Today's highly mobile and engaged economy rewards businesses that deliver relevant, timely, and personalized customer interactions. An engaging customer experience wins business, but managing this experience between corporate marketing and local entities is challenging. Alignment between the corporate and local marketing functions is often hobbled by lack of communication, uncontrolled use of the brand, and redundant systems and processes. How can an organization overcome these obstacles to achieve top-line growth and maximize bottom-line efficiencies? This comprehensive white paper from Neolane explores the intricacies of delivering a consistent brand while recognizing the need to customize the brand to local target audiences. Learn how marketers can leverage a unified technology solution to steer corporate and local entities towards a common business goal; to improve the customer experience and increase sales.

1. The Distributed Marketing Frontier:
Realizing the Dream of Truly “Glocal”
Marketing
JUNE 2010

2. Today’s highly mobile and engaged economy rewards businesses that deliver
relevant, timely, personalized customer interactions. Ultimately, an engaging
customer experience wins business, and managing this experience across
localized entities can be a difficult task. For large distributed marketing
functions that support localized marketing efforts, managing brand
consistency, communication, and customer engagement is an ongoing
challenge. Distributed marketing functions are common among
insurance, pharmaceuticals, automotive, financial services and
“For large franchise industries. However, distributed marketing applies to any
organization that requires a centralized marketing entity and
distributed localized marketers to work together in the pursuit of top-line growth
and bottom-line efficiencies.
marketing
functions that
support localized Corporate
En ty
marketing efforts,
managing brand
consistency,
communication, Internal Local En es External Local En es
and customer (Field Offices, Divisions, (Branches, Agents,
Business Units, etc.) Franchises, Agencies, etc.)
engagement is an
ongoing Most organizations have embraced a hierarchical model where a central entity
(corporate marketing) oversees the preservation of the brand image, brand
challenge.” communication policies and strategic decisions about the brand. This central
entity often supports both internal and external localized marketing efforts to
engage target audiences with relevant marketing messages.
Localized entities can be classified into two categories:
• Internal Local Entities: Field Marketing, Field Sales, Brands, Regions,
Point-of-Sale Stores
• External Local Entities: Franchise Holders, Marketing Agencies, Channel
Partners
Both internal and external entities have the same requirements; access to
brand assets, guidelines for leveraging the brand, and tools to engage localized
audiences with relevant, timely, personalized messages.
But, managing communication and brand compliance in this environment can
be extremely challenging. For one thing, there are conflicting goals between
corporate or headquarters marketing and local entities, such as agents,
branches, or field offices. Corporate marketing is tasked with developing a
consistent brand across marketing channels, regions and local audiences. Local
marketers are tasked with engaging local audiences with relevant messages
and reaching sales targets. Local marketers need autonomy and flexibility to
2 JUNE 2010

3. customize the brand and marketing message. As a result, local marketers often
view corporate or headquarters marketing as a compliance mechanism that
“doesn’t understand local needs” and “adds little value to meeting revenue
targets.”
Figure 1 shows how these conflicting objectives lead to alignment challenges
between corporate and local entities. The growing complexity of these
challenges drain productivity for distributed marketing functions and prevent
“Technology the organization from delivering a consistent brand experience across
marketing channels; but, as Albert Einstein once said, “In the middle of every
should be difficulty lies opportunity.”
helping local Figure 1: Framing the Challenge and the Opportunity
Corporate Marke ng
and corporate •Control brand consistency Challenges Opportunity
•Preserve brand and
customer experience Longer campaign cycle mes Improve produc vity & me to market
marketers create •Accountable for
organiza onal performance Inconsistent communica ons Reduce redundant costs and improve the
•Control agency costs between corporate marke ng efficiency and effec veness of
a direct dialogue •Aggregate media spend and local marke ng efforts marke ng campaigns
•Manage cross-channel
campaigns Inability to control the use of Deliver a consistent customer
with customers brand assets experience
Inability to measure the
Alignment
Corporate and local marke ng can
via the local combined efforts from
corporate marke ng and local
monitor and measure all marke ng
Conflic ng Objec ves efforts and op mize future campaigns
marketers
operational Redundant technology Reduce licensing costs for mul ple
Local Marke ng pla orms fail to address the solu ons, eliminate mul ple interfaces,
•Customize marke ng combined needs of corporate centralize assets, centralize the
entities.” messages for local audience and local marketers distribu on of assets in cross-channel
•Flexibility and autonomy in campaigns
program development
•Engage target audience Lack of insight into combined Improve top – line growth and bo om
across relevant channels efforts of corporate and local line efficiency by working together to
•Rapidly react to changes in marke ng leads to marke ng maximize the impact of campaigns and
local market dynamics fa gue marke ng assets in the field.
It’s inherently difficult for corporate marketing to meet the unique needs of
local marketers. Nobody knows the local market like local entities. As a result,
many local marketers pursue their own agencies, technologies, media spend,
and services; resulting in longer campaign cycle-times, lack of communication
between corporate and local entities, an inability to measure campaign return
and uncontrolled use of the brand.
This is ultimately the distributed marketing organizations challenge:
How can we deliver a consistent brand across internal and external localized
entities while simultaneously allowing localized marketing to customize the
brand for the unique needs of local target audiences?
A New Frontier in Distributed Marketing
Many organizations have already made significant investments towards
addressing the aforementioned challenges. In the 90’s content management
solutions promised a light at the end of the tunnel. The idea was to centralize
all digital assets and democratize access for relevant parties. Unfortunately,
these solutions actually compounded the problem because they offered little
more than an asset repository; after assets are created and stored both
3 JUNE 2010

4. corporate and local entities still needed to use these assets to engage target
audiences in cross-channel marketing campaigns. If corporate marketing could
not provide a campaign management tool with the flexibility and timeliness
required for localized marketing programs, local entities invest in a separate
infrastructure (campaign management tools, email marketing, agencies, print
operations, etc.) to support local needs. This leads to redundant tools,
redundant marketing costs, and lack of communication about corporate and
local campaigns.
“By eliminating
There are ultimately two fundamental components to managing the brand for
inefficient a distributed marketing organization; marketing asset management and
customer engagement. Much like yin and yang, both of these components are
processes critical to achieving “harmony” between central and local entities.
between corporate Figure 2: Empowering Corporate AND Local Marketers
and local entities Marke ng Asset Management
and reducing
redundancy in Customer Engagement
technologies,
organizations can Marketing Asset Management Customer Engagement/
Campaign Management
focus on campaign Most people think of Digital Asset
Management or Marketing Asset Digital assets are only valuable if
optimization Management when they think they can be easily located and used
about addressing the challenges of in cross-channel marketing
instead of a distributed marketing function. campaigns. With so many new and
These solutions offer a centralized emerging channels the complexity
organizational repository to store and distribute of managing the brand is further
the brand assets and creative compounded across marketing
inefficiencies.” assets for the organization. channels. Distributed marketing
• Promote the re-use of licensed organizations require a unified,
content collaborative and configurable
• Centralize brand assets (logo, process to manage marketing
etc.) for ease of accessibility campaign execution.
• Centralize brand guidelines and • Cross-channel engagement
compliance assets across email, Web, mobile, call
center, direct mail, social media,
• Centralize brand templates (for
tv, print, etc.
customizable collateral)
• Measure and monitor
• Provide searchable asset
performance
repositories
What if these capabilities were combined into one tool? What if local marketers
could access brand compliant assets and create localized cross-channel
campaigns from the same tool that corporate or headquarters marketing uses
to deliver cross-channel campaigns? The next generation of distributed
marketing solution is empowering organizations with the solutions to these
problems.
4 JUNE 2010

5. Aligning Corporate and Local Entities with Technology
Ben Franklin once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over
and over again and expecting a different outcome.” Yet, distributed
organizations continue to make investments in siloed marketing asset
management and campaign management solutions to address the conflicting
needs of corporate and local marketers. The long-term ramification of these
decisions is an inability to align corporate and local entities both strategically
and operationally. Local entities find ways to circumvent corporate compliance
“There is a fine and corporate marketing has limited visibility into local marketing activities.
Disparate technologies drain marketing productivity and prevent organizations
line between from optimizing the customer experience.
managing brand Ideally, distributed organizations need to find ways to involve local operational
entities in the contact engagement strategy; after all, nobody knows the
consistency and customer better than local entities. Next generation distributed marketing
technologies are largely becoming the glue that binds corporate and local
localized needs. Distributed marketers need one unified technology for creating,
capturing, storing, distributing and optimizing brand assets. Technology
autonomy. The should be helping local and corporate marketers create a direct dialogue with
customers via the local operational entities (See Figure 3).
'win-win approach'
Figure 3: Next Generation Distributed Marketing Technologies
is a unified
solution that Corporate Marketing surement Corporate Marketing
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
M ea
are needed to see this picture.
• Centralize assets • Centralize campaign
• Re-use licensed management
empowers assets • Centralized cross-
t r ali z at i o n Distribute
• Brand Compliance Cen channel
Assets
corporate and • Measure asset
measurement
• Control over brand
utilization Corporate Mktg. Email
local marketers Create Marketing Distributed Marketing Cross-Channel
Web
Assets Asset Solution Engagement
with digital asset Local Marketers Local Marketers Local Marketers Direct
• Access to • Personalize
Etc.
centralized assets engagement
management and Pe r
• Alignment with s onaliz at io n • Maintain brand
targeted offers compliance
campaign • Brand Compliance • Cross-channel
Br measurement
an d cy
management Co ns i s t e n
capabilities.”
A centralized shared technology provides a consistent business process for
creating, approving and engaging with customers.
• Corporate marketing can establish a brand image and marketing campaign
templates while local marketers have flexibility and autonomy to customize
messaging for local markets.
• Branded templates can be created and managed by corporate to preserve the
brand image across local markets.
• Time-to-market is rapidly reduced with an automated, centralized, integrated
approval process for local campaigns.
5 JUNE 2010

6. • Local marketers can reduce costs associated with redundant technologies and
centralize customer data for use in lead management, analytical modeling,
and trigger marketing campaigns.
• Central and local entities can monitor the success of localized campaigns.
Best practices can easily be identified and built into future marketing
templates since key performance indicators are tracked and aggregated in a
single solution.
“Central and
• Corporate marketing gains added visibility and customer knowledge about
local entities can local markets for more impactful corporate branding campaigns.
The key to empowering local marketers is to deliver a flexible solution with
monitor the built in workflow and approval. For many organizations the corporate approval
process on outbound campaigns can be a tedious process. Local marketers
success of spend inordinate amounts of time waiting for approvals from corporate, while
the window of opportunity in local markets rapidly closes. If local marketers
localized can create, approve, and execute campaigns more rapidly they are more likely
to leverage a unified technology (particularly if the technology provides
campaigns. personalization and customizable campaigns that are unique to the local entity). A
unified solution also provides executive level approvers with a centralized tool to
Best practices can monitor campaign performance across the entire organization. Approvers can
actually provide feedback for optimizing campaigns based on what is working
easily be identified across the organization – while simultaneously checking for brand compliance.
and built into Campaign Management for Corporate and Local Marketers
future marketing Corporate and local marketers need a central repository for digital creative
assets as well as a catalogue of marketing campaign templates. The ideal
templates since distributed marketing solution should provide marketers with access to two
types of campaigns: Local Campaigns and Shared Campaigns (See Figure 4).
key performance Figure 4: Campaign Management for Corporate and Local Marketers
indicators are Centralized
brand assets
u lized to
tracked and customize
template
aggregated in a
• Approve
single solution.”
Local
• Allocate Budget
Campaign En es Select
Suitable Campaign
Corporate • Execute
Creates
Campaign • Measure & Refine
Template(s)
Shared
Campaign
• Local Campaign: Corporate marketing should be able to create branded
templates which can be customized by the region and used as independent
targeted marketing campaigns in internal or external local entities. For
example, if an automotive dealership is launching a special promotional offer
that is exclusive to one or two dealerships, a local campaign could be used to
target local customers and corporate brand compliance. Campaigns can be
executed by local entities or corporate marketing and campaign results are
accessible to both parties.
6 JUNE 2010

7. • Shared Campaign: Corporate marketing should also be able to create branded
campaign templates for use in both corporate marketing campaigns and local
marketing campaigns. Templates should be accessible from a centralized
repository and distributed by local entities or initiated by corporate marketing
with the help and approval of local entities. A shared campaign aligns
corporate and local resources for marketing distributions that require a
consistent customer experience. For example, a new product launch at a
financial services company may require corporate and local marketers to
“Time-to-market work together for the official launch. If corporate has branded billboards,
advertisements, and landing pages, ideally local marketing efforts should
is rapidly provide a consistent message as well. A shared template provides a
consistent customer experience across channels while simultaneously
reduced with allowing for personalized or targeted positioning in local entities.
an automated, Essential Ingredients for Empowering a Distributed
Marketing Organization
centralized,
By eliminating inefficient processes between corporate and local entities and
integrated reducing redundancy in technologies, organizations can focus on campaign
optimization instead of organizational inefficiencies. Eventually, the distributed
approval process marketing enterprise outgrows the manual processes that contributed to the
early growth in the business. If local entities turn to localized solutions and
for local services to target local markets the problem is compounded and workflow and
approvals can be extremely cumbersome.
campaigns.” Take for example a franchise business that allowed local entities to pursue their
own campaign management solutions in the first 5 years of operations. After
years of cumbersome, inefficient, manual approvals the organization realized
the cycle time on campaign approvals between local entities and corporate
marketing was over 16 weeks. More importantly, corporate marketing had very
little insight into the local marketing campaign performance. Without a
centralized solution, the organization was saturating the market with redundant
marketing campaigns leading to brand fatigue.
There are four fundamental ingredients to managing a distributed marketing
organization.
• Marketing Asset Management: Centralizing brand assets for use by corporate
and local entities.
• Measurement: A holistic view of asset utilization and campaign performance
across corporate and local entities.
• Campaign Management: Providing flexible campaign management
capabilities for local entities while simultaneously allowing corporate to
manage brand consistency.
• Process: Standardize and automated workflow and approval processes reduce
cycle time and help ensure corporate and local objectives are met through
each cross-channel engagement.
Today, many organizations still struggle to align corporate and local entities
despite investments in technology that were supposed to alleviate some of
these challenges. Unfortunately, disparate solutions compound the challenges
because lack of integration increases the complexity of approvals and fails to
deliver performance insights.
7 JUNE 2010

8. The following scorecard approach to distributed marketing optimization can
help your organization identify key initiatives for improving the performance of
distributed marketing functions.
Figure 5: Distributed Marketing Scorecard
Marketing Asset Management
Yes
No
Do local marketers
“By eliminating have access to
Lack of centralization
leads to inefficient pro-
brand assets from a cesses, uncontrollable
inefficient centralized location? brand usage, inability to
reuse assets & difficulty
measuring asset
processes utilization
between Process Measurement
Yes Yes
corporate and No Are workflow and Can corporate No
Lengthy cycle-times approval processes Distributed marketing measure Lack of visibility into
local entities and complex approval
processes between standardized and Marketing asset utilization AND performance can lead
to redundant spending,
corporate and local centralized to one Optimization campaign results marketing fatigue and
and reducing entities drain competitive
differentiators and speed
tool? from local entities? lack of accountability
for marketing spend
to market
redundancy in
technologies, Customer Engagement
No
organizations can Do local entities Yes
invest in separate Disparate solutions
infrastructure convolute performance,
focus on campaign to execute cross- lengthen cycle times on
marketing and add
channel redundant license fees
optimization campaigns?
instead of
Unified technology helps provide the glue that bonds corporate and local
organizational entities to a common business goal; to improve the customer experience and
increase sales. Disparate technologies are outlets for corporate and local
inefficiencies." marketers to continue operating independent of one another. There is a fine
line between managing brand consistency and localized autonomy. The ‘win-
win approach’ is a unified solution that empowers corporate and local
marketers with digital asset management and campaign management
capabilities. A centralized solution is the only way the collective organization
can measure performance and gain insights that can be used to optimize
marketing efficiency and effectiveness over time.
8 JUNE 2010

9. To learn more about how distributed marketing capabilities can help your
marketing organization, contact Neolane at 617 467-6760 or visit
www.neolane.com.
About Neolane
Neolane provides the only enterprise marketing automation software
specifically designed to manage, automate and optimize programs across
traditional and emerging channels including direct mail, email and mobile.
With Neolane’s cross-channel direct marketing and lead management
solutions, marketers can manage campaigns, resources, customer data and
analytics from a single platform to dramatically improve effectiveness and ROI.
Built by marketers for marketers, Neolane is used by more than 200 of the
world’s leading companies including Alcatel-Lucent and Sephora. Visit
www.neolane.com.
Neolane, Inc.
One Gateway Center - 7th Floor
300-334 Washington Street
Newton, MA 02458
Office: +1 617 467 6760
Fax: +1 617 467 6701
info@neolane.com
www.neolane.com
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Copyright 2010 Neolane, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This research brief is for informational purposes only. Neolane, Inc. makes no warranties, expressed or implied, in
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Neolane is a trademark of Neolane Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks contained
herein are the property of their respective owners.
9 JUNE 2010