Digital marketing transformation is more than visibility online. Its about taking control of your brand and marketing, to get in front of your organization and your competitors, its about digitizing your processes to become more efficient, cost-effective and staying in front of your brand and marketing strategy. You need digital marketing tools.
Most marketers are familiar with the term digital marketing. But what does “digital marketing” mean? For most marketers it is about being visible in various digital platforms. Trends and development within marketing implies though that there is more to it than that. In this blog we'll show you the width of what digital marketing transformation really means.
How do you manage brand and marketing assets?
Marketers who has kept it going for a while, has already taken a time travel. Take homepages, the first webpage was launched in 1991. Today, marketing products and services without a homepage seems unlikely. From having limited choices in channels, platforms and activity options, we are now overloaded with alternatives – and everything needs to happen high speed. Almost everything happens in real-time and your ability to keep the same pace and deliver on every request, becomes increasingly demanding.
Everyone working in a marketing department are familiar with the amount of e-mail requests from colleagues requesting images, marketing material, local campaign customization, translations and more. Additionally, you are supposed to deliver results based on a strategy and marketing plans. Its easy for time-lines to get disrupted. If you fail to answer and deliver according to demand, your colleagues become creative and before you know it, you have lost control of both your brand and your key strategy. Studies shows that 60% of marketers experience brand inconsistency when response time exceeds more than a week. Sounds familiar?
By collecting and sharing your brand and marketing assets from one central location, you'll take one step in the right direction of digital marketing transformation. The above challenges and worries disappear. Everyone in the company will have access to the assets they need 24/7, and the marketing team will have complete control of every asset ensuring the brand is updated and stays the same everywhere.
Also read: What is digital asset management?
The everyday struggles in the marketing department
Managing a brand and the marketing turns more complex the more alternatives you get as a marketer. And as we indicated initially the expectations from marketers is to do more with less. How are you going to balance this?
Marketing departments have traditionally been good at structuring material in local servers and folders. Internal communication, information and document sharing is most commonly solved with e-mails or intranet.
The challenges with this are many. What happens with what you send? Is it read? Are the files stored locally and a subject for continuous reuse even when files has expired? What about those who never ask anything or use your intranet? Who are they? Are they creating their own material? Are they aware of the latest changes in your brand book?
There are plenty of questions and challenges. All in addition to you working purposefully to create long-term values according to brand strategy, maintaining a consistent brand and unified communication regardless of marketing channel.
Also read: This is how you structure your digital and brand assets
Step into digital marketing transformation and automate your workday
While sales, HR, finance and salary departments invest in software to ease their workday and attain control, marketers tend to be more cautious. With already tight budgets, assuming it is too expensive and created for large global organizations is easy, yet untrue.
It is expected that larger organizations and brands have different and perhaps more needs than smaller companies, but everyone who works with marketing has the same ambition – To be the preferred brand amongst its competitors. Thus, the need to build a strong and solid brand regardless of your company size.
What do you need?
Structuring your workday, accomplishes efficiency and secures quality in your delivery. Digital marketing tools includes as many capabilities as there are tasks in a marketing department. To find the best solution for your company, you need to know what needs your marketing department has and what tasks you need to systematize. What does it take to solve the challenges you have?
Our experience is that even large and well-established brands admits they have no control of their marketing material. Valuable time is wasted on questions and search for correct material, which compromises the creativity. Start with making approved content and branded material available in one place for both employees and partners.
Also read: What is brand asset management?
Prepare for marketing modernization
With a system in place, you get everything in one location. It is easier to get ahead of your organization and your competitors. You facilitate automation and self-service of your brand and marketing in one single solution. When everyone is using the same solution, you eliminate time thieves such as unnecessary e-mails about things that are already available, you control what material and files are in distribution and you only have one location for maintenance.
It takes time to facilitate implementation of Martech tools in a company. You need to familiarize yourself with all available alternatives, maybe you also need to convince your colleagues and management. We recommend that you investigate your needs and what options you have. Map your time thieves and consequences of insufficient resources needed to reach long-term goals and strategies. Prepare yourself for going digital sooner rather than later.