Posted on Fri, Aug 13, 2010 @ 01:46 PM
The buzzword "benchmarking" is often used in the business world and it's clear why. It's hard to know how well you're doing if you don't have anything to use for comparison.
Often, sales figures are the first data points used for comparison. This is not only because they are typically made widely available for publically traded companies, but they also provide an easy starting point for benchmarking since they provide an overall assessment of a company’s success. A simple comparison can tell you how you stack up to the competition.
However, what sales figures do not provide is any indication of how that number was achieved and what drove success or failure. This is where benchmarking becomes more difficult. There are thousands of possibilities for benchmarking across finance, operations, marketing and more. Clearly, benchmarking all of the factors that influence your organization’s success, even just in marketing alone, isn’t feasible.
What’s Important?
Understanding what is important to your organization and its success is a good starting point for benchmarking.
As part of Aberdeen’s recent 
benchmark study report, “Marketing Asset Management: Managing Brand Compliance in Distributed Marketing Environments,” researchers gained insight from marketers into the business pressures that represent the most frequent external forces that impact their organization’s marketing position, competitiveness or business operations.
These included:
- Difficulty managing brand consistency while operating across a wide geography
- Difficultly managing brand consistency due to volume (number of business units, acquisitions, etc).
- The need for faster cycle times on marketing activities due to volatile macroeconomic conditions
- Mandates to improve operational efficiency
Benchmarking
While these pressures were listed by many of the marketers surveyed, Aberdeen’s research determined that there are some very distinct differences in how organizations dealt with this.
Those organizations considered to be “Best-in-Class” were more likely to have an asset management system in place, provide the marketing department with access to all digital assets so that these could be repurposed or reused. Results for these top organizations included:
- Improved ROMI 32% year-over-year, compared to 4% decrease for Laggards
- 18% improvement in brand consistency, compared to 1% decline for Laggards
- Reduced marketing campaign time-to-market by 1%, compared to 3% increase for Laggards
How Does My Organization Compare and What Can I Do?
It isn’t enough to simply benchmark against Best-in-Class organizations if that is the end of the process. Action must be taken for benchmarking to have any significant meaning or effect.
Based on this knowledge, 
Aberdeen has created an easy-to-use self-assessment tool designed for marketers to not only benchmark against best practices in marketing asset management and managing brand compliance, but also receive personalized recommendations for improvement. In less than 15 minutes, you can start building the case for change in your organization and have the data to help support your case.
Through this process, marketers can realize the true value of benchmarking – going beyond the simple comparison of data to create change and (hopefully) join “Best-in-Class” organizations to set the standard in the future.
Posted on Mon, May 10, 2010 @ 03:38 PM
At Saepio, we're always eager to share the knowledge we've gained through working with over 200 top brands. We have a variety of client case studies, white papers and Distributed Marketing Leadership Series guides available, but also love "show and tell" webinars.
Because of this, we've been busy with preparations for several upcoming events. Although the overall theme - distributed marketing - is the same for both, there won't be a lot of content overlap between the two, so we encourange everyone to attend both.
Distributed Marketing Leadership Series - Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level
With the release of our latest Distributed Marketing Leadership Series guide comes a Wednesday, May 12 follow-up on how to explode the value of your brand at the local level. Hear a Saepio client manager expand on the guide and share success stories about Saepio clients that have leveraged the power of local and distributed marketers. register now.
Marketing Asset Management 101 - Cleaning up Decentralized Marketing Processes to Gain Efficiencies and Brand Compliance
For an extended case study, join us on May 18th for the latest installment in our MAM101 webinar series. In this presentation, Tennant Company's Michael Johnson will discuss the challenges Tennant faced in creating effective marketing pieces for the organization's distributed sales force, why they ultimately chose Saepio, and how marketing asset management has helped the organization. register now.
We'd also like to invite you to a free webinar from Gartner on May 19. Attend to hear Gartner's independent analysis on the top marketing processes companies should consider for driving revenue and managing costs. Also, learn about the organization's MRM Magic Quadrant and recommendations for selecting vendors to optimize the management of marketing resources so companies don't have to cut marketing programs. registration (through Gartner).
Enjoy! We hope to see you soon.
Posted on Thu, Apr 22, 2010 @ 09:59 AM
Monday's post featured two of the five "C's" of a win-win brand strategy from our newly released Distributed Marketing Leadership Series booklet, Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level. Today, we'll share the remaining three.
SECTION 5: The Five C's of a Win-Win Brand Strategy
Coordinated Message Delivery
Just as consistent messaging is important, coordinated timing of delivery is also key. When a local marketer's messages are timed to coordinate with national messages, investments in marketing can be optimized.
At the heart of successful coordination is successful communication. And that means two-way communications. Often coordinated message delivery is dependent upon one way communication and hope. In these cases, corporate develops a merchandising kit containing promotional signage and other merchandising materials and sends it to the local market with the hope that it will be used properly, if at all.
Local marketers want to be successful and want the benefits of the resources the corporate marketer provides, but their worlds don't revolve around what corporate marketing is doing. They are focused on what they are doing to drive traffic and view corporate as a helpful part of that plan. When the marketing kit arrives for a coordinated campaign, it may or may not receive the priority the corporate marketer seeks. What happens is dependent upon how effective communication has been up to that point.
While it takes more work, engaging communication between corporate and local marketers is key to coordinated message delivery. When the local marketer knows what message is recommended and why; what's in it for him/her; and what is expected as part of a campaign, coordinated messaging naturally follows.
Cooperative Customer Management
Brands only hum when customers hum in harmony with them. The brand exists to create an emotional connection with the customer, to establish and grow a relationship. That doesn't happen without a corporate role and doesn't sustain without a local one.
For a brand to hum, the experience a customer or prospect experiences through national brand messages - coupled with the experience they have upon entering a local retail outlet or upon interacting with a branded product or service - must be completely harmonious. The local marketer is critical to this process. Store décor, in-store promotions, digital signage, merchandise bags and many other physical items all contribute to the brand experience. So too do the personal interactions that happen in the store.
While corporate marketers can't always control customer management, they should always consider it when creating local options for national brand messaging. One cannot assume that a local marketer or local sales associate will be able to provide a continuous brand experience for the customer without being coached on how to do so. Often, adding this "last mile" of instructions adds little time to campaign development but can make a huge different in the effectiveness of that campaign.
Communication, Communication, Communication
"Any successful relationship starts with listening, including that between the corporate and the local marketer."
You simply can't over communicate with a local marketer yet you most assuredly can over communicate to one. Remember, effective communication is a dialogue.
A nationally renowned speaker told 80,000 people who came to hear him speak that he really didn't have anything to say, but just one thing to show the group. With that he pulled out a giant ear and held it up. He didn't need to say another word to make his point.
- Communicate what's important to your brand by first listening to how it's important to your local marketer.
- Communicate what you need them to do by first listening to what they need you to do.
- Communicate what resources you've made available to them by listening to what they need those resources to be.
There they are. The five C's for making your brand hum at the local level. There's nothing magical about them. We'd love to call them profound, but they're simply applications of the sixth C ... Common sense. Yet too few apply them well and as a result too few see their brand really hum at the local level.
The Distributed Marketing Leadership Series - Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level
The five "C's" we previewed here are in section 5 of our newest booklet. Download the booklet for more on how to create exponential value from corporate investments in brand creation, positioning and messaging by leveraging your distributed marketing network.
Posted on Mon, Apr 19, 2010 @ 04:32 PM
Saepio's Distributed Marketing Leadership Series recently 
launched with both a 30+ page guidebook (The Enterprise Marketing Management Strategy Guide) and a webinar that expanded upon the booklet - both designed for distributed marketing organizations. We're about to launch the 2nd booklet in the series, Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level.
In the meantime, our next two posts are a preview of the soon-to-be released booklet.
SECTION 5: The Five C's of a Win-Win Brand Strategy
Managers of distributed marketing networks have long been challenged with keeping corporate and local marketing messages working together. At the root of the challenge is the fact that there are often legitimate reasons for the disconnect:
- Corporate marketers are very brand focused.
- Local marketers are all about driving traffic and sales.
The two perspectives can easily collide, with the result being less than effective marketing. But it doesn't have to be that way. Employing five "C's" to a distributed marketing process can go a long way towards making a brand hum at the local level. Common Objectives
While it may seem logical that one would begin any marketing effort with common objectives already established, Saepio client managers too often observe the opposite.
Corporate and local marketers simply think differently. And they do so for a good reason. The corporate marketer who manages the distributed marketing network is the keeper of the brand and brand messages for that network. S/he must constantly focus on corporate brand objectives and deliver those to - and then through - the local marketer. The local marketer is often not on that same page. Store traffic and a ringing register is paramount and if the marketing message isn't perceived as focused solely on generating sales, the local individual isn't interested. They like the brand support, but insist that it be relevant.
However, these different perspectives in no way preclude the formation of common objectives. They just require the corporate marketer to, as Stephen Covey would say in his best-selling book, "seek first to understand and then to be understood." Listening to the needs of the local marketer and gleaning knowledge from the school of practical application via the local marketers on the front lines can enable the corporate marketer to identify common objectives and create campaigns that truly support them.
Consistent Messages
Understanding the importance of delivering consistent messages across the entire distributed marketing network is easy for many marketers. Doing so is more challenging.
Consistent messaging to consumers begins with effective resources for local marketers. While a local marketer will often want to advertise using a national message, s/he often wants to somehow alter that message to make it more applicable for his or her local environment. It is key for the corporate marketer to provide resources that ensure consistent messaging but allow some local flexibility.
Distributed marketing management systems that include marketing asset management technology are an excellent starting point. These solutions provide all of the marketing resources the local marketer needs in one, easy-to-access location. As long as the corporate marketer is diligent in keeping the library of resources current, messages across the distributed marketing network will stay consistent.
Check back later this week as we cover the remainder of the the five "C's" from Exploding Brand Value at the Local Level. Any guesses in the meantime as to what the other three "C's" should be?
Posted on Wed, Mar 03, 2010 @ 09:55 AM
Saepio has quite a few white papers and educational materials that discuss the divide between national and local marketing and how all marketing ultimately boils down to local marketing, but these conceptual discussions aren't always as clear as a personal experience.
Last week, I was in a store aisle reading the packaging for a digital camera I had come to get for a family member's birthday. Beside me stood another shopper, fully engaged in his iPhone.
A store associate approached us and asked if we had any questions. I indicated that I had already completed my research online before coming to the store and was just making sure that I had the correct model. The other shopper also declined, noting that he was currently reading online reviews online for a product. "Wow," the associate joked, "you all are going to put me out of a job."
He could be right.
Consumer buying habits are changing rapidly. The way we decide what products we will buy and where we will buy them is very different today than it was just a few years ago.
I had made the purchase decision in the comfort of my home. The trip to the store was merely the outcome of my research on price and inventory availability.
My fellow shopper selected a store, then was using his phone's recognition technology to find reviews about the products that were available at that location.
Missing from both scenarios was any conversation, outside of packaging, between the brand and the buyer. My only interactions had been with CNET, customer reviews, search results on where the brand and model could be purchased and a price/feature verification at the retailer's website. My fellow shopper was not getting information from the brands' websites either. Neither of us had any interaction with any of the manufacturers competing for our business.
That has to be challenging for manufacturers. All of the decision influences were in environments outside of their control. But, I don't think it had to be that way. Surely, there must be some way to engage me in a dialogue before I'm at the point of decision.
Cannon, for example, should have been all over me. We had purchased multiple Cannon digital cameras over the past five years (thanks to my penchant for dropping them from great heights to hard surfaces below) with the last purchase happening over three years ago. We like Cannon products. Cannon surely should have been part of the conversation. I had spent several hours searching and reading independently to try to determine which camera would be the best one for my family member. Cannon never found a way to help me with this process. Nor did any of the other manufacturers. They seemed content for me to sort through information on CNET until I reached a brand agnostic decision.
My fellow shopper was in the same situation. He simply moved from brand to brand, comparing features, prices and reviews with all of the manufacturers' investments in brand messaging lost because there was no connection to the national branding efforts at the time and place of decision. The failure to make marketing local had negated its effectiveness.
Consumers want to be engaged in meaningful ways. I would have been open to a dialogue with Cannon or any other manufacturer, but was never provided an opportunity. Instead, any generic, national brand messaging was simply ignored. Or worse, it was never even noticed.
Smart manufacturers must move quickly to find a way to enable relevant and timely engagement with consumers. This doesn't equate to more national brand marketing, but instead means that they must move marketing messaging closer to the consumer and closer to the point of decision, reaching the consumer at the individual, local level - and when he or she needs it. Putting marketing platform technology in place to enable this will be key to being part of the conversation. Otherwise, other consumers like myself and the the shopper next to me at the retailer will continue to make our decisions completely outside of the marketing process.
Maybe Panasonic will figure this out before I buy again and make the steal of this Cannon customer complete.
For more on the effects of disconnected local and national marketing, try one of these Saepio whitepapers:
Changing Consumer Practices Require a New Approach to Marketing
Posted on Tue, Feb 02, 2010 @ 09:11 PM
Looking at the titles of most local marketing books and articles would make one think that all local marketers face the same challenges. While that's true in some ways, it's very different in other ways.
As Saepio has helped organizations maximize the effectiveness of their brands in the local marketplace over the past 10 years, we've observed that in distributed marketing, one size definitely doesn't fit all. What we've observed is that similar characteristics exist between organizations not based on the industry they are in, whether they sell a service or product or other traditional classifications but rather on how they engage customers.
Take food service as an example. Two Saepio clients within this industry vertical are McDonald's and Great Harvest Bread Company. Both seek to gain a share of their customers' dining or food budgets but both go about marketing very differently. A local McDonald's, obviously, leans heavily on national branding and advertising and location to drive business. Great Harvest, on the other hand, works heavily to create a loyal customer community without the benefit of heavy corporate brand advertising.
While one could no doubt slice segmentations even further, thorough client use patterns we've observed that six unique market segments exist within distributed marketing. These segments are:
Loyalty - Frequent Segment
The local marketer depends on the national brand but is largely responsible for developing a loyal customer community. Customers make purchases multiple times per year from the same store location. A strong customer relationship may be developed between staff and customers.
Saepio Client Brand Examples: Great Harvest Bread Company, Cartridge World (Cartridge World Case Study), Curves Fitness (Curves Case Study)
Loyalty - Infrequent Segment
The local marketer depends heavily on the national brand and strives to build a cult customer following in association with that brand. Purchases typically happen once or less than once a year and loyalty must be maintained during the lulls.
Saepio Client Brand Examples: BMW Motorcycles (BMW Case Study), H&R Block, HCA, National Life
Convenient Location Segment
The local marketer depends heavily on the national brand. The customer loyalty is with the national brand and not the local store although the same store may have many interactions each year with the customer. That being said, the customer would be just as satisfied receiving the service from another outlet at a different location.
Saepio Client Brand Examples: McDonalds, Carlson Hotels, Valvoline Instant Oil Change, Chevron
Retail Assist Segment
The local marketer is not focused on the national brand but does view it as a nice compliment to the primary brand (the store or business) that generates the customer traffic and garners loyalty.
Saepio Client Brand Examples: Burt's Bees, HBO, Hill's Pet Nutrition, GM ACDelco
Community Development Segment
The local marketer is focused on building community around a brand concept of theme. There is often no product, per se, but human association or connection to an activity or cause.
Saepio Client Brand Examples: Boy Scouts, Easter Seals (Easter Seals Case Study), Salvation Army
Sales Assist Segment
The local marketer needs to develop custom proposals to aid in sales activities.
Saepio Client Brand Examples: Johnson & Johnson medical devices, Motorola
In future blogs, we'll dive deeper into how organizations within each of these segments build distributed marketing management solutions that are very different from organizations in the other segments.