This week, Saepio partner Coffee + Dunn recently published an excellent paper entitled Marketing is Different: Those who know marketing know that traditional approaches to operations do not fit. We are offering you a complimentary copy here.
What's Inside?
In this paper Coffee + Dunn's Eric Rotkow, Consulting Director, and Thomas Manders, Managing Director, share insights and strategies to help improve how marketing gets done. Rotkow and Manders are two of the world's foremost authorities on marketing operations, having helped leading companies across several verticals bring efficiency and expertise to their marketing operations. Please click through below to download this excellent white paper.
Here's an excerpt:
"In the last decade, thousands of papers and presentations have been written to instruct marketing and IT practitioners in how to improve the way they execute marketing campaigns. Based on this thinking, agencies, consultants, and technology advisors have claimed a multitude of empirical efficiency gains on behalf of their clients.
We believe that the body of conventional wisdom amassed over the years is missing the point, as marketers struggle—now more than ever—to operate sustainable marketing organizations and are not realizing the promised benefits of a massive technology investment. What’s more, we believe there is a better approach to building sustainable marketing operations, and it is not rocket science. It is about accepting the fact that marketing is inherently different than other areas of the business, and that improvements may only be realized by applying the same rigor and discipline to marketing operations that marketers place on influencing customer behavior."
This detaied paper from Coffee + Dunn is a comprehensive discussion of why marketing has been challenged and what marketers can do to overcome those challenges.
What you will get from reading it
After reading this paper, marketing and IT leaders will have the knowledge to understand why previous improvement efforts have not worked, and plot a course that is sensitive to marketing’s uniqueness to build successful, sustainable marketing.
The paper below will help you NOT fail by exploring how to create effective, integrated email marketing campaigns at the national plus the local level. Click on the image below to download.
This week, I started a diet. Too much March Madness, French fries, and boulevard beer has finally caught up with me. I know, I know... everyone now says, “You shouldn’t diet. You should change your lifestyle!” Folks, I am on a DIET! One could call this an “air” diet, because it’s really strict. What can I say? I like nachos, beer, and there isn’t any of that on this plan. It’s hard, but I’m doing it... I‘m trying to make it happen…trying to improve. As the saying goes, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels…” Except maybe Boulevard Pale Ale, because that stuff is really, really delicious. But enough about me...
Making Improvements with MarketPort
Since I have a slight obsession with food this week, I’m naturally inclined to relate my weekly subject matter to the idea of a diet or to put that in a positive light….making improvements. You know what I’m talking about. There comes a time when you as the Corporate Marketer, needs to evaluate the processes that go into a campaign. It’s time to go on a manual process diet. You need to improve, streamline, and exponentially increase your output, but within the budgets of time and money.
Time Is Money: Save Both With MarketPort
You are the expert, so I don’t have to tell you that saving time is just as important as saving money when it comes to marketing collateral. You want to make it easier for your local marketer or managers to raise the level of their local business quickly by supplying the kits, print materials, and other marketing pieces for rapid distribution to their local customers. Why? Because that’s not their only job! The fact is that it’s your job to design and build the campaign, not your local manager. It’s their job to execute what you have given them quickly and get back to what they do best: making money! MarketPort removes or improves your processes by automating manual marketing tasks and helping you to build and organize these materials. With MarketPort, it’s easier for you to manage the distribution of campaign collateral to your regional sales and local marketers. And that translates into dollars my friends. ROI!
Need Help with Manual Processes? MarketPort!
When you choose MarketPort, you exponentially increase your capability to update marketing material --instantly. Rather than updating each piece manually, you create one piece of collateral and your local managers can then localize it for their efforts. It doesn’t matter if it’s a print, email, digital display, landing page, social media or text – MarketPort does it all! It can even take it a step further and provide dynamic data-driven materials based on Location and user login information (instant localization). That cuts down on the time your local managers or marketers spend thinking out or updating content within the pieces. Write out the message within the pieces that you want to drive home to your prospects and customers and allow MarketPort to select everything based on a few selections. ROI, my friends…ROI!
That about wraps up my weekly Friday tech post. And check out our solutions at www.saepio.com or contact a member of our team today! Have a wonderful Friday everyone! Don’t forget to connect with me on twitter @msalazarkc or LinkedIn. I would love to hear from you.
Saepio’s solution is built using the most modern development tools and techniques available. At Saepio, service, quality, and satisfaction of our clients are our top goal. If you have questions our products and services, please speak to a member of our team today!
Stay Classy Marketers!
M
Melissa Salazar
msalazar@saepio.com
Product Advocate Engineer @ Saepio Technologies
Twitter: @msalazarkc
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/melissasalazar
Personal: www.melissasalazar.com
Have you ever asked yourself, "I wonder if there is a better way?"
Today we are going to figure that out. If your company has one corporate identity and a network of local affiliates you should have at least heard of a Distributed Marketing Management Technology. It has been known by many other names such as an "Ad Builder solution", "Marketing Asset Management", "Distributed Marketing Technology", "Marketing Automation Technology", "Local Marketing Management Solution", and many others I am sure I forgot to mention. With all of these different names it is very hard to determine what type of marketing technology is the best for your company. Below are some benefits that will help guide you in the right direction.
Benefits For Both Corporate and Local
- Brand Consistency
- Speed to Market
- Easy Local Access to Content
- Cross Media Coordination
- Budgets and Fund Management
- Corporate and Local Synergy
Resource Kit to Help
Here is a link to a Resource Kit that can gives examples of how brands use and benefit from a Distributed Marketing Management Platform.
Also, if you are one of those people who would prefer to speak to someone, always feel free to contact me anytime. My information is below!
I hope this was helpful.
Sean Stratton
@STS_marketing
816-777-2165
sstratton@saepio.com
I’m going to talk to you about a something I really like (and I’m sure you do too) Money! What does money have to do with Marketers? Uh, EVERYTHING! Imagine for a moment if you had an application that could help you as the Corporate Marketer see where your marketing capital is being spent? What I am about to tell you next will really blow your mind! What if you could control the spend amounts that your local marketer are using and entice them to use their dollars on beautiful campaigns that will help them make more money? It’s not just a dream, its MarketPort!
When you purchase our MarketPort Solution we offer you COOP services to help you understand how your marketing dollars are being spent so that you can act appropriately. Our solution helps both Corporate Marketers create better campaigns and ensure all that hard work pays off by tracking what is going on in the campaign. This makes it easier for you to understand, recommend, and control your marketing material, and also to reconcile those dollars!
When you are the Corporate Marketer, you are the expert. You want to make it easier for your local dealership, marketers, or managers to raise the level of business quickly in their service departments by supplying the kits, print materials, and other marketing pieces for rapid distribution. MarketPort makes helps you to build and organize these materials and distribute to your local marketers. This helps build revenue for your business.
Every year most dealers/marketers will allocate a certain amount to spend each year on their advertising. Our COOP solutions will help make the best use of that money. Marketer can utilize upwards to 75% of those dollars through the Coop which gives them to opportunity to spread those dollars out over time. Our COOP solution also offers reporting back to the dealers that offer them information on how successful the campaign was, in other words, you can see your ROI and act accordingly- swiftly and effectively.
“If you know the information, you can achieve a better outcome.”
When you understand the events leading to the outcomes, you let go of the fear of failure, which in turn allows you to focus on the here and now. This feedback helps you understand the true nature of what is going on with your campaign, and in turn leads to better decision making. This gives you and your local marketer’s courage to run with those materials you’ve built. Taking action now by listening to the feedback coming to you ends up giving you a much better chance of succeeding in the end. That is our COOP solution. That is MarketPort!
Saepio’s Solutions are built using the most modern development tools and techniques available. At Saepio, service, quality, and satisfaction of our clients is our top goal. If you have questions our products and services, please speak to a member of our team today or contact me on twitter: @msalazarkc . I would love to hear from you.
Cheers and Keep Being Awesome Marketers!
M
Melissa Salazar
msalazar@saepio.com
There you are, minding your own business, just trying to get that flyer out which was, of
course, due yesterday! When all of a sudden, BAM! something goes awry. No more flyer, and no idea what happened. Was it something you did? Something your computer did? Something (we hate to think this would be the case!) that the software did? Now you are one day and one flyer behind. Where did it go? What do I do now?
Saepio Support to the Rescue!
That is where Saepio Support comes in. We are here to help you recover and get on with your marketing life no matter what the cause of the challenge was. We want you to be successful. We do what we can to help make that happen.
The biggest help to us is detail. Detail, detail, detail. No detail is too small. The issue may be something which seems unrelated. Complete directions and specific choices made in the process can often lead to the understanding the root cause and getting the problem solved.
Any facts you can provide will help us respond quickly. Username and any error messages, either as screen shots or copied from the message, are central to solving most issues. Detailed, factual information is most helpful. A paraphrase, however, is normally not useful, and may even be misleading.
Give All the Information Possible
Instructions. We need everything you can think of. We would much rather have too much information than not enough. What we need are the steps it takes to be able to reproduce the error. If we can't see it, we can't solve it.
Sometimes the issues are related to your browser or your security settings. First, be sure to use a current release of either Internet Explorer or Firefox. Other browsers may work, but are not guaranteed.
Another area to watch is popup blockers. Sometimes these are easy to spot and easy to fix with a simple setting change. Other times, the blocker is a little more challenging to find. For example, and any toolbars, such as a Google or Yahoo toolbar, provide their own blocking. Like layers of an onion. When you get past one, you may run into the next.
We're Here to Help
Our software helps people who are not designers create rich and compelling marketing assets.
But, like any technical solution, things do not always go as planned. That is why we are here ... to help solve the issues and answer your questions, so that you have a successful and rewarding experiencing creating your materials.
Jesstin Wheeler | Support Specialist
Have you ever been to a party with a friend or significant other and felt completely out of place. You didn’t know anyone there other than the person you came with so you don’t know who to talk to or even what to talk about. It’s boring and it probably had you feeling a little left out. Like you were kind of all alone, the odd man out, if you will. Marketing silo’s are a lot like that. Marketing doesn’t fall under just one giant umbrella, it breaks out into different areas like direct mail, email, social, mobile, digital display ads, banner ads, commercials and so on. So in today’s day and age, why do companies still have separate teams for the different areas of marketing?
What is a Multi-Channel Platform, Anyway?
If you’re a marketer I’m sure multi-channel marketing rings a bell. If it doesn’t, you’re probably
not doing a good job. Unlike silos, multi-channel marketing brings all the different areas of marketing together under that big umbrella, or onto one marketing technology platform, like MarketPort.
What Can it Do For My Organization?
With a multi-channel marketing platform, not only can your corporate marketers breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their brand messaging will be consistent across all channels, but also that their local marketers can mess anything up. The great thing about a multi-channel platform is that everything’s right there, in one place. You can create a direct mailer template, an email template, a digital display ad, and so on. All the corporate marketer has to do is set up the template with what they’re allowing the local marketer to change. In this situation, everyone wins.
The local marketer has a connection to consumers at the local level. They need to be able to customize their marketing collateral with their address and phone number and make it locally relevant. The corporate marketer gets to say, ok this is what we want it to say and look like, and this is where you can customize it. We like to call this freedom within a framework. The local marketer doesn’t feel like they’re thoughts on the collateral don’t matter because they get to customize it too.
Consistent Messaging Across All Channels
Another great benefit of having a multi-channel platform is that you know your messaging is going to be consistent across all channels. No mix up on the message being different with a direct mail piece and email piece. You can rest easy knowing that your brand is protected and your message is consistent, as well as being delivered to whatever channel your customers frequent most.
You might say the older generation is better targeted using a print ad, while the younger generation may be better targeted using mobile or a digital display ad. With a multi-channel platform, you can be where your customers are. And you can market the same message to them across all channels, whether it’s mobile, print, tv or direct mail. By moving the different channel into one place, you’re creating efficiency.
Creating Efficiency with a Multi-Channel Platform
Through a single content creation platform, you would create efficient marketing operations and coordinated cross-media messaging including:
- efficient content assembly;
- delivery using each customer’s preferred mediums;
- a single message for the customer across all mediums;
- coordination of agencies and suppliers; and
- multi-phase, multi-medium automated customer engagement.
Doesn’t that sound so much easier than what you’re doing now? I’m sure you’re thinking, “yeah this all sounds fine and dandy, but it seems like a lot of work.” Well I’m here to tell you that it’s not. Don’t believe me? Contact anyone of our account executives and they’ll be more than happy to walk you through it and show you everything a multi-channel platform has to offer. You can contact them at sales@saepio.com, or if you don’t want to wait, request a demo and someone will contact you shortly.
When you're looking into a distributed marketing management technology platform for your organization, one of the biggest users of it will more than likely be your marketing team. But how different team members use it will vary from team member to team member, depending on their role.
In this new Saepio paper, "Educating Marketing Decision Makers," we look at how each member of the marketing team can utilize a distributed marketing management platform. We'll focus on
these marketing team members:
- Vice Presidents and Directors,
- Brand Managers,
- Field Marketing Managers, and
- Local Marketers.
The Marketing Team
While they will see overlapping benefits from a Distributed Marketing Management platform, individuals within different roles will prioritize these benefits differently with some highlighting brand management or cost savings/efficiency gains and others focused on content localization and ease of use.
Marketing Directors and VPs
As the leaders of the marketing organization, Marketing VPs and Directors should expect a Distributed Marketing Management platform to provide unified brand messaging, lowered cost through marketing automation, and consolidated reporting on marketing activities across the local marketing ecosystem.
Brand Marketers
As the keeper of the corporate and product brand, you must depend on each of the many hands that touch your brand to keep it safe. A Distributed Marketing Management platform can consolidate brand messaging and content into a single location and enforce brand compliance across all content creation.
Field Marketers and Regional Marketing Managers
As the front- line managers of corporate/brand marketing, the regional marketing manager or field marketer should look for a system that enables them to easily create content with, and/or for, the local marketer. Further, a local marketer should be able to easily localize marketing content without needing the assistance of the field or regional marketing manager.
Local Marketers
The local marketer delivers the final message that moves an individual from consumer to customer. All local marketing resources must be centered around creating and fulfilling on this “local moment of truth.” Plus, the “local marketer” typically wears many other hats. The Distributed Marketing Management platform must be easy to use.
To learn about the more in-depth benefits each member of the marketing team can utilize as well as recommendations of further reading to better assist you, download the paper now.
Vision can provide both a corporate sense of being and a sense of enduring purpose. While incorporating a measure of today's success, vision transcends day-to-day issues. And, by providing meaning in both the present and the future, vision can empower and encourage leaders and followers to implement change (Sullivan & Harper 1996).
Many large marketing departments in organizations must confront preconceived notions about their business processes and goals before they can successfully implement a new Marketing Asset Management system. Really large companies are complex and that means more infrastructure and processes. Some companies have limited or no MAM systems and solely operate on processes that have usually been in place for many years. Therefore the challenge of “change” can lead to many preconceived ideas by both the staff and their business partners, about how to managing marketing collateral. The biggest challenge to these ideas will come to light when choosing a new Marketing Asset Management system such as MarketPort.
LOOK TO THE FUTURE
Let’s be frank, when you start to look for a MAM or a new Asset Management system, you will
not be able to replicate your current situation completely. And you shouldn’t want to – otherwise, why would you change? You want something that is going to bring efficiency, save money for your team and make great marketing materials for your internal and external customers.
Your new solution should look to the future. Ask yourself, what do you want your teams to accomplish in the next five, 10 or 20 years, and what are the best tools available now to help them? Be prepared to rethink the marketing business practices to accommodate those tools. Let me put it this way, if you are doing the same thing that you did 15 years ago, a good place to start is by asking yourself and your team why you haven’t changed?
CHA-CHANGING TO KEEP MOVING
Trying to keep your current processes and then attempting to get a MAM system to conform to those processes by ordering custom components will only mean more cost in the long run. Most MAM distribution software companies will consider rolling a new custom component into the Platform if it’s a component that will be used by many. In the end, highly customized systems will be more expensive both upfront and in the future as the need to upgrade and grow arises. Look at the purchase of a MAM system like our own MarketPort as the opportunity to collapse those time intensive processes and streamline your operation – even if it means retraining your staff. Afterall, they should welcome the change! Isn’t it every organizations goal to build a workplace culture that attracts and keeps creative people? That can only be done by changing and growing.
Never mind the Fluff!
Marketing departments that are still running their MAM and are only worried about print should think about the future of marketing and how rapidly its changing. When choosing a solution, look for cloud based because it gives you the greatest advantage for long-term functionality and strategic value. Go for the platform solution instead of several solutions for different problem. Marketport can fulfill your print, digital ad, email, landing page, social, and product solutions.
THINK GLOBALLY
Remember that your solution should also be global in nature. At Saepio we know you have global operations and a diverse workforce. Your MAM should know that too. MarketPort can be translated into any language. If your company includes many lines of business in several different industries, not an issue. MarketPorts dynamic skinning and permissions allow a seamless delivery to all regardless of brand. This will help when you go for global buy-in! It’s so critical to the success of any new platform that operates in an international, multi-branding space. Lastly, when a handful of decision-makers choose a new system without widespread input, this just builds resentment. Involve many, but make the decision based on the future.
Push your platform provider to help you formulate new processes so that you make money using your MAM, not waste time trying to make the MAM fit your processes. If you don’t think that your Platform provider can help you with these , try Saepio. We can run scenarios showing you how our systems can achieve your goals.
If you're considering a Marketing Asset Management system and have questions about implementation, talk to one of our account reps who can help answer any and all questions you have. Email them at sales@saepio.com or give us a call at 877.468.7613.
Basketball, fight songs, Sprint Center. Right now at this moment there is a ton of fun stuff going on in Kansas City. OU, Iowa State, KSU, OSU, Texas, Tech, and of course KU, they are all here. Dozens of basketball games, playing on televisions in bars across KC and all over the country. Ahh yes.. March Madness is just a couple of days away! Where I sit, there is a lot of excitement in this town! Wait? Did you say Kansas City?? As in, Google Fiber—that Kansas City? Yup, did you know that Saepio calls Kansas City, Mo. its home? For Saepio, Big 12 is a pretty big deal.
You see, Saepio is also home to many Big 12 graduates. KU, KSU, Nebraska, OSU, OU, and Iowa State are all represented in here at Saepio. On the Basketball court, we may hash it out, but the one thing we all have in common is our love for Kansas City!
Big 12 Tournament is here! Let the Madness begin..
Today, I walked the streets of our beautiful Power and Light district, which is where all the Big 12 basketball games are being played at the lovely Sprint Center. I started thinking about all the local marketing opportunities that exist for large scale organizations like NCAA, Budweiser, Miller Light, Sprint, and even AMC, which is another local company here in Kansas City. When I saw all the different beer trucks, NASCAR vehicles on display and food vendors, I thought, wow, if they had the ability to update their print collateral real-time, they could make specific offers geared to the sports fans as they come out of the Sprint Center! Guess what, they can! And it’s not hard to do.. if you have MarketPort.
Two Players, One Team
You see, with Marketport, your corporate marketer formulates the game plan strategy. They set the tone going into the tournament by providing the actual marketing collateral and guides for your key player to follow. We all know once the game begins things will happen really fast. So once the buzzer sounds, it’s up to your local marketer or local manager to execute that corporate strategy that you put out there. And they may need to adjust that plan depending on what they see or feel is happening, after all, your local teams are the ones in the game! And like any good coach, you want them to be able to make those adjustments! If it means more wins, then you REALLY want them to execute that plan efficiently and make adjustments along the way as necessary.
For your game plan, call on Marketport!
When a corporate marketer makes plan for a campaign or large event (like the Big 12, the SEC, or March Madness – whatever!) they want to capitalize on, they formulate a strategy that consists of variables like content, images, products, (swag) addresses and email lists. If you are corporate with local marketers or local managers like a Subway Corp., McDonalds Corp., Sprint or QuikTrip and you want to target specific groups of people at an event like Big 12, normally you would make a bunch of different variations of your print or electronic collateral. With MarketPort, the corporate marketer makes the strategy once, formulates the strategy into a template, publishes and attaches the template to a workflow. Then the Local Marketer updates it quickly and specific to the current events either by accessing it on the web or through the companies SSO point! That means that your local businesses then have the option to localize the content/collateral specific to what is happening right now! KU wins over Iowa State – BOOM! Guess who is offering State fans a coupon for a coffee or happy hour – your local marketer is right there to execute your strategy quickly when the game changes!
For all your local marketers a few clicks and back to selling! See you all at March Madness! And if you’re ever in Kansas City, stop on by. I know a couple of great places to show you. Until next week…
Stay Classy, Fellow Marketers!
M
Melissa Salazar
msalazar@saepio.com
Product Advocate Engineer
Twitter: @msalazarkc
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/melissasalazar
Personal: www.melissasalazar.com