Select a Marketing Management Suite
A best-fit solution balances needs, cost, and capability.
- Time, money, and effort are wasted on channels and campaigns that are not resonating with your customer base.
- Email marketing, social marketing, and/or lead management alone are often not enough to meet more sophisticated marketing needs.
- Many organizations struggle with taking a systematic approach to selection that pairs functional requirements with specific marketing workflows, and as a result they choose a marketing management suite (MMS) that is not well aligned to their needs, wasting resources and causing end-user frustration.
- For IT managers or marketing professionals, the task to incorporate MMS technology into the organization requires not only receiving the buy-in for the MMS investment but also determining the vendor and solution that best fit the organization’s particular marketing management needs.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- An MMS enables complex campaigns across many channels, product lines, customer segments, and marketing groups throughout the enterprise.
- Selecting an MMS has become increasingly difficult because the number of players in the marketplace has ballooned. Moreover, picking the wrong marketing solution has a direct impact on revenue.
- Determine whether the investment in an MMS is worthwhile or the funds are better allocated elsewhere. For organizations with a large audience or varied product offerings, an MMS enables complex campaigns across many channels, product lines, customer segments, and marketing groups throughout the enterprise.
Impact and Result
- Maximize your success and credibility with a proposal that emphasizes the areas relevant to your situation.
- Perform more effective customer targeting and campaign management. Having an MMS equips marketers with the tools they need to make informed decisions around campaign execution, resulting in better targeting, acquisition, and customer retention. This means more revenue.
- Maximize marketing impact with analytics-based decision making. Understanding users’/customers’ behaviors and preferences will allow you to run effective marketing initiatives.
Select a Marketing Management Suite
Start here – read the Executive Brief
Read our concise Executive Brief to find out how to approach selecting an MMS, review Info-Tech’s methodology, and understand the four ways we can support you in completing this project.
1. Launch the MMS project and collect requirements
Assess the organization’s fit for MMS technology and structure the MMS selection project.
2. Shortlist marketing management suites
Produce a vendor shortlist for your MMS.
3. Select vendor and communicate decision to stakeholders
Evaluate RFPs, conduct vendor demonstrations, and select an MMS.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
American Bankers Association
Guided Implementation
10/10
$6,199
5
The Australian Ballet
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
Onsite Workshop: Select a Marketing Management Suite
Onsite workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost onsite delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Launch the MMS Project and Collect Requirements
The Purpose
Determine a “right-size” approach to marketing enablement applications.
Key Benefits Achieved
Confirmation of the goals, objectives, and direction of the organization is marketing application strategy.
Activities
Outputs
Assess the value and identify the organization’s fit for MMS technology.
Understand the art of the possible.
Understand CXM strategy and identify your fit for MMS technology.
Build procurement team and project customer experience management (CXM) strategy.
- Project team list.
Identify your MMS requirements.
- Preliminary requirements list.
Module 2: Shortlist Marketing Management Suites
The Purpose
Enumerate relevant marketing management suites and point solutions.
Key Benefits Achieved
List of marketing enablement applications based on requirements articulated in the preliminary requirements list strategy.
Activities
Outputs
Identify relevant use cases.
Discuss the vendor landscape.
- Vendor shortlist.
Module 3: Select Vendor and Communicate Decision to Stakeholders
The Purpose
Develop a rationale for selecting a specific MMS vendor.
Key Benefits Achieved
- MMS Vendor decision.
- A template to communicate the decision to executives.
Activities
Outputs
Create a procurement strategy.
Discuss the executive presentation.
- Executive/stakeholder PowerPoint presentation.
Plan the procurement process.
- Selection of an MMS.
About Info-Tech
Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.
We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.
What Is a Blueprint?
A blueprint is designed to be a roadmap, containing a methodology and the tools and templates you need to solve your IT problems.
Each blueprint can be accompanied by a Guided Implementation that provides you access to our world-class analysts to help you get through the project.
Need Extra Help?
Try Our Guided Implementations
Get the help you need in this 3-phase advisory process. You'll receive 8 touchpoints with our researchers, all included in your membership.
Guided Implementation #1 - Launch the MMS project and collect requirements
- Call #1 - Understand CXM strategy and identify your fit for MMS technology.
- Call #2 - Identify staffing needs.
- Call #3 - Plan requirements gathering steps.
Guided Implementation #2 - Shortlist marketing management suites
- Call #1 - Discuss use-case fit assessment results.
- Call #2 - Discuss vendor landscape.
Guided Implementation #3 - Select vendor and communicate decision to stakeholders
- Call #1 - Create a procurement strategy.
- Call #2 - Discuss executive presentation.
- Call #3 - Conduct a proposal review.
Contributors
- Sara Camden, Digital Change Agent, Equifax
- Caren Carrasco, Lifecycle Marketing and Automation, Benjamin David Group
- 10 Anonymous Contributors