Align Corporate and Local Marketing to Fuel Increased Sales
While much has changed in the past year for marketing professionals who manage distributed marketing networks, research recently conducted by Saepio shows that much remains the same. As in past years, five commonly mentioned challenges are:
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Keeping brand messaging consistent with so many people involved
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Managing content versioning for local market relevancy
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Getting new messages and materials quickly to market
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Responding to local marketers’ requests in a timely manner
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Creating synergy between corporate and local marketing
Of these, improving brand alignment through building better synergy between corporate and local marketing, however, is increasingly becoming a top priority.
Historically, corporate marketers could rely on the strategy of building a strong brand and supplying marketing materials they hoped the local marketer would use correctly. That rarely worked, though, because corporate and local marketers often had very different thoughts about marketing. The brand manager naturally worked to create a consistent national brand message. The local marketer, however, focused almost exclusively on keeping the business running. He was perfectly happy having two inflatable gorillas fighting on his roof if that was what would bring traffic through the door.
Today’s consumers, however, are less forgiving. They not only want but expect integrated messages from the corporation whether they are locally or nationally originated. Further, they look for consistent messaging no matter what channel it arrives through.
This really raises the bar for all marketers and moves brand alignment between corporate and local from an important-to-have to an imperative-to-have.
Unfortunately, new consumer expectations didn’t magically change the long-standing natural
challenge of different priorities between corporate and local marketers. But consumer expectations have made the stakes are higher now. Brand alignment at corporate and local simply has to happen.
Insightful managers of distributed marketing networks have already begun to connect these dots. To align corporate and local marketers, the distributed marketing manager must bring them into one team, on one platform, pursuing the one goal of coordinated consumer engagement. As outlined in the Saepio white paper Tapping the Potential of Local Marketers: How Better Brand Alignment Can Fuel Increased Sales, this can only happen through investment in advanced distributed marketing platform technology and a diligent commitment to strong cooperation. The organizations to accomplish this first will have a strong competitive advantage in this new marketing era.
