“CRM for Marketing” or “Marketing Automation” or “Marketing Ressource Management”
Morten E. Wulff Dec 5th
Sometimes it is a bit frustrating that we don’t belong to a well-defined software discipline like ERP, CRM or SRM - (most of the times it is not).
Dedicated software for marketing teams is a fairly new discipline. Sure, most marketing / management teams we explain it pretty quickly; “media planning, brand management, campaign management (on-line / off-line), and marketing strategy within one “can-do package” - integrated to the rest of the enterprise architecture e.g. CRM and BI platform” – wow, that sounds pretty cool.
But still we have to explain Headlight to them because they have never ever seen anything like this before. Don’t take me wrong I’m not complaining … It’s cool to be an early mover in a potentially huge new market - but sometimes I’m just a little confused about exactly how to describe Headlight best in order to get everybody aboard instantly.
How should we tag line Headlight? 3 possibilities I’m working on:
1. CRM for Marketing
Well, it’s not a CRM solution; it comes “before” CRM in the value chain … but is very closely related to CRM, which is a concept everybody is familiar with.
2. Marketing Automation
I think this concept is pretty big in the US and very used to describe email platforms and we’re not limited to only that.
3. Marketing Resource Management”
I like this … but would people understand it? Does it explain anything?
I actually like CRM for Marketing best … I think it has the best ring to it and holds the most valuable denotations (even though Headlight is not really a CRM solution at all …).
What do you think?
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I agree. CRM for Marketing says more then the other and is much easier to understand because everybody knows about CRM and the benefits of it - now it just relates to marketing in stead of sales.
According to Aprimo the “nom de jour” is Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM). Another one used (including by us, although things are set to change) is Marketing Operations Management (MOM).
The problem with CRM For Marketing is CRM is a 12-13 year old concept! There is nothing new, innovative or exciting about it.
The key is to take it to the next level - integrate budgeting & planning, creative review & approval, workflow automation, brand asset management, reporting & analytics… and more.
What is the right word? I wish I knew, it would clear up a lot of confusion.
[...] Working as an early adopter in a potentially huge market [...]
Well Parry, I’m a bit biased when it comes to EMM (don’t want to be mistaken for a big clumsy SAP-kind-of-a-12-months-to-implement solution) …
I posted this a while back:
Enterprise marketing management keep it super simple stupid
Great post Morten, thanks for the link.
While EMM in terms of thought leadership and quantifiable results may be hot, the phrase itself, in my experience, causes fear in technophobic marketers. And you are absolutely right - why would an SME with annual turnover of
How does one categorize Headlight? EMM seems too broad a category, and I agree, smacks of being too complex. Aprimo coined EMM to refer to an integrated platform of applications that support marketing. CRM traditionally tracks interactions of all kinds with individual cusomers and prospects. From reading the information about Headlight on your website, I’m led to conclude that it is a very robust, easy to deploy and use, e-campaign management application. Am I wrong? A MOM application, as Parry Malm described, enables management of marketing activities beyond email, banners and adwords. I’m curious to know when you plan to bring this application to the US market?
@ Mayer G. Becker
You’re definitely not wrong! But not completely right; just need to add some …
The thing is that we do a little more than just handle online campaigns. In overall terms you can say that we try to create more effective marketing teams … by doing a series of things:
First of all Headlight aims to make everyday tasks much easier and quicker to handle (which is intended to cut costs and/or increase productivity); campaign planning / execution / measurement. This goes for both online and offline campaigns. Online campaigns are of course different from offline campaigns since live measurement of offline campaigns is in most cases not possible. Still it is possible to create and distribute offline campaigns to contact person at the relevant media or media agency – and it is also possible to manually add performance data to offline campaigns.
The side effect from this is exceptionally important: Using Headlight to handle all your marketing campaigns means that you’ll simultaneously be adding a framework to your marketing activities that structure and by the end of day produces essential “information” about your marketing investments, returns, brand messages etc.
This supports our aim to create optimal accountability within marketing organizations – which ranges among the biggest concerns for most companies today.
@ Mayer G. Becker
When we’ll bring Headlight to the US marketing?
Well, Headlight is “Software as a Service” meaning that it’s basically available to everyone / everywhere (and it’s actually hosted in the US by Rackspace.com)
Normally we partner up with local companies (management consultants, advertising / media agencies) who then help support local clients; we only have 1 or 2 active partner in the US compared to 15 in Europe > so if you know anyone who you think would be interested in becoming af “Trusted Partner” with TraceWorks then please contact our Sales Director:
Christoffer Feldt-Sørensen
cfs@traceworks.com
Mobile: +45 28 885 071
That said we do have some plans about the US - but not in the first 6 months.