How to Select a Marketing System

Marketers, often with the help of consultants, need to define system requirements and then choose appropriate vendors and/or systems when building a customer database. Today’s plethora of systems options – at a wide range of prices – has extended this selection process for all involved.

Here’s some things to consider when deciding which system to purchase.

– Sophistication. Most of the core marketing systems offer standard features and functions, including the ability to run queries, create reports, select lists, maintain promotion and response history, and update with new data. But some marketers are looking for special functions such as response curve development, integrated modeling, longitudinal contact test and measurement, trigger-based list selection and flexible response attribution. Organizations also are looking for varying levels of functionality in user access tools. Executives want simple reporting tools that mask the technical sophistication of the query language and database architecture, while analysts need to combine point-and-click capabilities for routine jobs with structured-query-language-based operations for more complex analysis.

– Scalability. A small company may be looking at a small PC-based system, while anticipating rapid growth and quadrupling of its data. A large firm may be looking at an inverted proprietary system it’ll likely outgrow within a year. Plan two to three years out when considering system size. By allowing less than two years, a company likely will outgrow the system too quickly, while planning more than three years ahead is probably not practical based on the usual rapid advances in technology.

– Flexibility. Most clients are encouraged to view the development of their marketing system as an ongoing evolution – something that never really ends. Therefore this issue of flexibility – the ability to add data, processes, users and tools – has become a major factor in system selection.

– Integration. A company may want to integrate its marketing system with service, e-marketing, sales and other channels. Some systems provide more flexibility and support for these requirements than others.

– Price. It’s almost always an issue. The good news? Prices on some of the more sophisticated campaign management tools and systems are coming down. The bad news, though, is that related service costs are continuing to rise. When looking at price, make sure to analyze all aspects of the package – software license costs, resource costs and other out-of-pocket expenditures.

– Vendor experience. There’s inherent risk in implementing new technology, although it may help you attract top-notch resources. A company should make sure that when it assesses vendors it looks for relevant experience. A vendor may have been in business building databases for over 20 years, but if, for example, it just migrated to new open systems technology, it’s far from a sure bet.

– Resource availability and staffing. This has become one of the issues deserving considerable attention. There are any number of vendors capable of building a database, but the biggest potential problem is the vendor’s staffing of a client’s account. There are only a few very bright, sophisticated marketing systems developers spread over a greater number of vendors today. The same applies to project managers, integrators, data modelers and the like. If a firm is not the vendor’s “big fish,” it needs to have an alternative means of being the client to work for, so the most qualified vendor resources will try to be on that firm’s account. For example, we know of a cruise line operator that insisted vendor team members take a short cruise in order to get firsthand experience on how customer data is collected. Vendor employees fought to get assigned to that project.

– Ultimate responsibility. Most open systems setups involve multiple access tools on a relational database platform. The challenge with this model is coordinating the various vendors involved in the system’s development and support. One of our clients is faced with a system that doesn’t work. The hardware vendor blames the database platform, the platform vendor blames the online analytical processing tool, the tool vendor blames the data model, the data modeler blames the integrator. Contract with a party that will assume responsibility for the entire system.

– Vendor stability. It’s a big factor in this age of mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations. While this activity can’t be anticipated, a company that has just recently been acquired might be at greater risk of being reorganized or restructured. Probe for sizable changes in corporate direction or structure during the selection process.

These are just some of the factors to consider when choosing a marketing system. Often the tendency of those making such a decision is to get caught up in features and functions, and to forget about the other elements critical to a successful implementation. If a company is shopping around, its management ought to keep these issues in mind and make their decisions accordingly.