I recently had the pleasure of reviewing my daughter's mid-year report card for her sophomore year. A pleasure because it was all A's, even with AP classes that will earn her college credits. Yes, I am boastful, but can you blame me? With these A’s in mind, I got to thinking about where else an array of A’s makes me happy. It’s in 1:1 marketing... [yep, no kidding!]
As a seasoned marketing practitioner who's been in the trenches for years, using marketing automation solutions to plan, execute, and measure my multi-channel campaigns, I can appreciate the value of at least 5 A's -- i.e., Audience, Activity, Account, Asset, and Analysis. Each offers a unique benefit to the marketer, with a whole that is even greater than the sum of its parts. The A’s, and importantly, the marketer’s ability to record, document and associate them with specific marketing initiative(s) is critical to a marketer’s success! Here’s a couple of big reasons you should demand the A’s from your multi-channel campaign management solution:
· Accountability (I’m sticking with A’s!) – Marketers can focus on the present (i.e., flawless marketing campaign execution) with applications that automate and/or support the creation of campaign information like audience contact history, funding account, brand assets used, post-campaign analyses, etc. that are "must-haves" to calculate ROI.
Additionally, marketers can go beyond the campaign-centric use of the A’s to look across campaign, across time – i.e., longitudinal tracking and measurement. Marketers can easily assess aggregate-level spend and ROI, or other meaningful metrics (e.g., retention versus acquisition spend, Brand A versus Brand B marketing ROI comparisons, etc.)
· Advancement (no comment on the A…) Marketing is indeed a mix of science and art. Science gives us the data, i.e., the facts that we transform into information and insight, which then fuels the “art” of marketing. Marketers infuse a bit of art by adding their experience and creativity [to insights] to produce implications that convert into meaningful marketing actions and decisions. Without the A’s marketers cannot generate the learnings they need to refine and advance future marketing initiatives for greater ROI nor can they advance their individual experience and expertise in the practice of 1:1 marketing.
I hope that I have accomplished two things with this post: 1) redeemed myself by showing that my report card intro was not so "far fetched;" and 2) imparted some valuable information about why marketers need a multi-channel campaign management solution that easily supports our marketing A's. Let me know if I did either! :o)
Welcome to these pages. I'm Tim Charlesworth, part of the Aprimo team based in Australia. With this Blog, I'm dipping a toe in the waters of interactive marketing through social media, and will be sharing my thoughts and experiences as we build the market presence of Aprimo here in the Asian timezones. 
Maybe you already "got milk," but that's not all you need in life. Experts say we need a balanced diet of dairy, protein, grains, fruits and vegetables. You wouldn't try to survive on only one of these. You'd run into all kinds of problems if you only ate ground beef or blueberries. You know better, so you try to include every food group.
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