Marketing Resource Management Functions and What They Mean for You
Marketing Resource Management platforms must have five main functions in order to qualify as a true MRM solution. Let’s take a look at what these functions are and how they are executed, as you explore whether a leading MRM platform is the right solution to your marketing operations needs.
1. Planning
National brands must plan and include their local partners in their marketing planning. MRM allows brands to plan marketing initiatives months in advance. It also gives local partners visibility into the national marketing plan, enabling them to anticipate changes and to align with the larger organization. In this case, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and an MRM platform ensures the parts are all working together.
2. Budgeting
Brands have a large stake in their local partners’ involvement in marketing campaigns.
Paradoxically, out of the billions of dollars each year earmarked for Co-Op Marketing, about half of those funds unused every year, according to recent research. Those are dollars that are meant to involve partners with joint funding and subsidization of local marketing. Without a Marketing Resource Management platform to manage funds and communicate the opportunity, reimbursement configurations and other limitations can severely affect network adoption. Brands that buy into local marketing up-front with clear budgeting and transparency with their local partners will be more successful.
3. Development and housing of Marketing Assets
Easy access to brand compliant marketing collateral is a pain point for many local marketers and brands alike. Marketing Resource Management platforms not only centralize the asset repository, they also allow for customizations that local partners need to execute brand-compliant local marketing.
4. Deployment
MRM platforms should be integrated with enterprise level printers, digital ad services, and other point solutions in order for seamless fulfillment and delivery to occur based on a local business’s order. This enables big brands to increase efficiency as they are no longer needed to assist in every order from the local partner/ distributor.
5. Reporting
Before Management Resource Management solutions came along, it was nearly impossible for big brands to determine ROI for large scale distributed marketing campaigns. There was just no way to collect and aggregate the data across all of the local partners. MRM platforms can do this very easily for digital campaigns like email, and can inform national brands on overall adoption and spend on non digital campaigns. Brand level marketers can use this information to cross check against redemption rates for coupons and store sales data to determine overall ROI.
Marketing Resource Management gives brands the capability to plan, execute, and measure large scale marketing campaigns with the local businesses that sell their products and services. The platform will quickly pay for itself as efficiency in marketing operations increases and increased adoption levels in partner marketing programs drive up overall sales. According to Gartner, “MRM applications can help technology and service providers cut their marketing budgets 5% to 20%, or significantly increase the number of campaigns delivered without increasing spending.”