Top 4 Marketing Communication Must-Haves for Your Tech Stack

Top 4 Marketing Communication

Marketing communication is a huge industry buzzword right now, and everyone wants to tell you what it is and why it matters. What they’re not telling you, however, is which tools you need to implement or utilize for the best chances of success. Of course, this is a bit of a tricky situation, since some companies might have different needs.

At FuseBox One, we understand the importance of finding the best digital solutions to improve your marketing efforts and enable your team to be more productive and successful in all of their endeavors. Fortunately, we also know that there are a handful of tools that every brand can benefit from having in their technology stack. Keep reading to learn about the best platforms and tools to integrate with your marketing communications stack and what they can do for you.

Digital Asset Management

This category of tools is the one that will handle all of your digital assets (videos, audio, advertising images, logos, etc.). Having the right resources in place to manage digital files will ensure that you can keep track of things. It will also reduce the duplication of work and related costs, which thereby increases your overall productivity. Think about all of the digital assets that your marketing team creates for various campaigns. Without an effective management solution, it could be nearly impossible to track them down when you want to use them again.

Having a DAM platform will give you the chance to organize and access all of your photos, videos, animations, podcasts, music, and other multimedia files. Then, everything will be easily accessible and able to be shared across platforms and mediums to ensure that you maximize all of your digital assets. Brands today need more diversity in their media than ever before, which means that there is a lot more to manage.

Essentially, if you don’t have an appropriate DAM system in place, your digital assets are not going to be appropriately utilized. You'll also enjoy the benefit of increased flexibility in your marketing, thanks to the top-down view of your database that will allow you to make decisions based on both what you have and what your customer base is demanding.

Marketing Asset Management

MAM, or Marketing Asset Management, is a process that is similar to digital asset management, but with your marketing assets. This allows you to organize and store all of your marketing materials in a cloud-based platform that can be accessed from anywhere, provide pre-approved templates and tools, and ensure that your marketing message is consistent and brand-compliant at all times.

You'll be able to update and edit assets within the database, including resizing images and ads. Plus, there’s even the option to distribute plenty of different types of files, via email, print, download, or even by direct posting to social media from the database. The ability to post directly to social media is one that is going to revolutionize the way that your marketing is done, allowing you to go straight to post and save time when you find last-minute opportunities or time-sensitive ways to capitalize on a certain marketing message or promotion.

You can’t communicate effectively in any marketing strategy without having a handle on your assets. With a well-organized system in place, you’ll be able to let your marketing team and all your creatives dig into the database to execute their campaigns and find the best way to utilize all of the existing assets before investing any money in developing new assets. A lot of companies don’t even realize all of the valuable assets they already have until they integrate a management platform like this, and that can save you a small fortune in marketing expenses, to say the least.

Brand Management

There are so many different tools out there to assist with marketing communications, but without effective brand management, none of it will matter. Managing your brand means figuring out your company’s voice and underlying message. It means conveying a seamless brand perception across all markets and channels and ensuring that all potential consumers can see the value of the brand based on its profile alone.

If your branding isn’t consistent, your customers will notice. This is an instant sign that a company might not have it all together, despite what they claim. Your team might not even be fully aware of its shortcomings. However, when you check out your branding through the eyes of the consumer, you’ll easily see all the holes and inconsistencies that are keeping you from getting to that next level.

This is one of the perks of working with outsourced marketing services for brand management and your overall marketing communications management and execution. Sometimes, outsiders can look at things from a different perspective. Because they are unbiased, it’s easier for them to identify potential flaws, including things like inconsistent or improper branding that could be impacting your ability to generate new business or grow your reputation.

A managed brand marketing solution is also going to give you the chance to streamline all of your marketing efforts. You'll be able to access all of your branding profiles and custom digital assets, including logos for promotional products, along with your ongoing marketing campaigns and future campaigns. This guarantees that you will have compliant messages across all channels and mediums. The centralized platform will ensure that you can increase brand equity by speaking loud and clear about what your brand is and what it stands for, as well as why consumers should choose it.

Sales Enablement

Sales enablement tools are designed to give your sales team the power to manage and completely own their sales game with access to marketing assets and resources that they can customize for the consumer and distribute from various platforms. This might sound complicated, but it’s really about providing them with resources and tools that can help them reach more customers, generate more leads, and create bigger and better sales for the brand. This includes repeat business, so keep that in mind.

Once you’ve got the marketing and assets managed, you have to reign in your sales team and give them the tools that they need to go out and close the deals that have been set up for them. Having an integrated solution is the best way to begin bridging the gap between your marketing and sales departments to ensure that everyone is on the same page. Sales enablement tools will allow you to track and log customer activity, communications, proposals, and more.

You can even create custom proposals, set up user profiles based on specific customer groups, and measure performance metrics to ensure that your sales reps are succeeding with and improve sales across the board by streamlining the development of your marketing campaigns. The various features and functions of an integrated sales enablement platform are going to change the game for everyone and bring your company full circle to a more collaborative approach.

The Role of Social Media in Modern Marketing Communications

Of all of the channels available for marketing today, social media platforms are among the most popular. Not only do these platforms reach a wider number of users, but they allow brands to reach out to their audience in a more personal, connected way than what is offered with traditional advertising. There are different strategies and methods for the different platforms, but from Facebook to Snapchat and every social media platform in between, consumers like the connected, personal touch.

A big part of branding is making your company more “human” and approachable. Although the right marketing communication tools and platforms will get you on the right path, nothing will solidify that impression like social media. Plus, potential customers will also be able to engage with other customers to get firsthand input on brands and products as they’re making their buying decisions.

There are several other avenues of marketing that are still effective today, including:

Traditional Advertising
Sales Promotions
Direct Mail/Catalogs
Email
Webinars
Trade Shows and Seminars

However, it has been proven time and again that while all of these strategies can be successful in the right execution, social media has the biggest return on investment (ROI) and the best chances of increasing sales and improving brand reputation at the same time. Of course, again, it ultimately boils down to one big factor:

Engagement

The reason that the best marketing communication tools have integrated social media functions is that they come from companies that understand the power of social media marketing. By taking the time to engage your audience, you are going to increase brand loyalty, improve your overall reputation, and enjoy better customer satisfaction and increased traffic.

Cloud-Based vs. Custom Platforms and Solutions

In the world of marketing communications, tools like those available for brand management, digital and marketing asset management, and sales enablement are available in two options: cloud-based solutions and custom hard-wired and integrated networking solutions. Typically, smaller brands can cash in on the simplicity and scalability of pre-packaged cloud solutions, while larger companies and enterprise brands might want a custom solution designed to handle their unique and ever-growing needs.

Today, many custom solutions are still cloud-based, making them easy to access from anywhere and allowing your company to get the tools that it needs without investing in a lot of server space or physical hardware. Think about how much dedicated hardware your company needs, if any, or if a custom cloud solution would be a more budget-friendly move. There are tools and platforms available for all sizes of organizations that can offer all the marketing communications solutions that you need in the format and style that you prefer.

Generally speaking, cloud solutions can be created for just about any business size and need. Having a custom platform is going to suit your brand much better in all aspects of marketing communications, from the basic things like organizing assets to the more detailed tasks related to marketing and branding. The benefit here, aside from the lack of physical space required, is the cost.

Cloud-based marketing communications management is changing the way that companies invest in themselves. This cost-effective solution requires no big hardware investment and, in most cases, it can be operated from any computer with a network and Internet connection. You can even customize your platform to be accessible from specific devices or network computers so that only certain people have access to the various tools and resources.

Using the cloud means that you can get more space for less money. You can create an integrated marketing management tech stack that gives you total control of your branding and marketing efforts from start to finish. Plus, you can do it all in a scalable, customizable arena where your marketing dollars will stretch much further.

Outsourcing for Total Management of Your Marcom Tech Stack and More

Marketing communications is just one aspect of your business, but it’s one that requires a lot of attention and that affects a lot of different departments. If you’re keeping it all in house, that means you’re going to have to invest time and money into your manpower and the office space. You'll need dedicated hardware to manage the day-to-day operations, along with a team of people to manage and execute the various areas of marketing communications.

This could increase your payroll and operating expenses to a level that you’re not comfortable with. Not only that, but it’s probably mostly unnecessary. In today’s online-based business world, you don’t have to spend a fortune to get the best marketing communications management solutions and keep your team on top of the industry changes and demands. You can instead choose to outsource.

Outsourcing requires the assistance of a marketing operation & sales enablement partner like FuseBox One. We have a full range of marketing operations management tools and solutions to help you create the perfect tech stack to take your business to the next level in the new world of online business. Getting the right tools and resources in place is half the battle with any marketing strategy, and if you are looking to improve your operations overall, that’s where we can step in and help.

From assessing your current situation and determining what resources you could benefit from to helping you incorporate and integrate customized platforms for sales enablement and asset management, we’ll make sure that you get everything that you need. Plus, we can offer scalable solutions with future updates and goals in mind to help you get more now and do less work later. Our entire goal is to help make managing your marketing operations easier, from lead generation to the close of the sale.

Rather than spending a small fortune hiring a whole team of managers and IT professionals to implement, integrate, and manage your marketing communications tech stack, you can outsource the work and save the difference to add to your bottom line. Give us a call today to discuss your needs for marketing operations & sales enablement management and see how we can take the hassle out of your day-to-day routines.

Whether you’re interested in a full-service marketing operations & sales enablement solution or just need a few different tools and resources from the stack, we can help you find the perfect fit with a free consultation today.