According to a new Forrester Consulting survey sponsored by Unica, a global provider of Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) solutions, brand-oriented marketers cite the importance of enterprise marketing software as the next critical factor to their success. The survey entitled "The Role of Enterprise Software in Brand Marketing" polled senior communications and brand-focused marketing professionals from companies with revenues in excess of one billion dollars - across a variety of industries - and found several common themes about the challenges and pressures they face in their day-to-day marketing operations.
The survey generated responses from more than 100 marketers at the director, vice president and CMO levels, with 80 percent claiming responsibility for their companies' advertising, media and brand identities. According to the survey, the top three challenges cited by these brand leaders were:
While more than half of the respondents described technology as a "necessary evil," even more confirmed their plan and need to use technology to address these top challenges. More specifically, 78 percent of respondents agreed that "technology is vital to their success" and 77 percent stated that enterprise marketing software¹ could help address their current challenges. In fact, two-thirds of those surveyed confirmed that they have and own budgets for marketing software or related technology service needs, not their IT departments. The average 2006 budget for the companies participating in the survey was 2.3 million dollars.
Respondents in the survey shared common requirements for the technology they would employ, including:
"The findings of this survey closely align with the challenges our company faces, resulting in our decision to adopt an enterprise marketing software solution," said Linda Kollofski, Vice President Domestic Marketing at CNS, Inc., a new Unica customer. "With two trusted consumer health brands under our management - the Breathe Right and Fiber Choice brands - we believe that utilizing technology will help us easily view and better manage our marketing activities. We hope that enterprise marketing software will enable us to increase speed and efficiency in our marketing efforts."
Focused on the current and future needs of marketing professionals, Unica offers Enterprise Marketing Management (EMM) software to help organizations transform their entire marketing process - across brand, internet, and relationship marketing operations - to reduce costs, boost productivity and grow revenue. Unica's core EMM offering, Affinium®, provides robust customer and web analytics, event-detection, campaign management, lead management, and marketing resource management capabilities. Affinium has helped marketers around the world achieve the common goal of driving a more customer-centric business while managing the pressures of increasing marketing complexity and delivering improved revenue and measurable results.
"It is clear from the Forrester Consulting survey commissioned by Unica that enterprise marketing software is no longer just for database and internet marketing. With the proliferation of media outlets and marketing channels, all marketers are seeking solutions to increase the efficiencies of their operations and deliver the optimal mix of communications to each audience," said Carol Meyers, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, Unica Corporation. "Unica solutions are designed specifically to address the needs of marketers - enabling visibility, management, and measurement of marketing initiatives across multiple channels."
August 14 , 2006