Brands continually seek ROI from social media efforts.

This is the third part of ongoing series. Part One  & Part Two are available. 

Part One of this series introduced the topic. Part Two was about setting the right mindset. Now is the time to evaluate some mathematical equations for measuring social media ROI.

Special thanks to Angie Schottmuller of Search Engine Watch for writing a detailed article entitled “Social Media ROI: 14 Formulas to Measure Social Media Benefits”. I’m only taking a look at 3 of the equations she proposes today due to time & space constraints. I recommend reading her full post when you have some time to dedicate to this topic.

Without further ado, here are the mathematical equations.

11) Support Value – Online Self-Service:

GOAL: Enable Self-Service, Reduce Support Costs

_____(#) weekly support calls per topic
X _____% calls likely solved by self-service
X $_____ average support phone call cost
___________________________________
= $ Call Support Value

Example:  Estimated 1,500 weekly support calls at which 70% could be resolved online via self-service at an equivalent support call value of $6.30 each = $7,056 equivalent call support value

I chose Item #11 about online self-service because this is something that a robust social media and web presence can impact. Online self-service applies to all brands, but I believe that this would have more relevance for brands in product categories where the average price point for the product offering is higher and the product category lends itself to extensive questions. As an example, I think Dell would be more inclined to apply this equation to their social media efforts more than Dairy Queen. What I like most about this equation is that it considers consumer mindset in wanting to engage with the brand in the social sphere. When there’s a pressing post purchase concern, visiting a company website and perusing the social media sites of the brand are pretty common behaviors towards resolving that concern.

One of the keys to successfully implementing a social media presence based on this idea is creating website & blog content that addresses the most common service concerns. The website and blog content can easily be used for social media updates. These posts should be blended with brand building posts as well.

Effectively handling these items in the social media space could lead to enhanced customer retention and future brand loyalty as well, which isn’t directly addressed in the equation. However, retention is an item that most brands value. Many brands know exactly what retaining an existing customer is worth vs. finding a new one.

13) Sales Value – Social Leads (Lifetime Value):

GOAL: Grow Revenue, Generate Leads, Acquire New Customers, Retain Customers

_____(#) qualified online social leads identified
X _____% lead-to-customer conversion rate
X $_____ (LTV) customer lifetime value
__________________________________
= $ New Customer Lifetime Sales Value

Example:  Estimated 100 qualified leads routed to sales teams with a typical lead-to-conversion rate of 4% at an average customer lifetime value (LTV) of $22,500 = $90,000 equivalent converted lead new customer lifetime sales value

Looking at this one, I see how companies in the B2B space would really be attracted to this, and many B2C companies would too. Brands with self-identified longer sales cycles would like it.

When one considers this equation within the MIT Management Review mental framework from the previous article, the equation gets murkier. The MIT Management Review was clear about wanting measurement of social media ROI to come from the incentives of the target consumer for using social media. In this equation, one wonders how the # of qualified online social leads identified is defined by the brand. Is this based on target consumers self-identifying? Is it based on evaluating a list of names of Followers on Twitter? I know I’d need greater clarity on this part of the equation.

Lead to customer conversion rate is really a good thing to know. There’s often statistics out there industry wide in a particular industry and a lot of brands would be cognizant of their own ratios and formally track it. LTV is an even more essential item to know.

14) Sales Value – Social-Aided Conversion:

GOAL: Grow Revenue, Boost Conversion

( _____% new conversion rate − _____% old conversion rate)
/ _____% old conversion rate
X $_____ average # monthly products sold
X $_____ average product sales value
__________________________________
= Increased Sales Value

Example:  Estimated conversion rate increase from 2% to 3.5% with an average 100 monthly products sold at $750 = $32,142 more in monthly product sales

I feel that this is a strong general metric after going from nothing to maintaining an active social media presence or after a significant change in the way that social media is being used by the brand.

Social media alone may not fully explain a new conversion rate. I’m also not sure how this formula accounts for changes on average # of monthly products sold and average product sales value. A change in conversion rate would change the # of monthly products sold and there may be an effect on value of product sales.

A February 2013 Mashable article had a great social media ROI suggestion.  It suggested to look at overall results, then work backwards. Though that’s not the most concrete way of doing things, I see value in it. Almost every mathematical equation will have some sort of flaw if one looks hard enough, so perhaps one of the simplest suggestions can provide a valuable perspective.

Could this happen to your company with distributed marketing management software?

Distributed marketing management software has the potential to tremendously benefit an organization. But what are the benefits? What is the point of distributed marketing management software as a marketing automation solution?

Marketing automation works well in an organization that is structured via a distributed model. In a distributed model, there is corporate marketing structure that centralizes brand management. In essence, this does not differentiate a distributed model organization from a company like Procter & Gamble, the company that truly defined the modern concept of brand management back in the early 20th Century. Distributed marketing organizations would diverge from Procter & Gamble based on having a greater reliance upon localized sales agents to represent the brands. The distributed model is quite common in insurance and financial services.

The time that it takes to deliver a message consistently across channels has increased over time, due to the complexity of the modern marketing channel environment. This stands in contrast to the commonly held notion that the world is moving at a faster pace than it once did. Immediacy is a key component of the current era, and online marketing channels are contributing factors to the expectation of immediacy amongst many people.

Since there are more places for a brand to be, brands need to have a point of view that considers an approach to all channels. The basis of a lot of current marketing efforts is online. With every year that passes, more & more brands are moving more & more money and other resources out of traditional marketing means and into online means. But online is not a one size fits all model. With online marketing, there is social media (and each social media network has its own distinct feel), email marketing, search engine marketing and optimization, and a website/microsite presence. While it might sound simple in a sentence, there’s a lot to each of these topics. Many books/ebooks containing hundreds of pages have been written on each of these marketing channels.

When complexity arises, so does the need for processes. Automation works to simplify processes. Simple is good. That’s one of the key ideas of marketing in general. And when the marketing communications process is humming along, it means that multiple elements of the mix are working harmoniously together. Distribion’s social media marketing automation web based software solution is a key part of that. Corporate marketers can create social media campaigns across the wide variety of social media channels, and their downstream local sales agent partnerships can simply opt in to the essence of the campaign. This serves as a solution for the local agent, who often loses quality sales time while working on the development and presentation of marketing collateral. A distributed marketing software solution is vital in aligning human talents to focus their efforts on what they do best. A marketing and human resource alignment through strategic software enhances productivity, and as a result, often times top line financial performance is positively affected. Gleanster was one company to put forth research to support the previous sentence, stating that organizations that use distributed marketing software are more likely to be top performers relative to their competition. And isn’t that the point of being in business? Business is a lot like competitive athletics in the sense that there’s the innate desire to achieve peak performance relative to key benchmarks.

Thumbs up to Distribution for a quality 2012.

Distribion, a leading provider of marketing automation software, had numerous accomplishments in 2012. The company is also looking forward to making 2013 just as much of a quality year as 2012 was.

One thing that can be perceived as quite impressive was the fact that Distribion was named by the Metroplex Technology Business Council as the 4th fastest growing company in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Considering that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is routinely touted for being economically dynamic and performing well relative to the United States as a whole, this is a quality achievement.

But Distribion does not intend to become complacent as the company strongly believes there are great opportunities in the marketplace. Analysts in the SaaS space have estimated the value of marketplace for distributed marketing software to be worth approximately $2 Billion. There’s a belief that the company is uniquely positioned within the market and this positioning will benefit the long term outlook of the company.

CEO Tim Storer noted:

“Organizations have a huge content management and distribution challenge due to the proliferation of marketing channels. What we offer is a solution that streamlines and optimizes the marketing distribution process, maintains brand and corporate messaging requirements and provides valuable insight into all marketing activities.”

In recent times, there have been some improvements to the Distributed Marketing Platform, which include:

• An integration with Litmus, which is a program that tests email delivery and the appearance of emails within numerous email platforms. This is intended to further improve email marketing campaigns, which already are one of of the most effective marketing channels.
• More in depth integration with SalesForce.com, augmenting sales agent productivity and Jaspersoft Big Data Reporting integration, providing key analytic measurements.
• Various new API capabilities that support rule based campaign and data triggers

The improvements in the Distributed Marketing Platform will enable companies to more effectively manage marketing communications, a key tenet of brand management.  This is certainly an exciting development from the standpoint of Distribion client companies and prospective client companies.

To Read More: Distributed marketing software provider, Distribion, reports record growth: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/2/prweb10451554.htm

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Control of marketing messages is essential              

One of the chief desires of corporate marketing management is control. Brand managers can’t control the outside world (even though they would like to!), but they can control the way in which they react to the external marketing environment. And the external marketing environment presents a host of challenges that must be scaled.

Distributed Social Media Marketing Represents Opportunity

The CMO Council recently reported that seventy-nine percent of marketers are expected to implement some form of social media technology platform this year —from community building (30 percent), social monitoring and data mining (30 percent), and social media tracking and analytics (19 percent) to automation platforms that will help take the next leap in optimizing social engagements and relationships.

Social media marketing has certainly become a key strategic communication channel for most organizations in the world today. Many companies within the financial services, insurance and healthcare industries are currently not embracing the social media marketing channel to the same extent as others due primarily to compliance and regulatory concerns. Should these organizations be able to overcome these compliance concerns they could well be poised to leverage the social media channel greater than anyone else. Organizations that leverage a distributed marketing and local sales model often times support hundreds if not thousands of field sales, local agents and marketing partners and most, if not all, already have social media accounts. If the organization could somehow harness the power of those networks to broadcast and socialize content while minimizing compliance concerns then these distributed marketing organizations could quickly move from social media laggers to social media leaders.

Consider the following numbers as an example:

5,000 employees, agents, franchisees, etc.
x 130 avg. connections*
———————————————-
650,000 possible impressions per post

The numbers speak for themselves but how can compliance driven distributed marketing organizations take advantage of this opportunity? Tim Storer, CEO of Distribion, a leading provider of multi-channel distributed marketing automation software may have the answer.

“There are typically four obstacles that prohibit organizations from taking full advantage of their social media assets: The first is the time commitment necessary to effectively utilize and monitor the social media channel. The second is adequately training your employees and agents regarding how to build and engage an audience. Third is the inability for users to find or produce relevant content worth socializing about. Fourth are compliance and regulatory concerns.” Storer also notes, “these challenges are amplified considerably for organizations that leverage quasi-independent agents, brokers, franchisees or partners because often times the organization doesn’t have direct control over those individuals.”

In order to help organizations overcome these challenges and fully realize the potential of their social network, Distribion introduced a new concept called “Distributed Social Media Marketing“.

Using the Distribion Distributed Marketing Platform, corporate marketers can now publish pre-approved social media campaigns that consist of numerous content posts with links out to rich media and other supporting collateral.

Once published, employees and marketing partners simply opt-in to a campaign and the specialized software posts the content to the selected sites at the designated time intervals on their behalf, thus automating the entire social media process. Since all posts are pre-approved by corporate there are no compliance concerns. In addition, should someone wish to add or customize content the software can quickly route the content through a designated approval process.

When asked what led Distribion to come up with the notion of distributed social media marketing, Storer commented: “Our Distributed Marketing Platform has always helped organizations realize the full potential of their sales and marketing networks. Extending our platforms capabilities into the social realm really wasn’t a big leap for us at all.”

Many Need An Extreme Distributed Marketing Makeover    

This year’s LIMRA Distribution Conference theme “Extreme Makeover” highlights the need for organizations to rethink their sales, marketing, education and recruiting strategies to adapt to the new ways local agents and consumers communicate, learn and buy today.  This call from LIMRA, a financial services and insurance association, should not be limited to only the industries it serves.  Just about any industry that leverages a local marketing and sales model (e.g., financial services, insurance, franchise, hospitality, healthcare, telecom, etc.) needs to heed the same call and also consider a makeover of their sales and marketing strategies and supporting technologies.

Gleanster Research recently surveyed 315 organizations in an effort to understand how top performing distributed marketing organizations drive their multi-channel marketing efforts.  Gleanster Research concluded that the biggest challenge for distributed marketing organizations is balancing the conflicting needs of local marketers/agents and corporate marketing.

Consider the following statistics

• A dismal 16% of corporate marketers within organizations leveraging a local marketing and sales model are planning to integrate social media into their marketing mix (Gleanster Research).  Corporate regulatory concerns are largely to blame as many organizations struggle to control and monitor the content being socialized.

• 42% of distributed marketing organizations actually use three or more technologies in corporate marketing alone.  Multiple technologies means fragmented data, and often a fragmented customer experience.  (Gleanster Research)

• Less than 30% of corporate marketers have implemented some type of distributed marketing software platform to empower local marketers and agents to easily find, customize and distributed sales and marketing content to prospects and customers.   (The CMO Council)

• Only 36% of corporate marketers have a formalized process or system for tracking the impact of national brand advertising on local market development and customer acquisition.  (CMO Council)

These facts illustrate the fundamental technology gap that exists between the corporate marketing strategy and local execution.  Multi-channel distributed marketing technologies fill this gap because they are designed specifically to address the challenges associated with marketing and sales in a distributed organization.  This included campaign execution, multi-channel integration, dynamic templates, contact management, preference management, digital asset management, and dashboards.

– Local Marketing A Top Priority For Marketers In 2013 –   

According to The CMO Council, over 61% of marketers surveyed ranked the need to better localize content and messaging a high priority in 2013.   The shift to a more local marketing messaging tactic has certainly been heavily influenced by the social media revolution as consumers and prospects look for recommendations from trusted sources within their local communities and networks.  An organizations ability to execute effective local marketing campaigns will be critical in 2013 as relevance and personalization of content are now more important than ever.

Marketers face a real challenge moving to more of a local marketing mindset due to functional and philosophical gaps between strategic branding and local marketing.  Perhaps that’s why 93% of those recently surveyed in Gleanster’s Multi-Channel Distributed Marketing study indicated one of the biggest challenges they face is “balancing the conflicting needs of local marketers and corporate marketing.” Distribion, a leading provider of local marketing automation software, recently published a white paper titled “Empowering Local Marketing” where they refer to this as ”The Distributed Marketing Challenge.”  Distribion defines the challenge as follows:

The Challenge:

• Corporate marketing needs compliance, branding, and message control.
• Local marketing needs personalized / customized messages
• Both need anytime, anywhere access to marketing assets and multi-channel communication tools.

The Solution:

• Adopt a multi-channel marketing automation management solution like the Distribion Distributed Marketing Platform to seamlessly connect the entire communications chain.
• Make it easy and cost-effective for local marketing to access compliant, customizable content that can be easily distributed across multiple communication channels such as social, mobile, e-mail and direct mail.
• Select a system that offers automated messaging, personalization, lead scoring, tracking and reporting.

For more information on how your organization can better localize content and execute local marketing campaigns download the white paper “Empowering Local Marketing – It’s as easy as 1-2-3.”

Marketers To Upgrade Email Marketing Software In 2013

A recent survey conducted by The CMO Council found that almost 50% of marketers are looking to implement new Email Marketing Software in 2013.  One reason for this is that marketers have moved beyond simplistic email marketing features and are now needing more sophisticated solutions.  Investing additional marketing dollars in email marketing is certainly justified as it still ranks among the  most effective and inexpensive direct marketing channels.  In fact, a recent 2012 survey conducted by BtoB Magazine found that 59% say email is the most effective channel for generating leads.

Three primary drivers for this email marketing retooling are:

1.) The need for email marketing solutions to deliver more marketing automation capabilities.

2.) Better integration that delivers closed-loop marketing reporting across all channels.

3.) The ability to provide permission based access to email marketing templates that field personnel can access in order to localize and deliver content specific to the needs of their prospects and customers.  This localization of content is one of the primary drivers moving marketers to adopt more of a distributed marketing solution mindset.  (A good article that discusses this topic in more detail is Distributed Marketing Platform: Organizations Not At A Big Disadvantage Without One.)

With so many marketers ready to evolve their email marketing software, we felt it was a good idea to outline what specific features marketers should be looking for when evaluating providers.

Email Marketing Software 2.0 Features:

AD-HOC QUERIES
Quickly and easily group or segment individuals based upon interests, profile information and campaign activity utilizing a simple yet powerful query engine.

ANALYTICS INTEGRATION
Seamlessly feed and sync campaign activity with many of the most popular analytics packages including Google Analytics. Gain complete insight into site visitor behavior and even segment campaign contacts based upon this behavior for targeted follow up messaging.

APPROVAL ROUTING
Route email campaigns through designated approval flows before being sent out based upon established business rules.

ARCHIVES
Access copies of all email messages as well as corresponding tracking reports.  This is important as many email providers only archive campaign data for a short time period.

CAMPAIGN SCHEDULING
Schedule one-to-one, large groups, or drip-marketing campaigns to be delivered in the future.

COLLATERAL EXPIRATION
Manage collateral expiration dates for images, files, videos, content and more.

DATA COLLECTION
Utilize integrated form capabilities to capture information and append to contact records for later segmentation.

DATA SYNCHRONIZATION / CRM INTEGRATION
Synchronize all campaign and contact information with almost any 3rd party CRM or database application.

DELIVERY & COMPLIANCE
Ensure high delivery rates while staying compliant with CAN-SPAM and FCC list regulations.

DELIVERY MONITORING & SCORING
Instantly gain insight into how each email will be scored by email firewalls and receive easy to understand recommendations on what changes should be made in order to maximize delivery.

DELIVERY PREVIEWS
Quickly gain insight into how emails will render in a variety of all of the most popular email clients, web browsers, operating systems and mobile devices.

DETAILED REAL-TIME TRACKING
Gain insight into campaign effectiveness by accessing sophisticated reporting features and visually appealing charts and graphs.

FORMS AND SURVEYS
Quickly create and incorporate forms and surveys into your email campaigns in order to collect important feedback and information.

GLOBAL CAMPAIGN OVERVIEWS
Quickly locate any campaign ever sent by any user of the system, compare results, perform audits, or test multi-variant campaigns.

GLOBAL CONTENT MANAGEMENT
Manage content, categories, permissions, customization options, images, templates and more globally across the entire application quickly and easily.

INSTANT CONTACT UPDATES
Quickly allow your customers and prospects to update their information on file by providing pre-populated forms for easy update.

INTEGRATED ASSET MANAGEMENT
Store, access and easily locate all email content, imagery, videos and files for use in outbound email campaigns.

INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE SUPPORT
International language capabilities provides support for just about all languages and dialects.

LIST MANAGEMENT
Add, manage and segment contact lists as well as create an unlimited number of data fields.

MICROSITES AND LANDING PAGES
Easily create an unlimited number of microsites or landing pages that can be used to provide additional information pertaining to your campaign messaging.

MOBILE EMAIL FRIENDLY CONTENT
There is now a 50-50 chance that the email you send will be viewed on a mobile device so its critical that your email service provider provides the ability to create mobile content as well as preview how that content will appear across the various mobile browsers and platforms.

MULTIPLE USER ACCOUNTS
Provides an enterprise email marketing solution with centralized reporting and controls while allowing each user to have their own account.

NEWSLETTER ARTICLE MANAGEMENT
Quickly assemble email newsletters by creating, accessing and managing a centralized library of articles and content.

NOTIFICATIONS
Select to receive automated system notices regarding everything from approval requests to being notified when a recipient performs a particular action such as clicking to view a landing page.

ON-BEHALF-OF AUTOMATION
Ability to automatically personalize campaigns so they appear to come from account representatives associated with the recipient address. For example, as opposed to a newsletter coming from the marketing department it will appear to be sent from the local sales representative.

PERMISSION MANAGEMENT
Set permission parameters on everything from users, collateral, template usage, approval flows and more.

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT
Integrated white listing and reputation management helps regulate email activities while ensuring high delivery rates.

SOCIAL MEDIA INTEGRATION
Easily syndicate and track email content out to all of the major social networks including Facebook, Twitter and more.

SUBSCRIPTION PREFERENCE MANAGEMENT
Build messaging category types, manage bounce back, unsubscribe and exclusion groups for campaign efforts.

SYSTEM REPORTING
Provides complete insight into all system usage including user activity logs, approvals, campaign information and more.

TEMPLATE CUSTOMIZATION
Easily create email templates that can be quickly customized by sales and localized marketing personnel while retaining complete brand control.

TRIGGERED MESSAGING & LEAD SCORING
Leverage business rules to have the system perform actions such as contact segmentation, or sending follow-up messages when specific actions have been performed by your targets.

VARIABLE PERSONALIZATION
Utilize contact and profile information in variable tags to personalize email content and attachments. All email content including imagery can be automatically personalized to each recipient.

VIRAL FEATURES
Allow recipients to easily share email content out to social networks or send directly to their network by utilizing integrated SMS and forward-to-a-friend capabilities.

Survey Findings Point To Distributed Marketing Platform

The CMO Council recently released its findings from a survey it had conducted after gathering insight from over 550 marketing executives as to their plans for 2013.  Many of the findings were inline with expectations but a few were surprising.  One thing is clear, a multi-channel distributed marketing platform with permission management capabilities appears to align nicely with marketers needs in 2013.

A summary of those findings are below:

• Marketers feel there is still misalignment and somewhat of an adversarial relationship between marketing and sales but that improvement was made last year. However, marketers feel that the relationship between marketing and IT has emerged as a bigger problem. The rising tension between marketing and IT should come as no surprise as marketers are becoming more technologically savvy, reliant and demanding as to their marketing technology needs.

• One in two marketers are planning to conduct a complete digital marketing makeover in the year to come. The report suggests that marketers are justified in their reasoning and desire but lack the budgets and skill sets to accomplish this objective.

• Marketing budgets are expected to rise as 54% of respondents cite increases going into 2013.

• Digital spend overtakes traditional spend with digital channels like social, mobile and search being 27% compared to 23% being set aside for traditional channels like television, radio and print.

• Big spending increases are expected in SEO with 39% of respondents planning to increase spending by up to 5%.

• Marketing teams are expected to grow next year with an emphasis being placed on personnel specializing in the areas of data, analytics and advanced digital media skills.

• Improvements in customer segmentation and targeting will be a big focus in 2013 with SoLoMo (social-local-mobile) becoming a key ingredient. In fact, 39% of marketers intend to increase localization strategies and content to increase relevance and resonance with local markets.

• 48% of marketers cite a goal and mandate to improve alignment and integration with sales and channel groups with 21% looking to expand field marketing operations and sales support roles.

• 79% of marketers are looking to implement social media marketing platforms

• E-mail marketing continues to be deemed a critical marketing channel as 41% of marketers are looking to invest in new e-mail marketing platforms.

–  Anatomy of a Distributed Marketing Platform  -            

Distributed marketing technologies were primarily introduced five years ago to address the challenges distributed organizations face when selling and marketing their products and services through local channels (independent agents, franchisee, resellers, etc.). However, many of the same challenges faced by distributed marketing organizations now apply to almost all organizations. Today, just about all organizations face the same challenges associated with managing, optimizing and distributing content across channels and throughout various layers of the organization (sales, partners, regional offices, etc.).  (Of note, “The Rise of Distributed Marketing” is a great video that explains this in more detail).

As multi-channel distributed marketing automation software platforms continue to rise in popularity we thought it was important to clearly define the anatomy of a top performing distributed marketing platform.

Access & Permission Management: The ability to manage system users, groups, access rights and permissions. Permission management is a core fundamental building block that controls the entire user experience including content access and customization options, interface and navigational elements, approval flows, channel options, spend management, vendor selection and more. Single-Sign-On capabilities allow for seamless integration with existing internal permission management applications to prevent unnecessary data duplication efforts.

Profile Management: The ability for system users to manage their user profile. System administrators have the ability to create and designate content fields that system users are required to fill out in order to utilize the platform. Contact information, bios, photos, logos, etc. are all examples of information users can provide to personalize their profile. This profile information will be used to automatically personalize content and assets throughout the system.

Multi-Channel Campaign Management & Execution: The ability for corporate and local marketers to initiate campaigns across one or more channels. Examples include, e-mail, social, direct mail, landing pages and more. Multi-channel distributed marketing automation software often times replaces preexisting single channel applications (e.g., e-mail marketing software, etc.) thus providing additional cost savings for the organization.

Dynamic Templates: The ability to create campaign or collateral templates where certain areas of content can be locked by corporate marketing to maintain brand and regulatory compliance. In addition, content can be automatically personalized with the profile information of the system user as well as that of the recipient (see Contact Management).

On-Behalf-Of Marketing Automation: The ability for local representatives to opt-in to campaigns, upload or select contact lists and then rely on the corporate office to execute campaigns on their behalf. As campaigns are executed, the local representative will receive an e-mail confirmation that the campaign was sent along with a campaign report link that provides real-time campaign performance statistics.

Contact Management: The ability to manage contact lists and contact ownership within the system as well as track and control message frequency. System administrators have the ability to create and manage contact data fields as well as incorporate field names into marketing materials for dynamic mail merge personalization. A Distributed Marketing Software Platform allows for numerous contact ownership models and the ability to integrate with customer relationship management (CRM) systems such as Salesforce.com.

Preference Management: The ability to centralize and manage communication preferences such as opt-in, opt-out, interests and channel preferences.

Marketing Asset Management: The ability to centralize marketing assets for use within marketing communications. Distributed marketing platforms have sophisticated digital asset management (DAM) features that should easily replace preexisting DAM applications thus resulting in a cost savings for the organization.

Approval Management: The ability to control, manage and route customized content, collateral and campaigns through designated approval workflows to ensure brand and regulatory compliance. Detailed reporting and archiving capabilities are also often times necessity for organizations operating within regulated environments (e.g., financial services, insurance, healthcare, etc.)

Spend Management: The ability to manage and control marketing spend throughout the organization. Co-Op spend management capabilities are also often times a necessity for organizations that rely on independent agents.

Vendor Management & Inventory: The ability to manage and control vendors and fulfillment options. In addition, system administrators have the ability to establish rules that can route orders to the appropriate vendor based upon product, location, cost and/or quantity. Automated inventory notifications, direct CXML vendor data feeds, and detailed reporting capabilities round out this feature.

Measurement & Analytics: The ability to track and monitor performance across all campaigns and channels. In addition to its own reporting features, a distributed marketing platform should also have the ability to integrate with leading third party analytics applications such as Omniture and Google Analytics in order to provide true closed loop reporting as well as insight beyond just direct campaign interactions.

Robust API Capabilities: Extensive API capabilities ensure data can easily flow in and out to additional legacy infrastructure applications as needed. In addition, the ability for other third party systems to trigger campaign messages to be sent out of the platform automatically is also a big plus.

To learn more about how a multi-channel distributed marketing software platform can benefit your organization we invite you to download the Gleanster Research white paper: “How Top Performing Distributed Marketers Power Multi-Channel Marketing“.