How to Choose the Right Marketing Asset Management Solution

Implementing a marketing asset management solution is a big step for most companies.  Not only does it represent a significant financial investment, it also requires you to change the processes you use to acquire, manage, and distribute marketing materials.  In some cases, it can change how you execute direct marketing campaigns and programs.

To select the right MAM solution, you need to determine what capabilities and functionality you need and then make sure you ask prospective solution providers the right questions.

There are four key issues that all companies should address when evaluating potential MAM solutions.

Solution Use and Scope - How will the MAM solution be used?  Put another way, what kinds of materials will be included in, and managed through, the MAM solution?  How you answer this basic question will determine how many and what kinds of individuals need access to the solution, and it will greatly influence what functional capabilities you need in your solution.  The obvious answer here is marketing materials (marketing collateral documents, promotional items, point-of-sale materials, etc.).  When you're evaluating potential MAM solutions, however, consider what other kinds of materials your solution could be used to manage.  Some examples would include:

• Direct marketing campaign materials
• Sales support materials (presentations, proposal templates, etc.)
• Administrative/technical/human resources documents
• General business supplies

Solution Reliability and Responsiveness - How reliable and responsive must the MAM solution be to meet your needs, and will prospective solution providers offer appropriate service level guarantees?  For most companies, the two most important performance attributes of a marketing asset management solution are system uptime and order turnaround time.  These attributes are critical because the success of your MAM deployment ultimately depends on the willingness of your users to rely on the MAM solution for their needs.  If your users know that the solution will be available when they need it and that the materials they order will be delivered quickly, they will be more likely to use the solution consistently.

Incorporation of Business Rules - Can the MAM solution be customized to incorporate and enforce your business rules and control mechanisms relating to the acquisition and use of marketing materials?  A capable solution provider should be able to customize the MAM solution to incorporate the control mechanisms you need, but this issue should be addressed early in your evaluation process.

Reporting Capabilities - Does the MAM solution provide all of the reporting capabilities that your company needs?

Of course, your evaluation process should not be limited to these four issues.  Your company's particular characteristics and needs will point to other issues that you should address when selecting a marketing asset management solution.

To help jumpstart your evaluation process, we've just published a white paper that contains twenty-three critical questions you need to ask when choosing a marketing asset management solution.  If you'd like to review a copy of our new white paper, send an e-mail to ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.

It's Time to Combine Marketing and Sales

Suppose you were hired to design and implement an entirely new demand generation system for a large or mid-sized B2B company.  The board of directors and the CEO have given you a free hand to develop whatever kind of system you believe will produce the best results.  There are no pre-conceived ideas about what tactics should be used or what organizational structure the demand generation system should take.

When I work through this mental exercise, I can identify several things that would be part of my ideal demand generation system.  It would certainly contain a robust lead management process (lead nurturing, lead scoring, lead routing, etc.) that is supported by the right technology tools.  Content marketing would play a prominent role, as would social media.  I would also include processes and tools for demonstrating the value/ROI of my products or services.

However, one of the biggest steps I would take is to combine marketing and sales into one organizational unit.  Not that long ago, having separate marketing and sales departments caused few major difficulties.  The traditional roles and responsibilities of marketing and sales in most B2B companies were distinct, and the people in both departments could perform their jobs fairly effectively without a huge amount of day-to-day interaction and collaboration.  In other words, having marketing and sales in separate management "silos" didn't significantly impair company performance.

Times (and circumstances) have changed, and it's now critical for "marketing" activities and "sales" activities to be closely coordinated.  Buyers expect their potential suppliers to speak with one, consistent voice, and they expect everyone they deal with in an organization to know what interactions have already occurred and what information has been exchanged.

Both marketers and sales professionals now recognize the importance of aligning the efforts of marketing and sales.  This has become a hot topic at marketing and sales conferences, and it's been written about in numerous venues.  Many experts are advocating that marketing and sales should spell out their responsibilities and relationship in a formal service level agreement.  That's a good idea, but why not take the next logical step?

The American architect Louis Sullivan said that "form" should follow "function."  Marketing and sales are interdependent components of a single demand generation process.  Therefore, they should be part of a single organizational unit for management, planning, and budgetary purposes.

In lean management terms, marketing and sales are components of the same value stream.  A value stream is the set of activities that are required to produce value for customers.  Lean management recognizes that it is the output/performance of complete value streams that creates value for customers and profits for a company.  Therefore, mature lean organizations manage their operations by value streams rather than by traditional functional departments.

In the case of marketing and sales, the "customer" is the company itself, and the "product" is revenue dollars.  The sole objective of the demand generation value stream is to produce revenues for the company, and achieving this objective requires an integrated set of marketing and sales activities.  Having "good" marketing and "good" sales is important, but what really matters is the performance of the entire demand generation value stream.  To optimize that performance, it must be treated and managed as a single process.

Combining marketing and sales may be a controversial idea, and it would be difficult to implement in many companies for cultural and "political" reasons.  But the logic is compelling, and just because something is hard to do doesn't mean that it shouldn't be done.

What do you think?  If you had a free hand, would you consider merging marketing and sales in your company?

Is a Marketing Asset Management Solution Right for Your Business?

Prompted by growing demands from the corner office, marketers in all kinds of companies are seeking innovative ways to improve marketing productivity.  Today, a growing number of companies are turning to marketing asset management solutions to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the marketing function.

A comprehensive marketing asset management solution combines technology tools, manufacturing capabilities, and fulfillment services to automate and streamline many of the processes relating to the acquisition, management, and distribution of marketing materials.  MAM solutions can also provide a powerful platform for creating and executing direct marketing campaigns and programs.

In the right situations, MAM solutions can produce significant and valuable benefits.  For example, they can enable companies to:

• Eliminate the internal costs of processing and fulfilling requests for marketing materials
• Eliminate the costs of storing marketing materials and free up valuable building space for other uses
• Reduce the time required to process and fulfill requests for marketing materials
• Greatly reduce the waste (and cost) of marketing materials obsolescence
• Reduce the use of obsolete marketing materials by salespeople, channel partners, etc.
• Simplify and automate the process of creating and producing customized (and therefore more relevant and effective) marketing materials
• Simplify and automate the work required to create and execute customized marketing campaigns and programs in distributed marketing environments

You may be asking:  "All this sounds great, but how can I determine if a marketing asset management solution would be a good investment for my business?"

The final determination should be based on a thorough examination of your company's marketing needs and the characteristics of your existing marketing supply/distribution chain.  This examination will allow the benefits of a marketing asset management solution to be estimated and quantified based on your unique circumstances.

We've developed a self-assessment tool that's designed to help you begin the process of deciding whether a marketing asset management solution would make sense for your business.  This short questionnaire/scorecard is not intended to be comprehensive, and it doesn't answer all of the important questions.  The objective is to provide a preliminary indication about whether a marketing asset management solution would be a good investment for your company.

If you'd like a copy of our self-assessment questionnaire, send an e-mail to ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.

What It Takes to Make Marketing Content More Compelling

There's no longer any doubt that relevant marketing content is essential for B2B marketing success.  Business buyers are incredibly busy, and they're exposed to hundreds of marketing messages every day.  The only reliable way to cut through the clutter and create meaningful engagement with potential buyers is to provide marketing content that prospects will see as relevant and compelling.

The big question for marketers is, how do we create this kind of content?  We often hear or read that the answer is to customize marketing messages and materials for specific buyers.  But, what kinds of "customization" will actually increase marketing relevance and effectiveness?

There are two proven ways to make marketing content more relevant and compelling.  The first key is to make it easy for prospects to identify with your content.  To do this, you'll need content that's customized to fit the personal and professional characteristics of your potential buyers.  What jobs do your prospects hold?  What kinds of companies do they work for?  What size companies do they work for?  So, for example, if your target prospects are plant managers in small manufacturing companies, you'll need content that's tailored for that kind of buyer.

This kind of content customization increases what I call personal relevance, and it's proven to increase marketing effectiveness.  In research by MarketingSherpa, 82% of business buyers said that marketing content was more valuable when it was targeted to their industry.  Sixty-seven percent of buyers said that marketing content was more valuable when it was targeted to their job function, and 49% said the same for content that was targeted to companies of similar size.

The second way to increase relevance is to create and use marketing content that speaks to issues that have immediate importance to your prospects.  Most B2B buyers move through an identifiable set of buying stages as they make purchase decisions, and the issues that are most important to buyers will change as they move through the buying process.  If your marketing content provides a potential buyer information that's out of sync with his or her decision making process, it's far less likely to capture the buyer's full attention.

The solution is to use marketing messages and materials that are designed for each stage of the buying process.  This kind of content customization enhances what I call situational relevance, and it can provide powerful competitive advantage.  In a recent survey of B2B buyers by DemandGen Report, 93% of respondents said the solution provider they chose supplied ample marketing content to navigate through each phase of the buying process.

A few weeks ago, I published a white paper that describes these two ways to make your marketing content more relevant.  If you'd like a copy of this white paper, send an e-mail to ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.

How Marketing Asset Management Improves Marketing Results

A growing number of companies are implementing marketing asset management solutions to improve marketing productivity.  MAM solutions combine technology tools, manufacturing capabilities, and services to streamline many of the processes relating to the procurement, management, and distribution of marketing materials.  They can also provide a powerful platform for creating and executing advertising and marketing programs, particularly direct mail and e-mail marketing campaigns.

Most discussions about marketing asset management solutions focus on how they can reduce costs and improve the efficiency of the marketing supply chain.  However, MAM solutions can also improve the effectiveness of marketing activities and programs in three major ways.

Less Use of Obsolete Materials

The obsolescence of marketing materials is a big problem for many companies.  In a recent survey by the CMO Council, 40% of respondents said they waste 20% or more of their marketing materials because of obsolescence.

The direct financial costs of obsolescence waste are bad enough, but the consequences of using obsolete marketing materials can be even worse.  In a highly competitive business environment, sales can easily be lost if prospects are provided outdated information.  And unfortunately, the use of obsolete materials is all too common.  In the CMO Council survey, 51% of marketers admitted they had sent materials to customers or prospects that contained outdated content.

Marketing asset management solutions reduce the use of obsolete materials by combining "virtual warehousing," on-demand manufacturing, and rapid fulfillment to eliminate the underlying causes of obsolescence.  With a marketing asset management solution, materials are stored in digital form so they can be easily and quickly updated, and MAM solution providers manufacture most materials on an as-ordered basis, so there is no need to maintain inventories that can become obsolete.

More Relevant Marketing Materials

Marketing asset management solutions also improve marketing effectiveness by enabling the creation and use of more relevant marketing materials.  Marketers have long known that customizing materials for specific audiences will make them more relevant and effective.  Unfortunately, however, using customized materials has usually forced marketers to choose between losing control of the brand and incurring excessive costs.

MAM solutions make customization easy and cost effective while simultaneously enabling corporate marketers to keep control of brand messaging and brand presentation.  The key to this controlled customization is user-friendly templates that identify what components of a marketing item can be customized and provide a set of pre-approved customization options.

Simplified Distributed Marketing

The third way that MAM solutions boost marketing results is by making it easy to create and execute effective marketing campaigns and programs in distributed marketing environments.

Distributed marketing  refers to a marketing model in which both a central marketing department and "local entities" perform marketing activities.  The defining characteristic of a distributed marketing model is that the local marketing entities have some degree of autonomy from the "home office."  When the local entities are franchisees, resellers, or other independent channel partners, they may have complete marketing independence.  A big challenge, therefore, is to persuade channel partners to market as aggressively as they should.

MAM solutions boost results in distributed marketing organizations by enabling local marketing partners to customize marketing programs to fit their specific needs and by making it simple for local marketing partners to create and execute those programs.

I've just published a white paper that describes these benefits in more detail.  If you'd like to review this paper, send me an e-mail at ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.

Does Your Selling Process Need an Overhaul?

The 2011 Sales Performance Optimization survey by CSO Insights contains a wealth of information about the attributes and effectiveness of B2B selling.  One of the important findings in the survey is that sales success depends on how you sell as much as what you sell.

How you sell has two components in the CSO Insights framework.  The first is how customers (and potential customers) perceive the value that a company provides.  At the lowest level, customers see the company as nothing more than an approved vendor that provides acceptable products or services.  At the highest level, customers see the company as a trusted advisor whose products, services, and other contributions are key to their long-term success.

The second component of how you sell is the selling process you use.  CSO Insights says that companies fall into one of four levels when it comes to selling process.  Those at the lowest level don't have a defined selling process.  Every salesperson does his/her own thing.  At the highest level, a company has a formal, well-defined selling process, continuously monitors its use by the sales team, and adapts the process to changing market conditions.

The research by CSO Insights shows that the higher you are along these two dimensions, the more sales success you will have.  For example, high ranking companies have more salespeople who achieve their quotas and higher closing rates.

The quality of your selling process has become critical because of changes in the way business buyers make purchase decisions.  In essence, the buying process has become more complex, and you need a robust selling process to cope with this increased complexity.  Consider just three of the ways that B2B selling has become more challenging to manage (based on data from the CSO Insights survey).

• Sales cycles are longer - About two-thirds of companies have sales cycles for new customers that are four months or longer.
• It takes more calls to close a deal - Nearly six out of ten companies say it takes at least six sales calls to close a deal with a new customer.
• More people are involved in the buying process - Three quarters of companies say that a final buying decision requires input from at least three people.

Is your current selling process up to the challenge of managing the new sales environment?  Do you have a formal process that is used consistently by your sales team?  Is your process documented in written form, and is it part of your training for new sales reps?  Do you consistently monitor the effectiveness of your selling process and adapt it to changing market conditions?

If you can't answer "yes" to all of these questions, you should probably take a close look at your current selling process.  There's a good chance you're leaving substantial revenue dollars of the table.

How to Make Difficult Marketing Questions Easier to Answer

To develop a successful marketing program for your business, you must make some critical decisions, and those decisions require you to answer several difficult questions.

• What kinds of organizations will make your best prospects?
• What individuals in those prospect organizations will be the target audience for your marketing programs?
• What "arguments" will you use in your marketing messages and materials to persuade potential buyers to purchase your products or services?
• How will you demonstrate the return on investment that your products or services will deliver to a prospective customer?
• What marketing channels will you use to communicate with your target audience?

How you answer these questions will define the shape of your marketing program and largely determine how successful your marketing efforts will be.  These questions are never easy to answer, but you can make the job a lot easier if you will first take the time to thoroughly understand and describe how your products or services create value for customers.

If you've ever watched someone install a tile or hardwood floor on a home improvement TV show, you may remember that the installer spends a great deal of time making sure that the first row of tiles or boards is straight and square with the walls of the room.  After the first row is in place, the rest of the installation goes fairly quickly.  That's because as long as the rest of the tiles or boards "fit" with the first row, the whole floor is almost guaranteed to turn out right.

A clear picture of how your products or services create value for buyers is like that first row of floor tiles or boards.  It provides the reference point for the decisions you will make when designing your marketing program.  Understanding how you create value will make it easier to determine who your best prospects are, to identify the individuals you need to market to, and to craft your marketing messages.

To understand and describe all of the significant ways your products or services can create value, you'll need to answer another set of questions.

• What are all of the significant reasons that people have for purchasing a product or service like yours? What problems or needs motivate the buying decision?
• What kinds of organizations are likely to have the problems or needs that underlie these reasons to buy?
• Who within the prospect organization is affected by each problem or need?  Who has the most to gain if the problem is solved and the most to lose if it isn't?
• What specific outcomes are these people seeking?
• What features of your solution will produce these desired outcomes?
• What will the economic benefits be if these desired outcomes are achieved (lower costs, increased revenues, etc.)?

The best tool for collecting and organizing this value information is called a customer value map or a customer value matrix.  We have a customer value matrix template that we use when working with clients on new marketing projects.  If you'd like a copy of this template, send me an e-mail at ddodd(at)pointbalance(dot)com.