Marketing campaigns greatly depend on Resource Management as the main delivery engine capable of providing transformations to the campaign structure and delivering on an improved marketing efficiency. This article is here to engage in a pragmatic discussion on how the Marketing Resource Management model brings unique value.
Marketing Resource Management is a Must
80% of the marketing campaigns today are killed because of inefficient performance. More than half of these have wasted company revenues due to the lack of integration resulting to major loss in profit and putting the company into a great dilemma. Of the marketing campaigns which do make it to completion many were not able to meet the necessities of the company.
Research revealed that the lack of marketing strategy is not the problem. Neither is inefficient use of technology a fault, or any of the main reasons marketing professionals usually point to. The truth is that most of these projects fail simply because there is a lack of marketing resource management. The problem in the inadequacy to manage marketing resources is common to all companies and industries; this affects big companies with comprehensive strategies and highly skilled teams just the same as small and medium companies where the entire team works in a single office and marketing implementation is completely ad hoc. It is evident that the reason for these is the weak resource management and the failure in establishing good communication. By going through this article, you will be able to comprehend why communication and resource management are key factors in achieving marketing efficiency of any company, including your company.
A Desire for Marketing Efficiency
Marketing teams obviously want to bring positive results of meeting the desires of the business, but poor communication and inadequate resource management blocks their way at almost every turn. As the marketing team grows in size, this problem also compounds. Take for example, if a marketing campaign is implemented by a team of a single person, with the end deliverable to be the benefit of the same person and the company, a problem may never surface. In this scenario, we don’t have rooms for communication errors concerning the scope, requirements and the necessary quality of output. The issues of having miscommunication about the particulars of the marketing strategy or who is responsible for doing a certain task do not exist in this case. By simply bringing another person into the marketing team there is this added need of exchanging ideas that must take place on each of the aforementioned facets of the marketing plan (e.g., quality, scope, schedule and expected outcomes). As a marketing team grows in size, there will be an increase in the number of communication paths needed and this is an incredible growth.
Bringing this to a real situation, assume that we only have 5 facets in our marketing strategy (quality, scope, team hierarchy, schedule and expected outcomes) and we have a team of 8 people working for it. This will actually require 140 agreed bi-directional paths of communication. Taking this number into account, it would likely be impossible to eliminate 100% of the problems, but with the efficient project control and quality communication in place that marketing resource management provides, this risk is dramatically reduced.
The Better Way of Marketing
The effective way to beat this problem and to improve the odds of having success is marketing resource management. Marketing campaigns usually involve a number of people coming from different department in the company, consultants who are brought in for some specific skills, and oftentimes individuals from other companies who are involved in partnership. Furthermore, one marketing team from a certain department may not be singularly tasked towards the success of the marketing plan, rather a blended team from a number of departments. Obviously, this requires extensive leadership and coordinating skills from a single person tasked to overlook the entire marketing scope and be able to work across these departments without being bias, making sure that the work is planned, understood, budgeted, staffed and that the implementation is coordinated among the different teams and their respective members.
The head of the Marketing Team is principally tasked to understand and represent the needs of driving the marketing plan and ensuring that all the persons involved understand what is required from them and what expected contribution they shall give. Achieving this is truly difficult, but with marketing resource management, these tasks will be simplified and can now be efficiently undertaken.
Simplified PEM Process
A very good property of Marketing Resource Management is its ability to enhance the PEM process (Planning, Execution and Marketing). In fact, marketing resource management is closely tied to campaign management systems as the two establish a good synergy. The function of both empowers each other, particularly along the closed-loop marketing process. The three major areas of integration between these two strategies are in the PEM process.
MRM’s main purpose is to ensure the efficiency in the planning stage. It provides comprehensive solution to hasten the process of budgeting and goal-setting. A good thing to note is that the required historical information is actually derived from the campaign management system proving the integral relationship between the two. MRM, upon taking this information, is able to leverage it and create the marketing plan. This clearly proves how integral each of the two are in making a much accelerated planning process.
Execution and Measurement are greatly influenced with the use of MRM. In the case of execution, MRM is like a symphony conductor which is giving commands during the campaign process. It keeps track of the time line, giving individuals the signal on when they should perform, request for reviewing items or ROI, and other related actions. Measurement is perhaps the most feared part in any marketing strategy. It is the time when the marketing team faces deep scrutiny from the so called financial decision-maker of the company, thus measuring the efficiency of the marketing programs is very crucial. With the aid of a good MRM, marketers can now have reports and metrics which may come on daily basis through user-friendly portals.
The Future of Marketing is MRM
Consequently, companies of today will eventually go and implement their own automated marketing resource management system as this technology promises to bring better and more efficient marketing campaigns. MRM achieves the goal of having a single point of accountability by paving way to the better collection of project requirements. After understanding the requirements, a Marketing team can now assemble an efficient marketing plan. Doing this accurately and in a timely manner makes MRM a necessity.
It is clear that other problems may still go unaddressed, even if MRM plays a big part of the solution. Marketing Resource Management will not solve all the marketing issues, but with such readily available obvious answers, it is a step towards marketing success that companies should never omit.