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By now, everyone who has even somewhat engaged with the modern discipline of marketing is undoubtedly aware of the fact that marketing departments are, across all industries and geographies, challenged to be “data-driven,” “customer-centric,” and “omnichannel.” So much so that it’s easy to glaze over when you hear such terms. Based on our experience, most marketers would say that these reflect their organizations’ key transformation goals and they are making progress towards realizing these ideals (even though they’re not fully there yet). More often than not, the context of thought centers around upcoming priority campaigns, activities, and even technology or hiring initiatives in the works. Rarely, however, are they thinking operationally about how things should function systematically on the “back-end” to enable a truly omnichannel, customer-centric, and data-driven marketing organization. If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. The vision of omnichannel, coordinated, and targeted messaging across the customer experience has been touted as a thing we all need to just do – with very little direction about how organizations can truly actualize this conceptual marketing nirvana. It’s easy to feel like you’re behind the curve on true omnichannel marketing. You likely blame this in part on siloed teams, lack of cohesive organizational support, competing high-level priorities, lack of resources, etc. You undoubtedly have those, of course – we haven’t seen any mid-to-large-size companies that have managed to fully escape these sorts of challenges. They are basically part and parcel of all digital-era marketing departments – but these are not your most insurmountable barriers. Instead, the most significant element that will make or break your journey to omnichannel is a largely unsung hero: the “marketing system of record.” What is a Marketing System of Record and How Does it Work? The most commonly used term for the class of software created to serve this function within a martech stack has been “Marketing Resource Management” or, to those of us in the know, MRM. This term is not by any means defunct in present times, but other terms have cropped up to describe tools and platforms in this same genre, such as Marketing Work Management. Regardless of your preferred terminology, these platforms facilitate and track: Marketing Planning : Trackable and reportable systemization of marketing strategies and plans, ideally in a hierarchical structure, from high-level initiatives down to specific tactical deliverables and activities. Creative and Channel Execution Workflow : Repeatable and trackable role-based tasks, approvals, and handoffs that represent the work involved with all marketing activities and deliverables. Marketing Planning, the focus of this article, is the specific capability that enables a software system to serve as a marketing system of record from a data analysis perspective. However, it is important to note that Creative and Channel Execution Workflow is also an effective omnichannel-enabling capability as it aids organizations in the process of developing and executing content from a more channel agnostic (and therefore consistent) methodology, which is a topic that warrants its own article. How a Marketing System of Record Enables True Data-Driven Omnichannel Marketing By definition, omnichannel is all about conveying consistent marketing messages across a variety of relevant channel interactions. Any given campaign or initiative that is (rightfully) focused on strategically orchestrating messaging across channels in a seamless journey cannot be easily measured as a whole without any clear systematic connection across its different elements. So, for example, let’s consider three potential campaigns with messages that are represented in your channel metrics. One is announcing information about a newly-launch featured product, another is about a limited-time giveaway contest to raise awareness of this product, and a third is a limited-time discount offer. Each of these messages are distributed throughout multiple channels. How do you measure success? How do you compare apples to apples, and understand what message is working and in what channel? Sure, this can be done on a case-by-case basis by individuals who are personally aware of which email, web banner, and social post were the ones with the giveaway message, but this cannot be done systematically at scale. A marketing system of record is the key to understanding this omnichannel data—what messages fit together, what business goals they are associated to, etc. Marketers across the organization enter their campaign plans and related deliverables and track them through to execution and close-out. The system of record will automatically assign a unique identifying key to activities/communications at each level and will associate those back to critically-important metadata (e.g. program, business unit, timing, etc) that can be used to understand its purpose, origin, and desired outcome for proper omnichannel measurement. When properly established within your organization, the Marketing System of Record serves as a critical source of data for all of your communications and plans and operates as a core input for execution as well as for omnichannel analytics.

BACKGROUND SCENARIO A healthcare company’s marketing strategy to optimize customer experience required enhancements in both their overall marketing process and the capabilities of their marketing technology platform. The company decided to migrate to a modernized marketing technology stack that offered omnichannel campaign management, real time decisions, and marketing process management to support their strategy. Due to the marketing transformation and process enhancements, the organization needed a scalable change management and education program to achieve ROI from the new software and processes. IMPLEMENTED SOLUTION Covalent Marketing developed a scalable change management and education program founded on the Marketing Mastery methodology. This custom Mastery program was designed to help the organization’s marketing team implement the new processes and learn their new software tools. The program consisted of multiple educational tactics and vehicles, as well as a scalable change management program to ensure continued results. The first step was to identify the capabilities that the marketing department would need to learn. Covalent Marketing created a rubric outlining expected competencies for process and technology. Then, individual matrices were built which detailed the capabilities that both marketing and technology roles would need to master. Below is one example of how a mastery matrix is focused for change management purposed for specific roles. Next, Covalent Marketing built role-based educational materials to provide each team member with guidance to master the information relevant to their role. These materials included click-by-click software guides, short instructional videos covering specific software functionality, guides on the re-shaped marketing process, and information on how to complete their specific tasks. In addition, Mastery management documentation was built to allow team leads to continually monitor their team members’ level of Mastery achievement. This not only facilitated the ability to measure the success of change adoption, but also created a system to reward those who adopted the new process. Finally, Covalent Marketing delivered role-based classroom learning sessions and one-on-one desk-side coaching. This level of support helped build the confidence and competence needed to continue achieving individual Mastery. BUSINESS RESULTS Benefits continually achieved from the Mastery Program include: Both business and technology capabilities are clearly defined Capabilities broken down into simple, consumable parts that are easy to learn Identified and built champions of change within the organization to help others adopt the process Sustainable and scalable program that allows for agility to meet the changing needs of the business Role based education enabled users to quickly learn new tool functionality, increasing speed of flowchart development from 24 weeks to 2 weeks Defined levels of achievement and a method to track individual and team progress Continuous results from self-sustaining program Marketing quickly changes, as does the marketing software industry. Creating a foundational program with agile elements that compliment new capabilities is the foundation of Mastery. With Mastery in place, our client is confident working with their IBM Marketing Software and their improved processes. They also understand the importance of a scalable, self-monitoring change management and education program.

BACKGROUND SCENARIO Preparing to implement a revamped customer contact strategy, a Fortune 100 Property and Casualty Insurer needed a new solution for delivering real-time reporting. An assessment by Covalent Marketing showed the following areas first needed to be addressed: Inadequately designed Marketing Resource Management templates Improper data collection A process of manually built and updated reports Proper storage and distribution of reports across the organization The client had used a legacy Marketing Resource Management system as their primary tool for gathering marketing campaign requirements. Unfortunately, the templates being used within that system were overly customized and did not support the data quality needed for effective reporting. It was particularly troublesome when it came to “Date” data types; the client wanted the flexibility to enter multiple dates while also being able to add notes to each date individually. Much of the downstream reporting was done manually by a single resource using Excel. This dedicated resource collected and maintained marketing campaign data for building static list reports that were eventually emailed to stakeholders. This methodology for report distribution was not sustainable because outside of the aforementioned resource, there was no reliable way for management to locate the most up-to-date reports to the organization. IMPLEMENTED SOLUTION In order to correct the data quality issue within the Plan project templates, text attributes were removed and replaced with a “Grid” attribute. Grid attributes, resembling an Excel spreadsheet, allow users to enter multiple dates while also enabling them to enter comments within the same row. By leveraging this lesser known function within the project template, data is now stored with the appropriate data type and easily queried from the database. As is the norm within many large companies, the client owned licenses to several Business Intelligence tools. Since automation and end-user experience were priorities in this case, Tableau was selected as the tool for producing and sharing reports. Tableau’s ability to connect to and merge data from a seemingly endless list of data sources, as well as its ability to portray data in a manner that is logical and user friendly immediately grasped the client’s attention. Fortunately, they already had an operational instance of Tableau Server; therefore, leveraging this software solution was simple and immediate. Covalent Marketing redesigned and released a subset of operational marketing reports leveraging Tableau. Instead of replicating the series of legacy list reports, they were redesigned as visualizations, combining bar charts, heat maps, and other Tableau elements to display the data in multiple ways. In the interest of performance, large datasets are stored natively on Tableau Server and placed on a schedule to refresh as necessary using a Tableau Data Extract. Reports leveraging smaller data sets connect live to the database returning real-time data that is instantly reflected in the reports. Since the client did not have the SMTP server on Tableau Server enabled, we created a custom UNIX script to automatically generate and send report links to key stakeholders. BUSINESS RESULTS Altering the data entry fields of project templates within the Marketing Resource Management system immediately proved instrumental in the development of downstream reporting. The client is now better positioned to manage key dates within their campaigns and make sure deadlines are being met. Additionally, by leveraging a functionality that collects data through a user interface (i.e. automation), the opportunity for user error is substantially reduced. Switching from heavy reliance on Excel to a Business Intelligence platform immediately decreased both the time and resources required to produce effective reporting. The ongoing legacy process was replaced by a one-time design and build within Tableau. Once visualizations are published to Tableau Server, updates and distribution become a self-sustaining process, freeing up resources to focus on other key work streams. Leveraging Tableau not only improves the time and resource utilization when building reports, but it also provides the following benefits: Evolves static reports into eye-capturing visualizations that enable data discovery Tableau Server acts as a central repository for users to locate up-to-date reports Users can dynamically shift results in real time, filtering to the information that is most relevant to their needs Tableau Server security settings limit the exposure of sensitive information SAMPLE DASHBOARD