My name is Bill Godfrey and I am the CEO of Aprimo, a leading provider of marketing software solutions. My blog is about the trends shaping the marketing automation industry - the good, the bad and the ugly. I welcome you to join the dialogue.
My name is Bill Godfrey and I am the CEO of Aprimo, a leading provider of marketing software solutions. My blog is about the trends shaping the marketing automation industry - the good, the bad and the ugly. I welcome you to join the dialogue.
AAA0 stands for 'anytime, anywhere, anyhow, bar nothing.' My high school swim coach used this motto to rally our team to a state championship. Lots of good memories!
I sometimes feel like companies take this same mindset and approach when marketing to me as a customer. It happens to all of us. AAA0 marketing is a bit bothersome, but what's getting all the attention these days is the pervasiveness of behavioral profiling in the digital age. Many perfectly normal people are saying "don't trespass on my digital real estate unless I've invited you to do so."
As interactive marketers, we face this challenge every day! The problem is we haven't had the interactive marketing software we need to manage the holistic experience of every interaction with our customers, starting with understanding their anonymous digital profile all the way through the point(s) of conversion, and most importantly - respecting their preferences along the way.
Fortunately, this is changing. Today's available marketing management software, such as Aprimo's Marketing Studio, allows us to perform AAAP marketing - anytime, anywhere, anyhow, but with an understanding of one's preferences and with their permission.
So what's the big deal here? Well, here's what we know - as interactive marketers, we ...
- already use a collection of tools to manage paid search, search engine optimization, banner advertising, commercial email, triggered email, social media marketing, microsites, website traffic, lead management and the like. Basically a bunch of execution tools. Separate tools. Disconnected tools. And you (yes, it's safe to admit it) are the person responsible for meshing all this digital data and producing intelligent insights (ahh yes, the elusive dashboard).
- live in isolation from the rest of our marketing organization, in part because we're so different (and cutting edge) and in part because we're focused on the new stuff - the online world.
Now let's be honest with ourselves. As interactive marketers, we ...
- know it's impossible to integrate all these point tools and your customer's experience is falling short of it's potential.
- don't really want to operate as an island disconnected from our marketing mothership, as we fully realize that our online marketing activities have much greater impact when weaved into our offline marketing campaigns (and vice versa) - creating a seamless customer experience.
Yep, I agree it's a big deal - a really big deal! So let's do something about it. I invite you to learn about a new and truly innovative solution for managing your world of interactive marketing. Visit aprimo.com/marketingstudio. It's interactive. It's integrated. It's intelligent. More importantly, I think it'll make our life a lot more enjoyable and bring a WOW factor to your online marketing.
Marketing agencies develop great creative. For companies lacking strategic marketing competencies, agencies can also help fill this void. Many agencies are also highly efficient in managing the outsourced production of marketing campaigns. Agencies are a tremendous asset to corporate marketers.
Within agencies, technology is harnessed and pushed to the limits for designing creative, executing email marketing campaigns, and managing interactive marketing activities using online marketing tools for search engine optimization and social media.
So why have agencies been laggards to adopt marketing operations software, commonly referred to as Marketing Resource Management? I believe it's because they realize that MRM applications have the potential to disrupt the status quo of their client relationships. Think about it - why would agencies want to give their clients greater visibilty and transparency into their internal marketing budgets, plans, production workflows, traffic schedules, marketing calendars, digitial asset libraries and communication strategies?
Aside from a few innovative firms, most agencies have been sitting on the sidelines out of fear that MRM systems will disintermediate the fundamental business relationship with their clients. In the meantime, corporate marketing organizations are rapidly standardizing on MRM platforms in order to increase their own visibilty, accountability and control across their marketing portfolios, while accelerating their time to market and reducing costs and inefficiencies along the way. Ironically, the benefits of marketing operations software can be the greatest in the very area of focus for many agencies -- interactive marketing!
The net result is that CMO's are taking outright ownership of their operational platform, inclusive of the intellectual capital and creative assets that were typically maintained within agencies. Agencies and other marketing suppliers are being required to use these MRM systems as a virtual extension of the CMO's marketing value chain. Over 70% of Aprimo's customers require their agencies to utilize their Aprimo solution as a collaborative extranet platform. CMO's are no longer held captive by inordinate switching costs as they're now institutionalizing their marketing knowledgebase as a corporate asset.
Welcome to the 21st century. Successful agencies of the future will embrace, and in my opinion should actually lead, this marketing transformation. Interesting times, for sure.
Within agencies, technology is harnessed and pushed to the limits for designing creative, executing email marketing campaigns, and managing interactive marketing activities using online marketing tools for search engine optimization and social media.
So why have agencies been laggards to adopt marketing operations software, commonly referred to as Marketing Resource Management? I believe it's because they realize that MRM applications have the potential to disrupt the status quo of their client relationships. Think about it - why would agencies want to give their clients greater visibilty and transparency into their internal marketing budgets, plans, production workflows, traffic schedules, marketing calendars, digitial asset libraries and communication strategies?
Aside from a few innovative firms, most agencies have been sitting on the sidelines out of fear that MRM systems will disintermediate the fundamental business relationship with their clients. In the meantime, corporate marketing organizations are rapidly standardizing on MRM platforms in order to increase their own visibilty, accountability and control across their marketing portfolios, while accelerating their time to market and reducing costs and inefficiencies along the way. Ironically, the benefits of marketing operations software can be the greatest in the very area of focus for many agencies -- interactive marketing!
The net result is that CMO's are taking outright ownership of their operational platform, inclusive of the intellectual capital and creative assets that were typically maintained within agencies. Agencies and other marketing suppliers are being required to use these MRM systems as a virtual extension of the CMO's marketing value chain. Over 70% of Aprimo's customers require their agencies to utilize their Aprimo solution as a collaborative extranet platform. CMO's are no longer held captive by inordinate switching costs as they're now institutionalizing their marketing knowledgebase as a corporate asset.
Welcome to the 21st century. Successful agencies of the future will embrace, and in my opinion should actually lead, this marketing transformation. Interesting times, for sure.
Integrated marketing. Sounds simple enough. Google its definition. Doesn't seem so simple now, does it? The reality is that the concept and practice of integrated marketing is applied along many dimensions:
Regardless, the crux of what we're talking about here is creating the right alignment and synergy between disparate communication channels, strategies, budgets, campaigns, brands, teams, partners, agencies, etc. -- to create a relevant and impactful impression with our target audience at the point of interaction. The challenge of pulling this off in a half-way coordinated and streamlined manner is nothing other than a daunting task, even for the most proficient marketing organization.
The promise of marketing automation software is to enable integrated marketing. The problem with most marketing automation software is that it partitions off only a limited aspect of the end-to-end marketing process and, by design, automates a discrete step (or channel) in the integrated marketing lifecycle. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude where this leaves you - with yet another integrated marketing challenge - that being how to connect these myriad point solutions operating as silos of marketing automation. I've seen this time and time again, and trust me, it creates even bigger problems!
If we hone in on just the category of online marketing or interactive marketing, I can almost guarantee you that your marketing organization is currently using a collection of non-integrated tools to manage your PPC advertising, social media, banner ads, lead management, email marketing, microsites, PURLs, web analytics, etc. Ughh! Good luck bringing harmony to your customer's experience with your brand, not to mention figuring out how to report on marketing effectiveness.
Now, extrapolate this microcosm to the reality of how we actually market, which is to transparently blend our offline promotions with online call to actions (and vice versa), and this challenge to integrate all your marketing activities starts to feel like your every-day world, right? You're certainly not alone.
Aprimo's philosphy is that marketing professionals should be free to focus on high value-add activities (like marketing!) by relying on a comprehensive, integrated marketing platform to connect all the dots for them. Aprimo believes that marketers should be liberated from time consuming, manual tasks so they can focus on strategic, 'above the neck' matters. And perhaps most importantly, Aprimo believes in empowering marketers to unleash the power of truly INTEGRATED marketing.
- Integrated marketing communications
- Integrated marketing planning
- Integrated marketing operations
- Integrated online marketing
Regardless, the crux of what we're talking about here is creating the right alignment and synergy between disparate communication channels, strategies, budgets, campaigns, brands, teams, partners, agencies, etc. -- to create a relevant and impactful impression with our target audience at the point of interaction. The challenge of pulling this off in a half-way coordinated and streamlined manner is nothing other than a daunting task, even for the most proficient marketing organization.
The promise of marketing automation software is to enable integrated marketing. The problem with most marketing automation software is that it partitions off only a limited aspect of the end-to-end marketing process and, by design, automates a discrete step (or channel) in the integrated marketing lifecycle. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to conclude where this leaves you - with yet another integrated marketing challenge - that being how to connect these myriad point solutions operating as silos of marketing automation. I've seen this time and time again, and trust me, it creates even bigger problems!
If we hone in on just the category of online marketing or interactive marketing, I can almost guarantee you that your marketing organization is currently using a collection of non-integrated tools to manage your PPC advertising, social media, banner ads, lead management, email marketing, microsites, PURLs, web analytics, etc. Ughh! Good luck bringing harmony to your customer's experience with your brand, not to mention figuring out how to report on marketing effectiveness.
Now, extrapolate this microcosm to the reality of how we actually market, which is to transparently blend our offline promotions with online call to actions (and vice versa), and this challenge to integrate all your marketing activities starts to feel like your every-day world, right? You're certainly not alone.
Aprimo's philosphy is that marketing professionals should be free to focus on high value-add activities (like marketing!) by relying on a comprehensive, integrated marketing platform to connect all the dots for them. Aprimo believes that marketers should be liberated from time consuming, manual tasks so they can focus on strategic, 'above the neck' matters. And perhaps most importantly, Aprimo believes in empowering marketers to unleash the power of truly INTEGRATED marketing.
Here we go - my first blog post. I hope you enjoy reading my musings on marketing automation software. And yes, I'm naturally a little nervous about freely sharing my thoughts and ideas, but hey, I'm excited to learn from your feedback and dialogue, so don't be shy.
For those who don't know me or my company, I co-founded Aprimo, Inc. with Rob McLaughlin in 1998. Time flies when you're having fun! Despite all the nay-sayers chirping "are you out of your mind -- marketing can't be automated, doesn't want to be automated ... marketing is an art, not a science ... don't waste my time," we followed our intuition and passion to build a company to fundamentally transform the way companies would manage marketing in the 21st century. Looking back, our decision to start Aprimo has been an immensely exciting and fulfilling professional journey that I wouldn't trade for anything.
Since this is the point of origin for my blog, it probably makes sense to start with sharing my vision for Aprimo. Aprimo's vision is to provide innovative software solutions for companies to automate their marketing value chain; accelerating their marketing productivity and optimizing their marketing return on investment. It's simple, yet comprehensive. It's unique, yet relevant. It's revolutionary, yet overdue. It's bold, yet achievable. Our vision and execution over the past decade has created many new categories of marketing automation software - such as Marketing Resource Management and Enterprise Marketing Management, and yet our vision remains an integrated super set of all these sub-categories. We are still growing into our shoes. Aprimo's mission is to build a world-class marketing software company whose products become the defacto-standard application platform used by every marketing professional to 'manage the business of marketing.'
Fast forward to today. Aprimo has hundreds of customers with over 100,000 marketing professionals using our applications in more than 40 countries world-wide. Did someone say this type of solution was overdue? We're having a blast teaming with our customers to solve some of their most pressing marketing challenges - encompassing interactive marketing, multi-channel campaign management, lead management, production workflow, marketing planning and financial management.
I look forward to sharing these experiences with you in my future blogs.
Powered by Compendium Blogware