make.

Operational Marketing Excellence doesn’t come easily; it takes time and demands that you change stubborn habits, overcome emotional barriers, and mend broken processes. Software-vendor Aprimo has some top tips.

Efficient marketing supply chain management will deliver significant financial results, as well improving collaboration amongst the marketing department, its internal customers and the suppliers of marketing services.

If you want to know more, watch this video.

Digital Asset Management involves more than just storing images in a neatly organized library. When it comes to managing a brands logo and media, there are all kinds of legal and financial issues to take into account. What if the wrong rights for an image have been bought? What if it isnt used according to the contract? Rights claims can be astronomical, but the negative publicity is free.

A Digital Asset Management or Brand Asset Management system, as software vendor Vyre calls it, helps marketers to use images in the right way. In the video below (opens in a new window), the Sales and Marketing director and the head of Professional Services from Vyre explain how a Brand Asset Management system can ensure media are always used as they should be.

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Save time managing media, spend time being creative.

Weve seen quite a few vendor videos for Digital Asset Mangement (DAM) solutions, and heres yet another one. OpenText Media Management 7.0 is specifically designed for use in creative professions such as marketing, broadcasting and publishing. These industries make heavy use of rich media content such as photos and videos, and a well organized digital asset library is crucial for a speedy prodution process. Whats more, this solution allows you to transfer content into different formats as required for tablets, e-books, mobile devices and the like.

The OpenText DAM includes several modules: for brand management, media management, text management, video management, for example. All in all, it looks like theyve got most rich media covered. .

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‘Marketing as we know it is dead. But there is a better way. Alterian gives you the tools to understand, create and deliver in the new world of customer engagement.

Software giant Alterian introduces its four different marketing software solutions to help todays marketers navigate the complicated world of customer engagement. The underlying idea for each of these solutions is of course the customer. If you listen to what they are saying, you can adjust your marketing activities accordingly and create personalized, relevant content delivered at the right time.

The Campaign Manager is the broadest solution, designed for managing entire campaigns. Knowledge is power and by understanding the audience, you can adjust and optimize campaigns to create maximum effect across multiple channels. A more specific solution is the Dynamic Messenger, which analyzes online behavior with regard to email, allowing you to personalize and finetune email messages. The Content Manager solution promises to help you create interactive and relevant websites, that allow business users to engage customers when they visit. And finally, of course there is a social media solution: SM2, which allows you to analyze how consumers talk about your brand, and become part of the conversation.

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Direxxis introduces their marketing solution dmEDGE. Direxxis provides off the shelf direct marketing solutions, designed to support the marketing process.

The system features different modules, including Marketing Asset Management, Relationship Management, Marketing Performance Management, which, according to Direxxis, help you centralize your content data and business rules and enable you to accurately implement and track field marketing programs. .

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