August 30, 2007 — Monumental challenges confront marketers looking to improve their performance. Channel proliferation, rising costs and an increasingly cluttered media landscape are impeding customer communications, while complex internal processes—and out-of-date organizational structures and technologies—frustrate the business of developing offers.
To help marketers conquer those challenges, a discipline has emerged to apply best-practice process engineering and the latest technology. Known as marketing automation, the practice has grown dramatically over the last decade—with nearly 70 percent of marketers now engaged in planning or implementing processes that stand to drive dramatic improvements in both marketing efficiency and effectiveness.
That’s one of the findings of a new white paper released today by Winterberry Group, sponsored by the Direct Marketing Association’s Marketing Technology Council. The study, entitled Marketing Automation and the Enterprise Opportunity, explores the drivers and inhibitors impacting marketing automation adoption today and setting the table for continued expansion in the years ahead.
The product of in-depth interviews with over 50 senior marketing and marketing services executives throughout North America and Europe, the white paper identifies six key trends defining the current marketing automation implementation environment. They are:
· The rise of “customer-centric” marketing, the rapid pace of innovation in product development and the demand for continuous process efficiency improvement are driving the development and adoption of marketing automation
· Corporate financial pressures—including increased marketing budget scrutiny and the heightened demand for financial transparency and accountability—have spurred the integration of financial tools into MRM systems and other automation platforms
· When marketing automation adoption plans are stymied, the causes are largely bureaucratic in nature, reflecting the emerging status of the discipline rather than fundamental shortcomings in technology availability or effectiveness
· Poor organizational alignment and the complexity of integrating new software solutions with legacy systems are the leading challenges confronting marketers during the marketing automation “on-boarding” process
· A significant skill gap continues to divide the “marketing” and “technology” factions within organizations, impeding faster and more successful marketing automation implementation
· Organizations that have adopted marketing automation are beginning to report improved performance in terms of both revenue growth and internal productivity; these benefits appear to be both industry- and channel-agnostic.
“Over the next several years, marketing technology will continue to mature, enabling better and faster implementations that will span all of the marketing functions,” said Bruce Biegel, senior managing director at Winterberry Group. “As the road to a successful implementation is a continuous process, those who begin planning and enablement today will be best positioned to manage the marketing challenges and take advantage of marketing opportunities towards the end of the decade.”
Marketing Automation and the Enterprise Opportunity is available for complimentary download via the Research page of Winterberry Group’s Web site, located at http://www.winterberrygroup.com/research/. DMA members may access the paper through the DMA’s Web site at http://www.the-dma.org/councils/mtccouncil/.
About Winterberry Group
Winterberry Group is a leading research and strategic consulting firm that helps marketing industry companies increase profits and build shareholder value. Affiliated with Petsky Prunier LLC—a leading investment bank providing merger and acquisition advisory services to companies in the same industry—Winterberry Group offers its clients superior strategic perspective, while PPLLC maintains exceptional relationships with industry executives and business owners. This combination of market intelligence, research and strategic operating experience (as well as the ongoing dialogue among buyers and sellers of marketing businesses) provides an educated outside perspective the company brings to each engagement.
Over the past four years, Winterberry Group has successfully completed more than 90 engagements for a broad range of marketers, service providers and technology developers, as well as the private capital firms that invest in these businesses. WG’s clients include Alterian plc., American Capital Strategies, Apax Partners, arvato Services (the marketing services division of Bertelsmann AG), BDS Marketing, Capital One Financial Corp., Court Square Capital Partners, The Carlyle Group, Hewlett-Packard Co., ICOM Information & Communications, IWCO Direct, MediMedia USA Inc., Modern Postcard, Roark Capital Group, Rosetta Marketing, Sterling Capital Partners, Transcontinental, Inc., V12 Group, Xerox and Yahoo!.
For more information on Winterberry Group, visit http://www.winterberrygroup.com/.
About the DMA Marketing Technology Council
The DMA Marketing Technology Council represents, educates, and communicates the benefits of technology-enabled marketing, enabling the development of efficient and effective marketing processes that deliver superior value. In line with that mission, the MTC promotes events and activities that focus on the five pillars of DMA member services: education/competency, networking, advocacy, branding, and research/market intelligence.
Over the next few months, MTC members will be facilitating events and insightful marketing- discussions at a number of events, including:
DMA07, Oct. 13-18, Mccormick Place West, Chicago, IL:
· Monday, October 15: Thought Leadership Series: “Marketing NeXt: Automation Takes the Lead in Driving Scalability and Profits”
· Wednesday, Oct. 17 and Thursday, Oct. 18: Post-Conference Intensive: Marketing Automation Intensive (co-sponsored by MTC). For more information on DMA07, visit http://www.the-dma.org/conferences/dma07/
National Center for Database Management (NCDM)
Dec. 10-12, Mandalay Bay Resort, Las Vegas, NV:
· Web Analytics and Campaign Management Shootouts (sponsored by MTC) – For more information or to register, visit http://www.ncdmevents.com/ncdm2007/public/enter.aspx.
For more information on participation in the Council’s thought leadership and educational opportunities, or for information on becoming a member, visit http://www.the-dma.org/councils/mtccouncil, or contact Florencio Vicencio, councils manager for the DMA, at fvicencio@the-dma.org or (212) 768-7277, ext. 1431.
About the Direct Marketing Association
The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) (www.the-dma.org) is the leading global trade association for business and nonprofit organizations that use and support multichannel direct marketing tools and techniques. DMA advocates standards for responsible marketing, promotes relevance as the key to reaching consumers with desirable and appropriate offers, and provides cutting-edge research, education, and networking opportunities to improve results throughout the end-to-end direct marketing process. Founded in 1917, DMA today represents more than 3,600 companies from dozens of vertical industries in the US and 50 other nations, including a majority of the Fortune 100 companies, as well as nonprofit organizations.
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