Marketing Software
What is Marketing Software?
Marketing Software includes all computer programs and applications which help manage marketing work.
Marketing departments and organizations perform work in the following areas:
Analyzing markets and customers.
Planning where money and time will be spent to increase the sales of products and services.
Producing offers and promotions to target markets in different media channels.
Measuring the results of these efforts.
Within companies, many departments use software to help run their business operations and help them measure and improve the productivity of their departments. Here are some examples of how various departments use software:
Finance and Accounting departments keep track of accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll.
Human Resources departments use systems to manage employee information and benefits.
Manufacturers use supply chain management systems to purchase and keep inventory of raw materials.
Sales groups use sales force automation to manage accounts, contacts, opportunities, and forecasts.
Call Centers use software to manage customer interactions and keep a history of activities.
Marketing software helps to create catalogs, manage marketing projects, and segment customer databases.
Types of Marketing Work:
The list below provides additional detail and general examples of the type of work marketing departments perform.
Analyzing: Includes the review of historical trends and metrics, market research, review of sales revenues and prices, competitive intelligence, focus groups, surveys, benchmarking, and performance of previous marketing efforts.
Planning: Includes the creation, review, and commitment to allocating certain budgets and people to work on key strategies and objectives along with the related plans and work for new product launches, promotions, campaigns, etc.
Producing: Includes the creation of all marketing materials and communications such as logos, brochures, advertising commercials, web pages, online seminars, event booths, downloadable files, emails, press releases, direct mail, target customer lists, etc.
Measuring: Includes the development of reports which show the result of each marketing effort in order to determine the effectiveness across metrics such as revenues and new customers as well as response rates, cost of customer acquisition, and return on marketing investment.
Examples of Marketing Software:
For each type of Marketing Work listed above, several types of related marketing software applications are provided as examples.
Analyzing: Presentation software, document software, spreadsheet software, business intelligence and reporting software, survey software, order management and price optimization software, website software, video editing software, e-commerce software, email marketing software, list management software, segmentation software, point of sale software, sales force automation software, marketing database management software, and customer relationship management software.
Planning: Spreadsheet, document, and email software is often used to communicate and work on marketing plans and budgets. Many companies also coordinate with financial and accounting systems while some companies use database-driven marketing planning and budgeting systems (which are often referred to by a variety of acronyms listed further below on this page).
Producing: Graphic, photo, illustration, video, audio, text, and web-page editing software as well as email, online collaboration software and tools for storing and transmitting files and digital assets. Project calendars, planning, workflow, and tracking software as well as spreadsheets and email. Data management and direct marketing tools, marketing databases, list management, segmentation, email sending software, website management software, event management software, press newswires, modeling and optimization software, etc.
Measuring: Web analytics software, e-commerce, sales force automation, business intelligence tools, 3rd party data services, spreadsheets, etc.
Types of Marketing Software:
The different types of software used by marketers can also be categorized into groups.
Productivity and Collaboration: Examples include spreadsheet and document software as well as FTP sites, document proofing, and online mark-up systems.
Business Applications: Relationship Marketing Databases, Call Center Software, Point of Sale Systems, Customer Relationship Management Systems, Marketing Management Systems, and Business Intelligence Suites.
Design and Production Tools: Video and audio editing, graphic design, and document software.
Departments that Use Marketing Software
There is no specific order to the list below. The list includes titles of various departments or work-groups within marketing organizations. Each department uses various types of marketing software to accomplish their goals.
Branding and Advertising
Brand Management
Product Marketing
Segment Marketing
Marketing Communications
Marketing Services
Creative Services
Online and Internet Marketing
Market Research
Database Marketing
Direct Marketing
Demand Generation
Interactive Marketing
Relationship Marketing
Marketing Operations
Public Relations
Field Marketing
Investor Relations
Telemarketing
Production
Event Marketing
Market and Competitive Intelligence
Marketing Software Acronyms and Terms
The list below provides some of the acronyms and terms commonly used to describe marketing software or operational aspects of marketing work. These terms have been used by various investors, analysts, press, and vendors within the industry. Most of the acronyms and terms define a) how marketing departments have expenses, people, processes, and systems which exist to produce marketing materials, programs, and ultimately results b) how systems and technology help marketing departments manage various expenses, people, processes, materials, programs, and results and c) how results should be systematically reported on and optimized by metrics such as "return on marketing investment".
EMM: Enterprise Marketing Management
MRM: Marketing Resource Management
MOM: Marketing Operations Management
DAM: Digital Asset Management
MPM: Marketing Performance Management
MAM: Marketing Automation Management or Media Asset Management
Customer Interaction Management
Automated Lead Management
One-to-One Marketing
Marketing Technologies
Media Buying and Planning
Ad Serving and Online Advertising
Internet Marketing and Analytics
Website Management and Optimzation
Behavioral Targeting and Personalization
Marketing Analytics
Marketing Operations
Marketing Automation
Interactive Marketing
Relationship Marketing
Customer Relationship Management
Marketing Productivity
Campaign Management
Campaign Automation
What does Marketing Software Do For Marketers?
Here are some examples of what software does to help marketers do a better job.
Increasing Revenue: Data analysis and segmentation software helps marketers find target, be more relevant to them, and improve the rate at which they respond and purchase.
Decreasing Costs: Project management software can help reduce time and expense costs by automating work and reducing errors or late fees.
Resolving a Challenge: Before customer relationship management and enterprise marketing management systems, companies couldn't track the history all of their interactions with customers or capture survey and quality-assurance data.
Doing a better job of marketing: Trigger-based emails help companies respond to customers in a timely and automated way.
As well, marketing software can also enable a marketer to do something which was not possible before the software existed such as:
Provide reports on key business metrics or customer behaviors across the web and call center
Enable a group of people to review pre-press catalogs in a form other than paper (i.e. online proofing)
Take an order via a website
Create a brochure on a desktop computer
Distribute a 30-second commercial into people's home
Automatically clean address data to decrease mailing costs
Systematically and scientifically generate an offer for a call center agent to mention to a customer
Why do we need Marketing Software?
In today's environment, it is hard to find any area of a marketing organization that could function without software.
In the past 50 years, the number of magazines, radio stations, direct mail, and TV channels has grown significantly.
Most modern countries have millions of websites available for people to search and browse.
Marketing is more complex with more choices than it was 25 or 50 years ago.
Corporate board-rooms and senior executives are demanding a greater level of rigor around marketing measurement and accountability.
With the internet and internet-connected devices, marketing is more measurable than it has ever been.
Without marketing software, today's Chief Marketing Officer as well as all VPs, Directors, Managers, and all front-line workers wouldn't be able to manage the amount or type of work we have to do as marketers.
About Marketing Software as an Industry
There are several companies that research and publish information about the "marketing software" industry, and here is a list of some of the more prominent companies:
Forrester
Gartner
Jupiter
eMarketer
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