You’ve decided that Localising and Personalising your brand’s advertising is crucial to the success of your network.
And you’ve experienced some of the obstacles to Effective Retailer Marketing.
But have you considered an online asset management solution, to bring your local marketing to life?
We’ve spent the last ten years working with some of the biggest brands who are using the best software solutions on the market. We see, every day, just how efficient and cost-effective a great tool combined with an engaging agency team can be.
Basically, you have two key options:
Digital Asset Management (DAM)
DAM portals allow you to SHARE your assets.
You spend a lot of money creating the assets that makes your national advertising and marketing work so well. With a DAM portal you can make them available for your retailers too. It’s a great way to keep their marketing consistent with yours and helps prevent them from sourcing or creating off-brand, off-message activity. All file types - images, video, audio - can be accommodated and because it’s centrally managed it means that you can keep it constantly up-to-date.
You could even run an artwork ordering service on the DAM for work to be produced offline.
Marketing Asset Management (MAM)
MAM portals allow you to ACTIVATE your assets.
These portals can do everything that a DAM does, but will allow your retailers to plan, personalise and localise them, via templated assets. It makes local marketing so much more achievable, whatever the skill level of the local manager.
The choice depends very much on your own marketing landscape, but the benefits of a MAM to those brands with a broad spectrum of local outlets cannot be over-estimated. It’s worth listing them, one-by-one.
1. Multi-channeled.It wasn’t that long ago that the original MAM systems could only spit out a simple bit of Direct Mail, but the world has of course changed. As quickly as your national marketing opportunities have grown, the best MAM systems have kept pace. It’s now possible to have templated materials available for your retailers for all channels, including those digital ones that they are crying out for.
2. Personalised and localised.
Your retailers will be able to access the templates and create their own, locally relevant marketing materials, and personalise them in as many ways as you allow them to. They could create their own price points, offers, event promos, awareness campaign. In fact, their marketing could be as sophisticated as your brands’ national marketing. Digital and Google Display, Facebook, Email, Print, OOH…every channel is available for templating. The time and money saved with this type of marketing automation actually makes the cost of implementing a MAM system seem pretty insignificant.
3. Planning.
We all know that a well-considered and carefully-implemented marketing plan is the only real way to succeed, but this is an area where most local marketers really struggle. The best MAM systems will include a proper planning tool, where the retailer can map out their marketing for the next month, quarter or year.. And the module can even be pre-loaded by the brand with exemplar media plans that show likely outcomes versus spend… a real boon for retailers that often need that kind of help.
4. Budgeting.
Having a Budgeting module included with your MAM system adds even more professionalism to your retailers’ marketing. For them to be able to plan their spend and to see where the ROIs are strongest has to be a good thing. And, if you operate any co-funded advertising with your retailers, it’s essential that everybody has visibility on where the spend levels sit.
4. Targeting.
There are a number of 3rd party tools that can be introduced via a MAM portal. Geographic, demographic and behavioural data can be introduced to inform audience building for the key digital channels. And it can be integrated with your own, and your retailers own CRM data to ensure consistency of marketing, and effective targeting, throughout the customer journey. The possibilities in this area are incredible and will only be limited by your ambition, if anything. And, it’s of particular interest for those sectors and retailers that have difficulty finding conquest sales opportunities.
6. Media buying and trafficking.
This has become a real minefield for local-level marketers. With so many channels available it’s virtually impossible for them to keep tabs on the various media-buying opportunities, specially when it comes to the newer digital spaces. But having everything available via the portal, including specially devised pre-packaged campaigns, makes the process much more manageable. And the same goes for trafficking – everything can be sent, automatically via the portal.
7. Reporting.
With a MAM system that has a suite of reporting tools on-board, your retailer network could be enjoying the same visibility that you have. Dashboards showing the best-performing activities - by channel, campaign or product – is the least you should be looking for. And this type of reporting can be made visible to HQ and Field Teams, for example, so that you can see what’s happening too, right across your network.
8. Integrated Business Services.
Every brand will have its own way of doing business. And every brand will already have tech solutions in place that are integral to its marketing strategy. The smartest MAM systems recognise that, and will integrate with all the key proprietary marketing players out there…like Salesforce and Amazon Web Services, for example.
9. Agency Team.
Depending on the amount of assets you have and the turnover of new material, you’ll need at least one person who’s responsible for making it current, compelling and useable. A more involved MAM portal will be a slightly different proposition. Determining a strategy for templates that are relevant at local level yet consistent with national marketing requires a specialist team. It should reach out to your network to interrogate demand, need and feedback…basically you’ll create a mini-agency that acts on behalf of your whole network. A great portal needs a great team to really make it work.
Summary
Making a decision about which is the best route for you will depend largely on how important you feel localisation is for your network.
A good DAM system should provide retailers with all the materials they need to start advertising with an element of consistency and brand compliancy. It’s far better than leaving them to find their own way.
But a first class MAM, with an engaging team behind it, can take them to a professional-level when it comes to executing locally-relevant, personalised marketing that uses proven planning, strategy and media options to fully leverage your national and global messaging and ensure the customers’ journey is totally joined up.
Our Webinar: Precision Local Marketing walks you through the options that might suit your brand, just click the link below to see it now.
