JUNE 2010

The Distributed Marketing Frontier:Realizing the Dream of Truly “Glocal”Marketing

Today’s highly mobile and engaged economy rewards businesses that deliverrelevant, timely, personalized customer interactions. Ultimately, an engagingcustomer experience wins business, and managing this experience acrosslocalized entities can be a difficult task. For large distributed marketingfunctions that support localized marketing efforts, managing brandconsistency, communication, and customer engagement is an ongoingchallenge. Distributed marketing functions are common amonginsurance, pharmaceuticals, automotive, financial services andfranchise industries. However, distributed marketing applies to anyorganization that requires a centralized marketing entity andlocalized marketers to work together in the pursuit of top-line growthand bottom-line efficiencies.

Most organizations have embraced a hierarchical model where a central entity(corporate marketing) oversees the preservation of the brand image, brandcommunication policies and strategic decisions about the brand. This centralentity often supports both internal and external localized marketing efforts toengage target audiences with relevant marketing messages.

Localized entities can be classified into two categories:

• Internal Local Entities: Field Marketing, Field Sales, Brands, Regions,Point-of-Sale Stores

• External Local Entities: Franchise Holders, Marketing Agencies, ChannelPartners

Both internal and external entities have the same requirements; access tobrand assets, guidelines for leveraging the brand, and tools to engage localizedaudiences with relevant, timely, personalized messages.

But, managing communication and brand compliance in this environment canbe extremely challenging. For one thing, there are conflicting goals betweencorporate or headquarters marketing and local entities, such as agents,branches, or field offices. Corporate marketing is tasked with developing aconsistent brand across marketing channels, regions and local audiences. Localmarketers are tasked with engaging local audiences with relevant messagesand reaching sales targets. Local marketers need autonomy and flexibility to

JUNE 20102

“For large

distributed

marketing

functions that

support localized

marketing efforts,

managing brand

consistency,

communication,

and customer

engagement is an

ongoing

challenge.”

External Local En��es(Branches, Agents,

Franchises, Agencies, etc.)

CorporateEn�ty

Internal Local En��es(Field Offices, Divisions,

Business Units, etc.)

customize the brand and marketing message. As a result, local marketers oftenview corporate or headquarters marketing as a compliance mechanism that“doesn’t understand local needs” and “adds little value to meeting revenuetargets.”

Figure 1 shows how these conflicting objectives lead to alignment challengesbetween corporate and local entities. The growing complexity of thesechallenges drain productivity for distributed marketing functions and preventthe organization from delivering a consistent brand experience acrossmarketing channels; but, as Albert Einstein once said, “In the middle of everydifficulty lies opportunity.”

Figure 1: Framing the Challenge and the Opportunity

It’s inherently difficult for corporate marketing to meet the unique needs oflocal marketers. Nobody knows the local market like local entities. As a result,many local marketers pursue their own agencies, technologies, media spend,and services; resulting in longer campaign cycle-times, lack of communicationbetween corporate and local entities, an inability to measure campaign returnand uncontrolled use of the brand.

This is ultimately the distributed marketing organizations challenge:

How can we deliver a consistent brand across internal and external localizedentities while simultaneously allowing localized marketing to customize thebrand for the unique needs of local target audiences?

A New Frontier in Distributed MarketingMany organizations have already made significant investments towardsaddressing the aforementioned challenges. In the 90’s content managementsolutions promised a light at the end of the tunnel. The idea was to centralizeall digital assets and democratize access for relevant parties. Unfortunately,these solutions actually compounded the problem because they offered littlemore than an asset repository; after assets are created and stored both

JUNE 20103

“Technology

should be

helping local

and corporate

marketers create

a direct dialogue

with customers

via the local

operational

entities.”

Alig

nmen

t

Corporate Marke ng•Control brand consistency•Preserve brand andcustomer experience•Accountable fororganiza onal performance•Control agency costs•Aggregate media spend•Manage cross-channelcampaigns

Local Marke ng•Customize marke ngmessages for local audience•Flexibility and autonomy inprogram development•Engage target audienceacross relevant channels•Rapidly react to changes inlocal market dynamics

Longer campaign cycle mes

Inconsistent communica onsbetween corporate marke ngand local marke ng efforts

Inability to measure thecombined efforts fromcorporate marke ng and localmarketers

Redundant technologypla"orms fail to address thecombined needs of corporateand local marketers

Lack of insight into combinedefforts of corporate and localmarke ng leads to marke ngfa gue

Challenges

Improve produc vity & me to market

Reduce redundant costs and improve theefficiency and effec veness ofmarke ng campaigns

Inability to control the use ofbrand assets

Deliver a consistent customerexperience

Corporate and local marke ng canmonitor and measure all marke ngefforts and op mize future campaigns

Reduce licensing costs for mul plesolu ons, eliminate mul ple interfaces,centralize assets, centralize thedistribu on of assets in cross-channelcampaigns

Improve top – line growth and bo$omline efficiency by working together tomaximize the impact of campaigns andmarke ng assets in the field.

Opportunity

Conflic ng Objec ves

corporate and local entities still needed to use these assets to engage targetaudiences in cross-channel marketing campaigns. If corporate marketing couldnot provide a campaign management tool with the flexibility and timelinessrequired for localized marketing programs, local entities invest in a separateinfrastructure (campaign management tools, email marketing, agencies, printoperations, etc.) to support local needs. This leads to redundant tools,redundant marketing costs, and lack of communication about corporate andlocal campaigns.

There are ultimately two fundamental components to managing the brand fora distributed marketing organization; marketing asset management andcustomer engagement. Much like yin and yang, both of these components arecritical to achieving “harmony” between central and local entities.

Figure 2: Empowering Corporate AND Local Marketers

What if these capabilities were combined into one tool? What if local marketerscould access brand compliant assets and create localized cross-channelcampaigns from the same tool that corporate or headquarters marketing usesto deliver cross-channel campaigns? The next generation of distributedmarketing solution is empowering organizations with the solutions to theseproblems.

JUNE 20104

Marke�ng Asset Management

Customer Engagement

“By eliminating

inefficient

processes

between corporate

and local entities

and reducing

redundancy in

technologies,

organizations can

focus on campaign

optimization

instead of

organizational

inefficiencies.”

Marketing Asset Management

Most people think of Digital AssetManagement or Marketing AssetManagement when they thinkabout addressing the challenges ofa distributed marketing function.These solutions offer a centralizedrepository to store and distributethe brand assets and creativeassets for the organization.

• Promote the re-use of licensedcontent

• Centralize brand assets (logo,etc.) for ease of accessibility

• Centralize brand guidelines andcompliance assets

• Centralize brand templates (forcustomizable collateral)

• Provide searchable assetrepositories

Customer Engagement/Campaign Management

Digital assets are only valuable ifthey can be easily located and usedin cross-channel marketingcampaigns. With so many new andemerging channels the complexityof managing the brand is furthercompounded across marketingchannels. Distributed marketingorganizations require a unified,collaborative and configurableprocess to manage marketingcampaign execution.

• Cross-channel engagementacross email, Web, mobile, callcenter, direct mail, social media,tv, print, etc.

• Measure and monitorperformance

Aligning Corporate and Local Entities with TechnologyBen Franklin once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing overand over again and expecting a different outcome.” Yet, distributedorganizations continue to make investments in siloed marketing assetmanagement and campaign management solutions to address the conflictingneeds of corporate and local marketers. The long-term ramification of thesedecisions is an inability to align corporate and local entities both strategicallyand operationally. Local entities find ways to circumvent corporate complianceand corporate marketing has limited visibility into local marketing activities.Disparate technologies drain marketing productivity and prevent organizationsfrom optimizing the customer experience.

Ideally, distributed organizations need to find ways to involve local operationalentities in the contact engagement strategy; after all, nobody knows thecustomer better than local entities. Next generation distributed marketingtechnologies are largely becoming the glue that binds corporate and localneeds. Distributed marketers need one unified technology for creating,capturing, storing, distributing and optimizing brand assets. Technologyshould be helping local and corporate marketers create a direct dialogue withcustomers via the local operational entities (See Figure 3).

Figure 3: Next Generation Distributed Marketing Technologies

A centralized shared technology provides a consistent business process forcreating, approving and engaging with customers.

• Corporate marketing can establish a brand image and marketing campaigntemplates while local marketers have flexibility and autonomy to customizemessaging for local markets.

• Branded templates can be created and managed by corporate to preserve thebrand image across local markets.

• Time-to-market is rapidly reduced with an automated, centralized, integratedapproval process for local campaigns.

JUNE 20105

“There is a fine

line between

managing brand

consistency and

localized

autonomy. The

'win-win approach'

is a unified

solution that

empowers

corporate and

local marketers

with digital asset

management and

campaign

management

capabilities.”

Personalization

Brand Consistency

Centralization

Measurement

Local Marketers

Cross-ChannelEngagement

MarketingAsset

QuickTime™ and adecompressor

are needed to see this picture.

DistributeAssets

CreateAssets

Corporate Marketing

• Centralize assets• Re-use licensed

assets• Brand Compliance• Measure asset

utilization

Corporate Marketing

• Centralize campaignmanagement

• Centralized cross-channelmeasurement

• Control over brand

Local Marketers• Access to

centralized assets• Alignment with

targeted offers• Brand Compliance

Local Marketers• Personalize

engagement• Maintain brand

compliance• Cross-channel

measurement

Distributed MarketingSolution

Corporate Mktg. Email

Web

Direct

Etc.

• Local marketers can reduce costs associated with redundant technologies andcentralize customer data for use in lead management, analytical modeling,and trigger marketing campaigns.

• Central and local entities can monitor the success of localized campaigns.Best practices can easily be identified and built into future marketingtemplates since key performance indicators are tracked and aggregated in asingle solution.

• Corporate marketing gains added visibility and customer knowledge aboutlocal markets for more impactful corporate branding campaigns.

The key to empowering local marketers is to deliver a flexible solution withbuilt in workflow and approval. For many organizations the corporate approvalprocess on outbound campaigns can be a tedious process. Local marketersspend inordinate amounts of time waiting for approvals from corporate, whilethe window of opportunity in local markets rapidly closes. If local marketerscan create, approve, and execute campaigns more rapidly they are more likelyto leverage a unified technology (particularly if the technology providespersonalization and customizable campaigns that are unique to the local entity). Aunified solution also provides executive level approvers with a centralized tool tomonitor campaign performance across the entire organization. Approvers canactually provide feedback for optimizing campaigns based on what is workingacross the organization – while simultaneously checking for brand compliance.

Campaign Management for Corporate and Local MarketersCorporate and local marketers need a central repository for digital creativeassets as well as a catalogue of marketing campaign templates. The idealdistributed marketing solution should provide marketers with access to twotypes of campaigns: Local Campaigns and Shared Campaigns (See Figure 4).

Figure 4: Campaign Management for Corporate and Local Marketers

• Local Campaign: Corporate marketing should be able to create brandedtemplates which can be customized by the region and used as independenttargeted marketing campaigns in internal or external local entities. Forexample, if an automotive dealership is launching a special promotional offerthat is exclusive to one or two dealerships, a local campaign could be used totarget local customers and corporate brand compliance. Campaigns can beexecuted by local entities or corporate marketing and campaign results areaccessible to both parties.

JUNE 20106

“Central and

local entities can

monitor the

success of

localized

campaigns.

Best practices can

easily be identified

and built into

future marketing

templates since

key performance

indicators are

tracked and

aggregated in a

single solution.”

CorporateCreates

CampaignTemplate(s)

LocalCampaign

SharedCampaign

Centralizedbrand assetsu lized tocustomizetemplate

En es SelectSuitable Campaign

• Approve

• Allocate Budget

• Execute

• Measure & Refine

JUNE 20107

“Time-to-market

is rapidly

reduced with

an automated,

centralized,

integrated

approval process

for local

campaigns.”

• Shared Campaign: Corporate marketing should also be able to create brandedcampaign templates for use in both corporate marketing campaigns and localmarketing campaigns. Templates should be accessible from a centralizedrepository and distributed by local entities or initiated by corporate marketingwith the help and approval of local entities. A shared campaign alignscorporate and local resources for marketing distributions that require aconsistent customer experience. For example, a new product launch at afinancial services company may require corporate and local marketers towork together for the official launch. If corporate has branded billboards,advertisements, and landing pages, ideally local marketing efforts shouldprovide a consistent message as well. A shared template provides aconsistent customer experience across channels while simultaneouslyallowing for personalized or targeted positioning in local entities.

Essential Ingredients for Empowering a DistributedMarketing OrganizationBy eliminating inefficient processes between corporate and local entities andreducing redundancy in technologies, organizations can focus on campaignoptimization instead of organizational inefficiencies. Eventually, the distributedmarketing enterprise outgrows the manual processes that contributed to theearly growth in the business. If local entities turn to localized solutions andservices to target local markets the problem is compounded and workflow andapprovals can be extremely cumbersome.

Take for example a franchise business that allowed local entities to pursue theirown campaign management solutions in the first 5 years of operations. Afteryears of cumbersome, inefficient, manual approvals the organization realizedthe cycle time on campaign approvals between local entities and corporatemarketing was over 16 weeks. More importantly, corporate marketing had verylittle insight into the local marketing campaign performance. Without acentralized solution, the organization was saturating the market with redundantmarketing campaigns leading to brand fatigue.

There are four fundamental ingredients to managing a distributed marketingorganization.

• Marketing Asset Management: Centralizing brand assets for use by corporateand local entities.

• Measurement: A holistic view of asset utilization and campaign performanceacross corporate and local entities.

• Campaign Management: Providing flexible campaign managementcapabilities for local entities while simultaneously allowing corporate tomanage brand consistency.

• Process: Standardize and automated workflow and approval processes reducecycle time and help ensure corporate and local objectives are met througheach cross-channel engagement.

Today, many organizations still struggle to align corporate and local entitiesdespite investments in technology that were supposed to alleviate some ofthese challenges. Unfortunately, disparate solutions compound the challengesbecause lack of integration increases the complexity of approvals and fails todeliver performance insights.

The following scorecard approach to distributed marketing optimization canhelp your organization identify key initiatives for improving the performance ofdistributed marketing functions.

Figure 5: Distributed Marketing Scorecard

Unified technology helps provide the glue that bonds corporate and localentities to a common business goal; to improve the customer experience andincrease sales. Disparate technologies are outlets for corporate and localmarketers to continue operating independent of one another. There is a fineline between managing brand consistency and localized autonomy. The ‘win-win approach’ is a unified solution that empowers corporate and localmarketers with digital asset management and campaign managementcapabilities. A centralized solution is the only way the collective organizationcan measure performance and gain insights that can be used to optimizemarketing efficiency and effectiveness over time.

JUNE 20108

“By eliminating

inefficient

processes

between

corporate and

local entities

and reducing

redundancy in

technologies,

organizations can

focus on campaign

optimization

instead of

organizational

inefficiencies."

Yes

NoLack of centralizationleads to inefficient pro-cesses, uncontrollablebrand usage, inability toreuse assets & difficultymeasuring assetutilization

Marketing Asset Management

Do local marketershave access tobrand assets from acentralized location?

Yes

NoLack of visibility intoperformance can leadto redundant spending,marketing fatigue andlack of accountabilityfor marketing spend

Measurement

Can corporatemarketing measureasset utilization ANDcampaign resultsfrom local entities?

Yes

No

Disparate solutionsconvolute performance,lengthen cycle times onmarketing and addredundant license fees

Customer Engagement

Do local entitiesinvest in separateinfrastructureto execute cross-channelcampaigns?

Yes

NoLengthy cycle-timesand complex approvalprocesses betweencorporate and localentities drain competitivedifferentiators and speedto market

Process

Are workflow andapproval processesstandardized andcentralized to onetool?

DistributedMarketing

Optimization

To learn more about how distributed marketing capabilities can help yourmarketing organization, contact Neolane at 617 467-6760 or visitwww.neolane.com.

About NeolaneNeolane provides the only enterprise marketing automation softwarespecifically designed to manage, automate and optimize programs acrosstraditional and emerging channels including direct mail, email and mobile.With Neolane’s cross-channel direct marketing and lead managementsolutions, marketers can manage campaigns, resources, customer data andanalytics from a single platform to dramatically improve effectiveness and ROI.Built by marketers for marketers, Neolane is used by more than 200 of theworld’s leading companies including Alcatel-Lucent and Sephora. Visitwww.neolane.com.

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JUNE 20109