MRM Software & Systems (Marketing Resource Management)

Marketing Resource Management Software Definition (MRM): What is MRM?

Marketing Resource Management systems, or MRM for short, primarily help executives in companies to organize marketing resources and help companies that want to optimize their marketing activities. This includes, among other things, appropriate budget, personnel, materials or digital assets, hardware, software, and compliance issues.

More specifically, all marketing processes of a company come together in such an application. It bundles all data, processes, and creative ideas. Thus, everything needed for successful marketing can be shared from a central location.

The range of management options that MRM offers begins with the planning and budgeting of individual marketing actions and extends to their practical implementation and long-term monitoring. Depending on the marketing resource management provider, creative to-dos and the necessary digital asset management (DAM) can also be managed via such a solution.

In short, an MRM tool enables marketing teams to automate their processes, thereby increasing both efficiency and effectiveness. In a marketing department where many tasks are running in parallel, MRM facilitates the coordination and release of marketing materials. Automation reduces routine tasks, giving teams more room to focus on creation and strategic planning.

Why should companies use marketing resource management software?

Modern marketing offers a vast array of methods that can have their effect over many different digital or analog channels. The absolute must-haves, such as the operation of a company website or the marketing-based push of branding, mean a lot of work.

Whether in small companies or large corporations: getting all marketing resources and relevant activities under one roof and carrying them out to the maximum benefit can be a special challenge. The more groups of people, channels, and technologies are involved in marketing, the more difficult it becomes. In addition, different target customers, who each need to be addressed separately, and the presence of multiple company locations can have a significant impact on the effort of marketing.

Marketing Resource Management software can provide significant relief here. The fact that it bundles all marketing activities brings a clear plus in efficiency. This gives those responsible a comprehensive overview, there is less risk of duplicate processing, and the error rate drops. All participants are given the opportunity to work together, at a central location, for the best possible marketing success. The automated, integrated nature of MRM software solutions facilitates strategic decision-making and aligns the orientation of marketing processes with overarching business goals. Marketing departments using MRM report improved transparency and control over their marketing activities, which ultimately contributes to brand strengthening and business success.

How does Marketing Resource Management work?

MRM software typically offers a variety of features. How it works exactly depends in particular on what it can do. The software solutions offered in the context of MRM support marketing teams in campaign planning, so that marketing measures can be carried out precisely. With integrated campaign management functions, each action within a marketing strategy can be planned and tracked, ensuring a coherent and targeted implementation of marketing campaigns. Advertising materials and marketing materials can be centrally managed and optimized, which not only saves time but also ensures consistency across different channels. Employees and partners have the opportunity to access all relevant information and processes through a single system. The typical features from the following areas are:

• Planning: MRM platforms often offer effective planning tools that help marketing teams in the development of strategies for upcoming campaigns. They can be a central hub through which professionals exchange ideas, workflows, and content. This is possible with many solutions even remotely or from decentralized workplaces.

• Scheduling: Time is one of the most valuable resources of any marketing team. MRM solutions can help marketers make optimal use of their time. They allow specific schedules and timelines to be created for each segment of individual campaigns and shared with colleagues.

• Budgeting: Money is another valuable resource for marketing experts. Those responsible usually define a basic budget before starting new marketing measures. With an MRM, they can relatively easily (jointly) set the budgets for their projects and efficiently track resource consumption during a campaign.

• Workflow Management: Many MRM platforms offer their users the opportunity to design optimized workflows and automate certain repetitive tasks. With appropriate tools, managers can also assign tasks, check the progress of their team, and monitor every phase of their campaigns.

• Monitoring and Analytics: Today's marketers rely heavily on metrics and KPIs that provide them important insights into the effectiveness of their campaigns. MRM tools often include analysis features that automatically collect and evaluate important data. Specific analysis dashboards then deliver easily digestible insights.

• Development of Brand Compliance: A uniform corporate image and brand message are of paramount importance to marketing teams, which are usually always working on several campaigns. MRM software can help companies and relevant marketing executives achieve such an appearance or consistent messaging. This can then be consistently communicated in various marketing measures and across all relevant channels.

• Enhancement of Remote Collaboration: Remote work has become increasingly common for marketing experts, not least because of the corona pandemic. MRM software can significantly simplify collaboration from different workplaces. Software-as-a-Service solutions allow all participants to quickly and easily access the respective marketing resource management tool via any browser. They thus have the opportunity to plan resources, check latest to-dos or even start entire campaigns with virtually any internet-enabled device.

• Simplification of Organization and Storage: Most marketing teams have an extensive collection of digital content. These are often stored in different places. This can lead to problems finding the right versions, favor multiple processing and is generally not very efficient. An MRM tool solves these difficulties. It forms a central hub for all digital content. It either has its own asset management or can be connected to such a tool. Teams are thus greatly facilitated the organization of content.

• Access Restrictions: Marketing often involves sensitive documents and data. When dealing with such resources, it is important to be able to precisely control who has access and who does not. MRM software platforms often contain a range of tools that help those responsible to manage access to certain information in great detail. Team members are assigned roles that then determine what can be accessed and what cannot.

• Rights Management: Some MRM platforms include rights management tools. These features enable it to protect brand material, relevant digital assets, and other corporate data from intellectual property violations by competitor companies or other external actors.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Marketing Resource Management Systems?

Marketing teams use MRM (Marketing Resource Management) to streamline their processes and perform multiple tasks from a simple, centralized platform. The use of Marketing Resource Management software can bring a number of additional benefits to companies – including the following:

• Maximized Efficiency: MRM platforms often contain automation features that are an effective way to reduce repetitive manual tasks and save time. Workflow management functions can help companies streamline their processes. With planning functions, teams are given the opportunity to control themselves.

• Improved Resource Planning: MRM platforms were originally developed to assist companies in managing their marketing resources. They still have this core functionality today. They can particularly help marketing teams allocate and track finances, labor, materials/assets and time during a campaign.

• Increased Productivity: MRM platforms can be an effective tool for reducing repetitive tasks, planning workflows, tracking progress, and assigning tasks. Each of these factors contributes to the employees working better together as a team and ideally being more productive.

• Improved Scalability: Companies that want to quickly expand their business often encounter difficulties when scaling their marketing activities. Most MRM platforms are designed to be easily scalable in themselves. On the other hand, they enable marketers to manage more marketing projects relatively quickly, without encountering resource and/or processing problems.

• Optimized Brand Compliance: An MRM platform can offer marketing teams a central point of contact to exchange ideas, collaborate, and develop strategies. With specific compliance data and direct coordination, it is possible to maintain conformity with the correct brand message and representation across all relevant channels.

• Centralization: Especially when a team is working decentrally, it can be a challenge to cooperate efficiently and effectively. MRM tools allow fluid collaboration processes to be achieved very precisely. All data, content, processes, management tools, and everything else relevant to marketing converge here at a central location. This not only provides more clarity and better organization for remote teams.

• Better Insights: MRM software often includes a range of data collection and analysis tools. These can be used, among other things, to track the effectiveness of workflows and progress on the various marketing measures in great detail. Marketing Resource Management software thus offers the possibility for thorough analysis, which can ultimately be used by those responsible to improve their processes at different levels.

• Simplified Access: Especially when team members are operating in a decentralized or hybrid working environment, the use of MRM software can significantly facilitate access to fundamental marketing processes. Companies often get the most out of it by organizing all their data, documents, processes, etc. on a cloud-based platform. Within this, participants can gain access particularly flexibly and simply.

What about the disadvantages of MRM - are there any at all? When choosing a suitable MRM tool and using it correctly, companies should not experience any impairments.

The last sentence already implies that of course there is the risk of choosing an unsuitable solution. However, this danger is low thanks to support from the marketing resource management providers. Unfortunately, it is more likely that the chosen solution will not be used correctly or comprehensively.

The diverse, sometimes probably completely new tools of an MRM system can quickly overwhelm marketing teams. If there is a lack of an appropriate overview and specific application know-how, even the most powerful solution can never fully exploit its strengths. This may waste a lot of money. In addition, a significant hindrance to marketing processes is possible. Therefore, it is very important to involve relevant employees already in the research of a suitable MRM software and finally train them extensively on the system.

How to choose the right Marketing Resource Management provider?

What should you pay particular attention to in order to find the right management platform for your company's marketing resources? It is recommended to primarily follow or answer the following three steps/questions.

1. Which tasks and processes should the marketing resource management tool support? Interested parties should first ask themselves which areas and processes of their marketing need the most support? It is also important to clarify what the reasons are that an investment in such a tool is necessary in the first place? It is important to clearly identify the most important tasks and processes. After all, the support of these steps must be prioritized. This not only makes finding suitable software much more targeted. By limiting the scope, those responsible can also save a lot of money.

2. What features does the MRM software absolutely need? In the second step, interested parties should think carefully about which central process benefits they want to gain from using marketing resource software. In combination with the findings from step one, it is necessary to look at which essential functions can meet corresponding requirements. Not all MRM tools offer the same features. Thus, the options can be greatly restricted here again. Those responsible should also focus on possible future to-dos (scalability of the solution) and generally high flexibility in assembling the range of functions.

3. Which MRM systems remain for a final comparison? As soon as the options have been reduced to a few favorites, it is necessary to list these precisely. The juxtaposition of the pros and cons of each solution can be very helpful for the final decision-making. However, those responsible can also directly compare other key features within such a documentation. Of course, the special requirements of the respective company should always be kept in mind.

What does marketing resource management software cost?

Pricing for Marketing Resource Management software is primarily geared to the number of users and the scope of features offered. In addition, the required data storage is often decisive. After all, many MRM applications include tools for storing and organizing assets.

Today, most Marketing Resources Management systems are web-based. They are generally no longer installed on individual computers or servers in the company. The hosting is done by the respective marketing resource management provider. Access is via a conventional browser or via an app. Payment is usually made in a subscription model, with either a monthly or an annual fee incurred.

The price range is broad. Interested parties can sometimes use MRM in marketing completely free of charge. The range of functions in such solutions is relatively narrow, however. Other providers offer a free trial version for a certain period of time.

After the trial period has expired, more comprehensive packages start at around 100 euros per month. Depending on the equipment or requirements, MRM systems can also cost just around 20 euros per month. Larger suites, on the other hand, often cost several hundred or even over 1,000 euros per month.

Since MRM solutions often have to meet very individual needs and can quickly become expensive through special features, they are often modularly structured. Developers of such programs often do not offer standard price lists. As a rule, the costs are precisely measured according to the respective performance requirements and calculated individually.