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Marketing resource management software explained

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What is marketing resource management?

What is marketing resource management?

Today’s world is a marketer’s world. Customers can be reached by virtually any medium a marketer puts their mind to. But with so many channels and tactics at one’s disposal, the list of marketing “to do’s” is much longer than it used to be. Marketing Resource Management ( MRM) platforms assist marketers in organizing and planning their long list of marketing initiatives and tasks. It’s technology that simplifies the management of otherwise complicated marketing processes, such as plans, budgets, tasks, ideation, creation, and assets. MRM software empowers organizations to: Orchestrate the strategic and financial planning of marketing initiatives. Create and organize marketing assets associated with those initiatives. Distribute marketing assets both internally and externally.

Similar terms and softwares

Marketing Resource Management falls under the umbrella of Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM), which can be defined as any software that provides integrated marketing processes across all of an organization’s marketing channels and operations. While there’s no one, agreed-upon definition as to what an Enterprise Marketing Management software is (definitions can slightly vary), it’s widely accepted that EMMs encompass the following three categories of software:

Marketing Resource Management (MRM): Defined above. Digital Asset Management (DAM): Software used to organize, store, and retrieve digital assets. Some MRM softwares offer a lite DAM, but this is not as scalable or robust as an enterprise solution. DAMs are also closely related to Marketing Asset Management softwares (MAMs), which have traditionally been the best option for storage of video and audio files.
Marketing Campaign Management (MCM): Software that assists with the planning, distributing, and measuring of marketing campaigns.

marketing-resource-management

An evolving category

While all three softwares commonly overlap, it’s important to differentiate the core capabilities of each to better understand which solution is the best fit for your organization. It’s also important to understand that today’s definition of MRM software is a constantly evolving one as new technology emerges. Marketing automation tools allowing for advanced personalization, not to mention the ever-growing list of marketing channels and collateral types, are just a few examples of MRM’s need for fluidity.

What most MRM platforms are missing

What most MRM platforms are missing

The traditional definition of MRM software allows for all the right parts of the marketing machine to be in place, but doesn’t always account for the speed at which those parts are moving or the quality of the end product. The ideal Marketing Resource Management system should also include:

DragandDrop

User-friendly interface

One of the biggest draws of using an MRM is that anyone in an organization should be able to easily enhance their marketing efforts through the use of an intuitive UI. Many MRMs, however, require extensive onboarding and tech-savviness to be used effectively.

Start-Right-Away

Process-improving

An MRM should not only help coordinate marketing efforts, but speed them up too. Process-speeding features (such as approval processes and cloud-based collaboration) accelerate the coordination between teams by eliminating much of the back and forth.

Order-Approval

Order approval

Ensure marketing materials are properly designed and brand-compliant before they can be sent to the printer. Toggle this feature on and off based on need.

Mail-Merge

Integrations

The most effective platforms are the ones that connect with core competencies outside their own. An MRM platform that can integrate with your legacy systems, printers, or custom distribution tools is invaluable in helping you manage your big-picture marketing.

Brand-Assets-square

Brand management

Aligning marketing processes is good but it’s not great if your brand isn’t protected in the end. A proper MRM should also ensure your brand assets stay protected and consistent from beginning to end.

Messaging

Collaboration

MRM software should also easily scale with your team or organization’s size. Cloud-based collaboration, sharing, and approvals improve your team’s communication as they work on projects or assets at the same time without stepping on each other’s toes.

Are MRMs worth the investment?

Since MRM solutions come in all shapes and sizes, and often overlap with other categories within the Enterprise Marketing Management umbrella, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution as to which MRM to select. In fact, the answer is often to use MRM software in tandem with other tools.

This can serve as a deterrent to some. With the rise of so many softwares and technologies to choose from, companies can be reluctant to bombard their employees with yet more onboarding to systems that could be hot today, but yesterday’s news tomorrow.

Despite some of the gray area surrounding the software, market conditions for MRM software look positive. According to the results of a 2017 CMO Study conducted by SiriusDecisions, Marketing Resource Management software made the top 10 list of marketing technology that CMOs will invest in over the next two years, with 39% indicating they will be investing in MRM software. The global market is predicted to be worth $9.01 billion by 2020.

The short answer to whether your organization should invest in an MRM? Yes. As noted above, all forecasts point to Marketing Resource Management software as being a driving force in the future marketing world. If you don’t invest now, you may quickly fall behind. The long answer is that the type of MRM, and what platforms you combine it with, simply depend on your needs

MRM solutions for large enterprises

Small business solution

Store brand assets
Create beautiful content
Share content digitally or physically

For small businesses looking for a more compact yet scalable Marketing Resource Management solution, marketing portals offer all the necessary capabilities. Instead of implementing full-blown systems for asset management, content creation, and distribution, a proper marketing portal empowers you to comfortably complete each step of the process without all the clutter of more developed functions your small business doesn’t need quite yet.

Are MRMs worth the investment?

Marq’s Marketing Portal enables your small business to:

Store brand assets — When a full-blown Digital Asset Management system isn’t necessary, you can store and manage your logos, images, fonts, and more in the Marq Brand Asset Manager for easy access.

Create beautiful content — Anyone in your organization can access brand assets to create and distribute professional, on-brand content. Marq’s drag-and-drop editor makes it easy for even the least tech-savvy to master content creation.

Share content digitally or physically — Marq makes it easy for anyone to share their content either online or on paper. Options for publishing to the web, saving as a PDF, posting on social media, direct mail, or even just printing and shipping to their own door are all options with Marq’s distribution services.

MRM solutions for franchises, partner marketing

Multi-location or multi-partner business solution

Brand portal
Brand-locking capabilities
Intuitive interface
Simple distribution

MRM solutions for franchises, partner marketing

If your organization is spread across a number of locations, channels, partners and the like, a distributed marketing platform will be the best way to go. Distributed marketing platforms are built for organizations whose brand use cases expand outside the walls of their corporate office. Franchises, for example, can include any number of owners spread throughout the world who own the rights to slap a big-name brand on their marketing collateral. But this doesn’t mean they always use it correctly.

Distributed Marketing Management platform

A proper distributed marketing platform includes the following:

A brand portal — For storing all your brand assets in one central location.

Brand-locking capabilities — In order to streamline content creation across so many parties and channels, marketers must be able to lock down brand assets to prevent unnecessary rogue content.

Intuitive interface — Whether it’s a franchise owner, partner, vendor, or just a coworker in another department, your distributed marketing platform should be intuitive enough that the layman can create content that is not only on brand, but looks clean and professional too.

Simple distribution — Again, the least amount of assistance required when creating or distributing collateral means time and hassle saved for everyone involved. A platform that provides a seamless and straightforward experience when sharing content either online or via print is ideal for organizations with complicated distribution structures.

Using Marq as part of your MRM strategy

Large Enterprises

Marq empowers masses of users to easily customize and distribute on-brand content without having to refer to members of the corporate creative team, who are already bogged down as it is.

Small businesses

For small business, Marq provides the all-in-one marketing portal solution that provides all the necessary functions for managing a brand: storing assets, creating collateral, and distributing it.

Distributed businesses

For businesses that expand across locations and partners, Marq enables all parties to create and deliver content across a wide range of channels with very little onboarding required.

"[Marq] makes it easy for people to create their own content without having to impact my department too much. They get what they need without us having to worry about them going off brand."

— Beth Hayes

Head of Marketing
University of Gloucestershire

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