Tina Turner famously questioned, “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?” Marketing operations is the beating heart of marketing teams. Strong marketing operations yields better decision-making, improved capacity and efficiency, and stronger governance and compliance. Yet the marketing operations heart is broken in many companies. Don’t despair – this vital organ can be rebuilt and reenergized. To keep ticking and give marketing the foundation and agility it needs to grow, marketing teams must shore up their insights, planning, workflows, communication, and collaboration.
And marketing operations professionals can’t do it alone. They turn to a collection of technologies we call Marketing Resource Management (MRM) to manage planning and budgeting, project and program management, collaboration and calendaring, content production, asset management, and performance analytics. MRM technologies enable companies to:
- Improve marketing performance and ROI. Reconciling marketing costs vs. benefits requires budgetary discipline and marketing performance data. Calculating marketing ROI informs future planning.
- Free up time for creativity with optimized work management. Prioritizing and streamlining workflows allows marketers to spend less time on mundane tasks and more time on strategy and creativity.
- Support content alignment, brand consistency, and asset localization. A central repository for marketing materials creates transparency and accountability – and reduces brand risk.
Forrester can help navigate the fragmented MRM landscape across money, people, content, and marketing performance management capabilities. Read our new report The Marketing Resource Management Technologies Landscape, Q2 2024 and schedule a guidance session or inquiry here to chat with us.
