Creating a Marketing Dividend
Takeaway notes from a DMA virtual webinar. By Aliza Bornstein, copywriter, Melissa Data

What is the Marketing Dividend?
The savings which can be made in the overall marketing budget in terms of efficiency and effectiveness, by implementing integrated technology.

Why Now?
Marketing waste and lack of accountability is unsustainable and still needs more investment in integrated technology, processes, and databases. This is especially important as marketing is being looked at to provide the growth path out of the recession.

Marketing Dividend Solution Part 1
Don’t rely on your CRM system to do your marketing. Instead, invest in marketing technology to extract, combine, analyze, and execute campaigns based on all your marketing data. Better marketing to customers means saving direct marketing costs while achieving better results through timely, relevant communications.

• Invest in a Web content management technology to rapidly get new content and campaigns up on your Web site.

• Start an engagement cycle with the prospect or customer. Better engagement on the Web site equals more effective use of online marketing budget—and money saved on agency costs with a greater chance of conversions.

High Costs
Email is now low-cost to send, but it can be a very expensive medium if it’s not utilized correctly. Your message has to be relevant or recipients may never open another email. And, acquiring new customers is VERY EXPENSIVE.

• Email campaigns are often not targeted or personalized.
• If you don’t segment and target you are not being relevant.
• The data from email responses is frequently squandered.

Marketing Dividend Solution Part 2
Apply analytics to your email and invest in analytical email technology to deliver timely and relevant emails; monitor deliverability in real time; track all interactions with the content; and host solutions with online access to visualization and insight tools. Better targeted email means more relevancy and therefore a higher response which promotes brand protection and customer engagement.

• Build a marketing-only database with access from all key company databases. Invest in a marketing database with analytical tools marketers can use to identify hidden opportunity; coordinate planned response to the customer during their customer life cycle; and be available as an outsourced service or on premise.

• A more efficient marketing database means identification of growth opportunities and marketing innovations; timely cross sell and up sell; better engagement with customers; faster time to market with competitive response.

• Use campaign management and workflow to increase the efficiency of marketing. Invest in campaign management software to reduce manual process; streamline workflows; reduce errors and remove rework. More efficient campaign management offers the ability to manage greater volumes of campaigns; faster time to market; and less repetitive tasks.

Making the Case
Pick your target based on where you can make the greatest impact; short term revenue gains; something you are passionate about.

Pick your team based on people who have used the technology in other companies and partners who can help.

Summary
Only choose projects where you can get a win within the current year and work with IT on TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) savings. There is a marketing dividend waiting to be realized so now is the time to invest in technology to realize that dividend, and at the same time, raise the game of marketing.

Ideally work with finance on this strategic investment and plan on how to use the marketing dividend created.

---Source: DMA virtual webinar June 4, 2009 webinar (www.dma.org). Bob Barker is the VP of Corporate Marketing for Alterian. Reach him at bob.barker@alterian.com.