Marketing Resource Management

Resource Overview

This How-To Guide will explain the components of a Marketing Resource Management (MRM) system, provide an action plan for deployment, and conclude with a plan for implementation.

Downloads
909

Related Resources

Executive Summary

This How-To Guide will explain the components of a Marketing Resource Management (MRM) system, provide an action plan for deployment, and conclude with a plan for implementation.

Marketing Resource Management (MRM) systems control the administrative processes that support customer-facing marketing programs.  This distinguishes MRM from marketing execution systems that store customer databases and deliver marketing messages through email, Web ads, and other channels.  MRM may be sold independently or as a component of comprehensive marketing management systems which also provides execution.

MRM functions fall into two primary clusters.  The first involves functions related to company-level marketing management, including program planning, scheduling, budgeting, and cost reporting.  The other cluster relates to program management, including task lists, purchasing media and materials, and content creation, approvals, storage, and distribution.  Some MRM systems specialize in a few of these functions.  Others specialize in additional functions such as customizing content for local offices or dealers or in marketing reporting and analysis.  Systems may also be tailored to specific industries or companies of a certain size.

Companies buy MRM systems when their marketing programs become too complicated to run in a less systematic fashion.  This, along with the systems’ high cost, originally meant that MRM was used almost exclusively by large marketing organizations with hundreds of marketers in multiple offices.  More recently, the growth of digital marketing has meant that even small marketing organizations need to manage many different programs and content versions across multiple channels, and to introduce new versions more quickly.  This expanded complexity has rarely been accompanied by a corresponding expansion of staff, adding to the pressure for more efficient operations.  At the same time, costs have decreased as MRM capabilities were added to integrated marketing suites and as stand-alone MRM products became available as vendor-hosted services (Software as a Service, or SaaS).  The result has been increased use of MRM systems among companies of all sizes.

Read this 7-page guide to learn about:

  • The components of a Marketing Resource Management (MRM) system
  • An action plan to deploy an MRM system
  • How to implement an MRM system
     

Demand Metric's How-To Guides are designed to provide practical, on-the-job training and education and provide context for using our premium tools & templates.  If there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please contact us at info@demandmetric.com to make a content request.