Effective designs and plans are essential to guide the extended information networks that are today’s marketing organizations.

Intelligent Marketing Networks

Successful firms today are best characterized as integrated networks of information flows powered by well-defined processes, resources, and plans. This is especially true for a firm’s marketing assets. Successful marketing can only happen when a firm’s marketing network is well-designed, implemented and managed.

Spanning from R&D to the customer, and from strategy plans to tactical execution, intelligent marketing networks coordinate a wide range of objectives, information, and capabilities to achieve market impact. Successful marketing teams rapidly harness information and assets to effectively guide the firm as a whole.


Challenges

But even at the best firms effective marketing is a challenge and problems abound. There may not be a market-driven business strategy in place. Program managers, sales, marcom, agencies, and channel partners may not be aligned. Product Marketing may be weak or overloaded and unable to effectively work in partnership with R&D. Large marketing investments may not be paying off.

The most common problems are often with marketing structures outliving their time. Legacy marketing networks often continue to operate even when they are no longer productive. Often a business’s strategy has changed - together with its product, channel, and customer environments – but the marketing network, information, and processes have not. This disconnect can hurt a firm’s performance.

These disconnects are especially common for technology and innovation firms. Firms with high-velocity product cycles face specific challenges and risks: commoditization, new technology platforms, customer segmentation, rapid rollovers, or shifting channel dynamics. To continue to win, a new or reconfigured marketing network is often needed.


Renovation

Successful firms today are renovating their marketing networks. They are realigning their marketing assets and processes for the future. They are refocusing their marketing investments, plans, and activities for effectiveness. And they are reigniting their acceleration and growth.

Specifically, winning firms are developing marketing system architectures that integrate across five key dimensions:

• well-defined knowledge bases,
• a full set of well-integrated processes,
• targeted investments,
• high impact market plans,
• and clear and relevant metrics.

Firms are making progress in small and large steps. Some are starting in a focused way on one product launch or a critical core process. Others are looking to accelerate past their competitors by putting in place a new and comprehensive capability.

Either way, firms are working to develop intelligent marketing networks which deliberately and continuously connect R&D - to marketing - to sales - and effectively and efficiently to customers.

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