How to Make Local Marketing Easier

This is the third of four posts dealing with distributed marketing. So far in this series, I've explained what distributed marketing is, described the major challenges facing distributed marketers, and discussed why technology is critical to improving the productivity of distributed marketing.

The diagram below shows that the distributed marketing automation "house" includes two core types of technological capabilities. In my last post, I discussed the marketing asset management component of distributed marketing automation. This post covers the technology tools used to streamline and automate customer engagement management activities and processes.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





One of the major challenges facing organizations that rely on distributed marketing is a lack of marketing resources and expertise at the local level. According to research by the Aberdeen Group, the lack of local marketing resources is one of the two biggest challenges for distributed marketing organizations. Because many local entities are small organizations or business units, this is compeltely understandable and probably unavoidable. One result of this lack of resources and expertise is that local partners don't market as frequently or extensively as they should to maximize revenues. 

What CEM Technologies Do

The customer engagement management technologies in distributed marketing automation solutions simplify marketing processes and empower local marketers to effectively and efficiently plan, execute, and measure the results of advertising and marketing campaigns and programs.

Customer engagement technologies build on the capabilities of marketing asset management by using customizable templates that enable local marketers to easily create advertisements and other marketing campaign materials. In general, the capabilities provided by customer engagement technologies fall into three broad categories.
 

Campaign Planning/Management

This category typically includes tools for planning and scheduling marketing campaigns and the tasks required to develop and execute those campaigns.
 

Campaign Execution

In addition to using templates to create campaign materials, most distributed marketing automation solutions enable local marketers to execute e-mail marketing campaigns either directly or through a link to an e-mail service provider. For direct mail campaigns, the solution will typically enable local marketers to upload mail lists, select recipients from the corporate database, or purchase a mailing list from a third party provider.
 

Campaign Performance Measurement

Distributed marketing automation solutions typically include tools that enable local marketers to measure the performance of their marketing programs. Some solutions provide corporate marketers access to this performance data, and some will also enable a local marketer to see the results obtained by other local marketers from particular campaigns. This capability enables "best practices" knowledge to be shared across the distributed marketing network.
 

Benefits of CEM Technologies

The cutomer engagement management technologies in distributed marketing automation solutions make it easy for local marketers to create and run marketing campaigns and programs, and they will usually reduce the cost of those programs. Therefore, these technologies encourage local marketers to run marketing programs more frequently, and increased local marketing will drive higher revenues for both the local entity and the corporate brand owner.

By supporting extensive and cost-effective customization of marketing messages and materials, CEM technologies also enable local marketers to create and run more relevant and therefore more effective marketing programs.

Finally, CEM technologies enable corporate marketers to maintain control of brand messaging and brand presentation, while simultaneously allowing local marketers to develop and run programs that fit local market conditions.

In my next post, I'll discuss why distributed marketing automation technologies can benefit organizations that aren't currently using a "classic" distributed marketing model.

Read Part 1 of the series here.
Read Part 2 of the series here.
Read Part 4 of the series here.