Why Marketing Automation Matters for 2012

By Edgar Rodriguez, EVP Marketing, Distribion, Inc.

Marketing automation isn’t a new idea. Software platforms that enable marketing and sales departments to increase lead conversion by leveraging captured data to automate and streamline communications and audience segmentation have been around in various forms for almost two decades.

Distributed marketing platforms are a bit newer – they’ve been around about five years. These advanced systems provide an integrated set of online tools so that local users can easily search, find, select, assemble, customize, distribute and track campaign assets across multiple channels at the local level while allowing central or corporate marketing to manage brand and regulatory compliance.

A robust, well-managed distributed marketing platform gives local producers – the field or local staff members who make most of the sales – an easy-to-use system with great creative and all the tools they need to manage digital and print marketing with just a few mouse clicks. Corporate marketing eliminates the compliance headaches of unmanaged local sales campaigns created by dozens (or thousands) of local branches – and they get closed loop reporting that gives them real time data to show what works, and what needs to be adjusted.

Sounds nice, right? But if you’re like me, putting together the 2012 budget meant taking a hard look at every dollar you spend. So why is automating your distributed marketing program a high priority? Because that’s how to deliver the results that management wants. A distributed marketing platform can

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s some hard data we collected from our customers in the property & casualty, life, annuity and financial services industries. After a full year of harnessing the power of the Distribion DMP, the results showed:

• 25% increase in marketing efficiency

• 15% reduction in compliance costs

• 10% reduction in support & maintenance costs for legacy, point solutions

• 10% increase in sales conversions

You were waiting for that last one, right? Because that’s the one that makes my pulse race. I know as well as you do that you can’t cut your way to more revenue – you have to increase the number of leads that convert into sales. How does automation help with that?

To put it simply, closed loop reporting and consistent messaging let you gather the data for more targeted lead based marketing with a lot less effort and fewer people. I’ll admit it – I used to be guilty of the batch-and-blast approach to email marketing. But with real time access to the two kinds of behavioral data that lets me score and segment leads, I don’t need to fall back on that approach any more.

My distributed marketing platform lets me track both implied and explicit behavior from my target audiences. Implied behavior takes data such as how often a prospect visited a microsite, what pages they viewed, how much time they spent on a page, and what product messages they responded to, and allows me to target future messages to those prospects. Explicit behavior, such as filling in forms, requesting information, and attempting or making an online purchase, gives me the priority I need to decide how “hot” a lead is and assign it to the right follow-up method.

It also allows my marketing team to refine and tweak campaigns, messages, and graphics faster than ever before, because we can tell quickly what messages are resonating with our audiences. I thank that without real-time data on every campaign and every message, regardless of whether the message originates in corporate marketing or a field office somewhere else, you’re missing out on the most powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal.

David Meerman Scott, author of the best-seller, The New Rules of Social Media, says that the fundamentals of business to business (B2B) marketing are the same today as they were 50 years ago. It’s still about relationships, although today we have new tools and techniques at our disposal. Are you using all the tools at your disposal? If not, make 2012 the year that you start.

If you’re an insurance or financial services marketer with a distributed marketing network of general agencies, independent broker dealers, and captive or independent local agents, and you’re still working on your 2012 marketing budget, click here for my guide to building a rock-solid business case for adding a distributed marketing automation transformation program to your 2012 budget.

Defining Measurable Value for Multi Channel Marketing Automation

Drawing the Line Online: Recorded Webinar & Presentation

Posted by: distributedmarketing.org

This webinar with Distribion, Socialware, and LIMRA went beautifully!  If you missed it, you can download the presentation here, and view the recorded webinar here.

There were so many questions that panelists Chad Bockius, Edgar Rodriguez, and Stephen Selby didn’t get to all of them, so the organizers are preparing a downloadable Q&A for those that weren’t answered during the webcast.  A link will be posted here as soon as that is available.

Registration is now available for the next webinar in the 5-part series the three organizations are sponsoring.   Reaching Your Audience Effectively:  The 5W’s of Digital & Social Media is scheduled for Wednesday, August 10, at 11 am Central Time.

Why Channel Agnostic Marketing Works

Posted by: distributedmarketing.org

No matter what industry you work in, your target audience is probably channel agnostic.  That is, they don’t put their faith in any single channel — online, offline, mobile, social.  Instead, they put their faith in human interactions that are relevant, accessible when they want information, and positive.

That’s the conclusion that Ian Michiels, chairman of the research advisory board at Gleanster and director of the Marketsphere Marketing group, reported in a recent webinar titled:  Connectivity: The Secret to Success in Distributed Marketing Environments.

Edgar Rodriguez, executive vice president of marketing and sales at Distribion, echoed the Gleanster research with his own webinar presentation last week when he reminded attendees at the Drawing the Line Online:  Professional vs. Personal Use webinar that:

• Communication with customers isn’t a one-way street
• Empowered customers will have their say
• Social media is an echo chamber
• Echoes become distorted — problems are amplified
• Every market is a buyer’s market
• Prospects can (and do) filter out marketing messages
• Prospects can (and do) initiate and research purchases

Both marketing experts agree that the fragmented marketing communications landscape requires marketers to adopt a multi-channel marketing strategy that engages customers through a wide variety of mediums.  And both agree that doing that requires equal attention to back-office operations — that is, marketing management, planning, automation, strategy, and monitoring — and customer facing communications — that is, marketing engagement, messaging, creative, and relevant content (offers, pricing, timing, etc.).

What’s the common thread in back-office operations and customer-facing communication?  Identifying where to focus finite human, capital, and technology resources so that all marketing activities are optimized.  It’s not always easy — in fact, it’s a balancing act.

In a distributed marketing environment, corporate marketing and field or local marketing take the lead in different aspects of aligning the needs of sales and marketing.  Without the right underlying technology, that can make the balancing act even harder.  Luckily, the right technology solutions make it simple to manage brand consistency and regulatory compliance while allowing local market personalization and customization.

Drawing the Line Online: Professional vs. Personal Use

A free webinar for companies in regulated industries from Distribion, LIMRA, and Socialware

DALLAS, July 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — (www.myprgenie.com) — Three experts on social and digital media and compliance will present a free webinar on Thursday, July 14, that will clarify the rules for companies — and employees — in regulated industries when using online services like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and others.

Implementing compliant social media strategies in business can be more complex than it seems. While some regulators insist on a clear separation between personal and professional use of online services, others say that there is no difference for certain categories of employees. Some want companies to issue clear guidelines that restrict what employees can and can’t say online; while other regulators are issuing guidelines that restrict a company’s ability to set such policies.

It’s an alphabet soup of regulations. Figuring out how to navigate through the various rules can cost companies valuable time — not to mention a huge opportunity delaying the use of online marketing tools to reach prospects in the venues where they seek information about products and services.

Help is on the way from leading solutions providers Distribion and Socialware, who have teamed up with LIMRA, a worldwide association of insurance and financial services companies for a free, informative webinar that will help marketing, human resources, compliance, and PR executives find their way through the maze of regulations so that they can make the right choices about policies, procedures, and campaigns. Speakers for the webinar will be:

• Moderator Edgar Rodriguez (EVP of Distribion, Inc.)
• Stephen Selby (Director of Regulatory Services, LIMRA)
• Chad Bokius (CEO of Socialware)

The webinar is scheduled for Thursday, July 14 (11 a.m. – noon CDT).  Topics covered will include:

• Making Sense of the Alphabet Soup: A Compliance Overview

• Why Bother: The Cost of Waiting

• Practical Solutions
  • What do the rules REALLY say?
  • Which rules apply, and where?
  • A glimpse of the future?

• Online Marketing & Social Media Guidelines
  • Empowering Producers & Local Marketing
  • Monitoring, Tracking, & Managing
  • 10 “Must Know” Rules of Digital & Social Media
  • Getting Started NOW

Who should attend: Marketing, public relations, human resources (HR), compliance and social media managers from banking, finance, insurance, healthcare, gaming and other regulated industries.

Click here to register now. It’s free, but space is limited.

Media Contact:
Deb McAlister-Holland
debh@distribion.com
214-206-3468

SOURCE Distribion, Inc.
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Insurance & Financial Advisor Magazine Features Distributed Marketing Technology

Posted by: Distributed Marketing on: June 22, 2011

The June issue of Insurance & Financial Advisor magazine includes a feature story on how 1st Global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Brian M. Finnigan is using technology to streamline his company’s internal communications — and why he plans to expand his use of the produce to all advisors before the end of the year.

Finnigan told the magazine that what appealed to 1st Global was the ability to empower local field sales and marketing organizations so that customers get the right information at the right time, through the marketing channel the customer wants the company to use. Role-based dashboards, seamless integration between modules, and reporting, tracking and analytics were the other primary attractions of the distributed marketing platform 1st Global selected, according to the magazine.

Web-based platform aims to erase agents’ marketing challenges appears on page 13 of the June edition of the magazine, which is available to read online or download as a PDF.

Author Jaime L. Brockway interviewed Finnigan and Edgar Rodriguez, executive vice president of marketing at Distribion, who explained the vision behind the product. “Our job is to provide the technology, and the workflow and processes, that let insurance agents do what they do best: sell.”

The feature story also includes details on how the platform works for local and field marketing, compliance, and corporate marketing. To download a copy of the June issue, with the Distribion story on Page 13, click here.

Distributed Marketing Technology Solves Insurance Marketing Challenges

Distribion Distributed Marketing Platform delivers ROI, ease-of-use, compliance for insurance marketers.

DALLAS, March 16, 2011 /PRNewswire/ — Insurance marketers face a daunting task in today’s marketplace.  Compliance requirements, an ever growing and disconnected communications channel, and tight budgets are all part of the challenges faced by thousands of insurance marketers.  Add in the lingering mistrust for all corporations fostered by the recession, and the common challenges can seem immense.

Technology, in the form of distributed marketing tools like the Distribion® Distributed Marketing Platform™ can resolve many of these problems by delivering measurable return on investment, compliance automation and control, and true ease-of-use for field and local marketing.

“As an insurance provider, ask yourself how easy it is for your agents to execute marketing campaigns? Do they have direct mail lists, email templates and print ads available at their fingertips? Do they have to go through corporate marketing for even the tiniest website changes made to their microsites? How easy is it for them to pull together sales presentations for their next meeting-or a logo or sales letter for that matter?” said Edgar Rodriguez, Executive Vice President of Marketing at Distribion.

“Too many insurance marketers look at those questions and realize that the end result of the disconnected processes they use today have created a situation where marketing messages are inevitably inconsistent,” Rodriguez adds.  ”That’s where we come in, with a reliable marketing system that manages compliance and makes it easy to create personalized, customized campaigns in all media.”

The Distribion insurance marketing platform delivers a seamless process, where corporate marketing controls brand and regulatory compliance and creative, while MGAs, local agents, and field marketing staff can select the best marketing asset – print, web, email, video, Flash, PowerPoint, flip-book, sales kit, proposal, and so on – and then customize it for one or thousands of prospects or customers.  For more information on how distributed marketing technology can solve common insurance marketing challenges, download a new insurance marketing document here.

About Distribion

Distribion (www.distribion.com) is a leading provider of web-based software that provides businesses with a streamlined, centralized management of marketing communications and campaign development that adhere to brand and compliance standards. Distribion’s online system is permission based; empowering local offices with the ability to customize campaigns and collateral within corporate standards. Campaigns are easily produced, deployed and tracked across marketing channels, eliminating the need for disconnected, single-function solutions. The Distribion Distributed Marketing Platform is deployed in over 100 companies globally representing over 100,000 users.

Distributed Marketing

Dear Friends & Colleagues,

Hello. My name is Edgar Rodriguez and this is my blog. I plan on using this blog to share my knowledge and discuss distributed marketing related topics and opportunities.

Currently I am the EVP of Sales and Marketing at Distribion – www.distribion.com, a leading provider of web-bases software that provides marketing organizations with simplified and centralized management of marketing communications and campaign development that adhere to brand and compliance standards. Distribion’s online system is permission based; empowering local offices with the ability to customize campaigns and collateral within corporate standards. Campaigns are easily produced, deployed and tracked across marketing channels, eliminating the need for disconnected single-function solutions. Distribion’s Distributed Marketing Platform is deployed in over 100 companies globally representing over 100,000 users.

In 2010 we added some marque customers and partnerships to the Distribion family.  We plan on 2011 to be a banner year as well. With a specific focus on the financial, insurance and healthcare industry.

Over the past 18 years I have successfully sold software and consulting services to a wide array of business verticals and industries. I love the competitiveness and excitement of starting and growing a new business.  So please check back on Distribion’s progress.  We are growing!

Thanks for stopping by.

Sincerely,

Edgar Rodriguez