November 7th B to B Focused on Marketing Asset Management
The November 7th issue of BtoB is filled with information and data points which are of interest to the marketing communitya s well to marketing service providers. The headlines on the front page seem to hit a topic of interest:
- Going Local
- Marketing to Small Businesses
- and a compelling special report on BtoB’s latest audit: Marketing Automation survey
But what exactly is Marketing Automation? Marketing Automation? Marketing Asset (Automation) Management (MAM) is defined by Gleanster as platforms that provide the necessary tools to enable distributed marketing and sales organizations the ability to deliver relevant, customizable campaigns to local markets while maintaining corporate brand guidelines. These tools typically include Digital Asset Management, dynamic templates enabling local market customization of marketing materials such as email, purls, direct mail. At one time, IBM had over 35,000 business partners worldwide, and the challenge was to provide this globally distributed channel the necessary branded marketing materials that allowed for customization at the local level or country. Image the guidelines around that eight bar logo, yet today leveraging platforms like Unica and SPSS, and a host of other software companies that IBM has consumed, makes the difficult – possible.
Interestingly enough, and not sure if this was intended, but MAM solutions do indeed solve the Go Local as well as enable small business or distributed channels such as franchise and other networks the tools they need to grow top line revenue and drive out bottom line costs.
The B2B survey highlighted that 45% of marketers are considering or aware of marketing automation. Aprimo’s VP of BtoB states, “The opportunities are still evolving, but marketing automation really comes down to providing value to sales.”
Quite frankly, in this new economy in which competition is heightened, can a business really rely on manual processes and procedures that take weeks before the next customer touchpoint is achieved? From print samples to welcome kits, newsletters, to custom follow up, the time is now to automate.
Many MSP’s today have already made investments in these platforms such as XM PIE, PTI and Pageflex. Now our investments have to repositioned from web to press software to a MAM solutions that enable the front line sales and marketing the ability to run local, customizable campaigns that leverage cross channel communications yet all within established guidelines.
