Many business owners, when first starting up their marketing efforts, struggle to either create or organize their content. For many large businesses, they have other content management requirements and they typically are looking for systems that perform the following content management functions:
Collateral & Content Management 
- Define, categorize and centrally access marketing content in multiple media (like collateral, price-lists, product information, specifications, competitive information, sales strategies, sales methodology, video and audio files etc,) from all modules.
- Define and track inventoried collateral (like brochures, CDs, Gifts) as kits, track the stock (in terms of quantity and value) and allocate them to one or more campaigns.
- Define and use templates (defined in MS office or other programs) for offers, promotions, invitations, service requests etc.
Easy population of the templates using online references to multi-media content and collateral stored in the online repository, along with a mail merge of contact information from the customer database. - A designated person followed by an electronic approval process when content needs to be approved for publishing receives a notification.
In short, a workflow system is required. - Sort by multiple parameters and similarly search using multiple parameters, including full text search on content/collateral.
- Assign and manage different rights to create, modify, delete, annotate and access content and collateral.
Ensure content remains editable even upon departure of the original creator. - Centrally published updates to all desktops of marketing team members.
A content repository is required in this case that is centrally accessible by marketing team members.
Did you know that according to Hubspot, the average Salesman overlooks over 270 pieces of available content! Usually because he can't find it. - Automatic delivery of content to channels, i.e., SMS, Web, Mobile andPrinted which are available to users based on subscriptions driven by their interests and choices.
- Delivery of content to channels whenever the content matches criteria set for those channels.
- Import content from external sources like content databases, MS word files, delimited text files etc. and export into similar formats.
- Store English and other language content/collateral and select the appropriate language during fulfillment based on customer information (language preference)
- Maintain user profiles, which tailors content, advertisement delivery and layout based on the customer preferences
Though these sound like 'heavy footprint' CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system type requirements, they are, in fact, fairly high-level requirements for marketing management systems that most CRM systems can or should deliver today.
Content Management System Requirements Checklist
Marketing Strategy Support Requirements
What should jump out from this list of marketing system functional requirements is that it is all about the technical aspects of the system only, and nothing at all about the marketing strategy, the content creation process nor the analytics required to explore different aspects of your marketing efforts.
Digging a little deeper into these requirements, some additional requirements should be added, such as:
- Customer Segmentation Data.
In this case, studies indicate that a typical airline (and many other industries) captures as many as 57 pieces of customer data for which they have no immediate or subsequent use for. This adds friction to the entire customer engagement process. Therefore, a key requirement would be to have the ability to conduct A/B test on various data collection forms to determine what the customer truly wants and which channel they prefer to consume it from. - Keyword Research and Analysis.
More specifically, long tail keyword research. Nothing in the above list of capabilities will provide the ability to target specific keywords. As it happens, this author was in the demo's of this system, and this issue came up but the strategy was yet to be developed as to how to select and target these keywords. - Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing Support.
These requirements do not actually fit the requirements of both of these channels. Though there is some overlap, there should be a level of requirements one level above these.
When it comes to marketing, especially in today's complex environment, it takes some rigorous planning and a lot of testing to really develop effective marketing approaches. To truly leverage a CRM system, you need:
- Clearly defined Marketing Strategy - across all channels
- Evolved Analytics - With built in feedback loops
They say if you can't manage it, you can't change it. If you would like to improve your measurement system, you might want to download our guide.
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