eadline pressure for the upcoming campaign, coordinating the team, budget planning, “Where’s the visual again?”: We don’t need to tell you about these struggles. Yes, and we rightly use the word mammoth task for managing and orchestrating all marketing resources. But fortunately, we’ve freed ourselves from the planning Stone Age with whiteboard, Excel & co. We wouldn’t have arrived in the MarTech era if there weren’t a technological solution to these challenges. Often the phrase is a platitude; here it’s absolutely true: Marketing Resource Management (MRM) software provides enormous relief every day.
MRM stands for Marketing Resource Management. And since many things can be a marketing resource—from budget and personnel to all kinds of digital assets (or content) you need for your marketing—MRM software covers a broad range of functions:
Planning
You centrally plan and schedule budgets, campaigns, and all other marketing activities.
Workflows
You manage the workflows in content production.
Campaign Management
You run campaigns with the right content.
Team Organization
You organize your team via role management.
Performance Measurement
You analyze the performance and ROI of campaigns and individual content pieces.
Administration
You manage digital marketing assets (images, videos, texts, audio, eBooks, presentations, etc.) as well as external service providers.
Brand Compliance
You ensure brand compliance across all initiatives and all channels.
Many obstacles in marketing stem from the fact that things aren’t managed centrally: Person A plans the budget in tool X. Based on that, Person B plans a campaign in software Y. Person C creates the content and stores it in system Z. In many companies, Excel spreadsheets still dominate these task areas—despite multi-million budgets. How is anyone supposed to keep track? How is effective and efficient, well-managed marketing supposed to come out of that?
So, do you feel addressed? If so, you should seriously think about MRM software. Because the starting point of MRM is a holistic marketing approach. Its goal is to increase efficiency, reduce costs, and optimize output. Or put differently: With MRM software, you remove the bottlenecks in managing marketing activities that are holding your marketing team back from taking off.
Since MRM software can serve many different purposes, there is no standardized feature set. Many providers appropriate this term for themselves even though they offer only parts of it in their solution.
Budgeting and forecasting
Marketing calendar
Social media integrations
Lead generation and management
Task management
Approval and review management
Progress tracking
Time tracking
Digital Asset Management
Content management
Display ad management
Email management
Video creation and editing
Image editing
Template management
Brand guidelines
Brand management
As you can see: it’s a broad spectrum that includes organizational and creative processes. That’s why selecting a suitable provider is quite demanding and time-consuming. More on that in a moment. First, we answer the question …
The buzzword “digital asset” has already come up several times. And that immediately makes MarTech aficionados’ ears prick up: Aren’t there dedicated platforms for that? Sure: Digital Asset Management platforms (DAM). So what’s the difference between MRM and DAM?
Although both types of software are similar and there are providers on the market that have both in their portfolio, their objectives differ:
MRM software is designed to (only) optimize marketing. Everything here revolves around operational value and solely around marketing assets. The software tends to be used on a project basis.
DAM software is, in a sense, positioned more broadly. Here you centrally manage all digital assets of the entire company. The range of people working with it is even more diverse (in theory all units, multiple external service providers, freelancers, sales partners, etc.). Topics such as strategic campaign planning and budgeting fall away; instead, topics like taxonomy management, digital rights, and many others come into play.
For the optimal management of your assets, it can make sense to use both MRM software and DAM software. If it’s not an all-in-one solution, the DAM is connected to the MRM system via an interface. Since many companies already have a DAM in place, this is currently the most common practice.
You can also find other types of marketing software that in some cases include MRM functions:
Marketing Operation Management Software
Enterprise Marketing Management Software
Marketing Automation Software
Brand Management Software
You know what MRM software can do for you, what features it can have, and what the difference is compared to DAM software. Now, in order to find the relevant MRM software, you still need to make a few preparations. You can use the following questions as a guide:
Do you already have experience with MRM software? If so, what did you like and what did you miss?
Which employees and departments will work with the software? What is the MarTech know-how like here?
What kind of permissions management do you need for your team as well as for external service providers?
Would you like to set up the software directly with your marketing agency?
What does your MarTech stack look like? Which systems do you currently use to plan and analyse your marketing? Would you like to keep working with it and therefore need an interface to the MRM software?
In which languages does the user interface need to be available?
Do you need a mobile app?
Which of the features mentioned above are a must?
Which channels would you like to use the software for: social media, newsletter, website, display ads, etc.?
Data protection: In which region / in which country must the software’s servers be located?
How comprehensive do the provider’s onboarding and support services need to be?
What budget framework per year/month or also per employee have you planned?
Switching to MRM software means that companies go through a change process: Existing workflows should be questioned and relevant stakeholders involved. That’s why it’s crucial to choose the right process as early as the software selection stage. And that’s where Matchilla helps you:
If you can already answer some of the questions asked above or have given them some thought, we recommend the MatchAssistant for MRM software. Here, in less than five minutes, you enter your individual requirements and receive three suggestions from us of the most relevant MRM providers. Just give it a try. It’s free and absolutely non-binding.
Till Zier is CPO at Matchilla and, as a MarTech expert, reports in the MatchZINE on news and trends in marketing, automation, analytics, and data.
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