MArketing-IT Landscape

Customer Relation Management is on the one hand a strategic / conceptual approach of corporate governance. With a focus on customer acquisition and loyalty, across all customer-related processes in marketing, sales and customer services are integrated and optimized. On the other hand, it describes a heterogeneous and fragmented marketing IT application market, which is to favour the implementation of CRM strategy by means of solutions.

It is used to support the operations of all areas that have direct contact with the customers (such as marketing, sales and customer service). In these areas, the communication, as well as the associated business processes is supported by Marketing, Sales and Service automation. In the centre is a holistic and consistent supply of information with the help of a customer database. Customer touchpoints refers to all the points, which can cause the contact between a company and its customers, such as the branch, the site, the field, the staff and the customer interaction center. The integration and synchronization of customer touchpoints is sought in the context of the operational CRM.

Campaign management is at the core of marketing automation. 

It's about

1. to adress the right customer
2. with the right offer
3. in the right communication style
4. on the right channel
5. at the right time

The Foundation makes an existing customers or prospective customers-DB. The Central phases, which are supported by appropriate IT systems, are campaign planning, management and reporting.

The campaign planning includes:

• the definition of objectives
• the target group selection
• the channel selection
• the process definition

Campaigns control addresses the communication level of the message (e.g. via email), the feedback loop of customer response in the client database and the reaction coupled (automatic) follow-up as measures on the basis of business rules (event triggered marketing). So considered, supports and automates MA / CM administrative -, analytical, and contact support tasks. In practice, the distinction is made between solutions focusing on inbound or outbound. Campaigns using various communication channels (e.g., email, direct mail, telephone, Internet, personal contact) called multichannel management and multi-channel campaigns. For one, the company should get a single view of the customer (one view of the customer) and on the other hand, the customers a single view of the company (one face to the customer).

It focused on the sales / sales representative with administrative support on the one hand by route scheduling, expense reports, visit reports and assistance in preparation of a quotation, on the other hand with an analytical support through such as to lost-order-, sales-cycle analyses (e.g. estimated date of a new purchase) or the opportunity / leads management. The contact-supporting tasks concerns such as interactive selling system, the customer should offered in the form of multimedia presentations and animations sales experiences, such as electronic product catalogs, product configurators, or even eDetailing in the pharmaceutical industry.

It focuses on the service / support area, such as former call center (outbound and inbound). Analytical support is for example inbound e-mail (text mining). The point is the integration and synchronization across all channels and touchpoints.

It must be ensured that the company across all contact points can occur to the customer in the sense of "one face to the customer" and "one view of the customer".

Starting from the former call center, there is an interesting organizational evolution in the sense of customer interaction center, an organizational unit, which not only phone, but also use other channels such as email, websites or chat / dialog function on websites.

The analytical CRM deals with the collection and analysis of customer-related information. This includes information for all customer contacts, as well as to the customer responses. In the customer data warehouse, these are then systematically stored and evaluated within the framework of the business intelligence using online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining. Goal is to continuously improve customer-related business processes. Is called also a learning system in the sense of a closed loop architecture, in which through the use of customer information, the offer of the company as well as its communication with the customers constantly optimized and is adapted to individual customers or customer groups.

Content Related Technology describes a heterogeneous and fragmented marketing-IT-application market, which is engaged in the creation, publication, and distribution of content or communications.

A Content Management System is a software for community creation, editing, organization and publication of content on Web pages. An author can use such a system in many cases with little programming or HTML knowledge, as have the majority of the systems to a graphical user interface.

Enterprise content management – as a strategy and management concept of information technology – combines the diversity of information and the knowledge of a company or an organization throughout the lifecycle (information lifecycle management) of information or a document across.

ECM includes the technologies, tools and methods for the acquisition, management, storage, preservation and delivery of electronic content in throughout the company (ECM-definition of the international AIIM ECM Association). ECM goes so much further than Web Content Management (CMS).

ECM addresses:

• the capture (capture) data and information of the whole company
• the management (manage) data and information
• consolidated knowledge store (store)
• the output (deliver) of information in various forms
• the preserve (preserve) data and information to comply with legal requirements

ECM integrates document management, digital archiving, business process management and CMS/ WCMS under one roof. 

Digital Asset Management (DAM) is the storage and management of any digital content, in particular by media files such as pictures, graphics, videos, music files, and text blocks. In the media sector's part also called Media Asset Management (MAM).

Product Information Management is the provision of product information for use in different output channels (such as print catalogue, E-commerce), or in distribution channels, as well as for different locations. This requires the media independent management, maintenance, and modification of product information in a central system, to supply each channel without large resource costs with consistent, accurate information. Typically, the PIM refers to existing article master data from the ERP system and is enriched also with marketing information.

Web-to-Print describes an application that supports a browser-based authoring of standardized means of communication, based on appropriate templates (templates). Templates are files that are stored on the Central Web server of a Web-to-print system. The templates contain unmodifiable (static) and modifiable (customizable) elements and must advance in a separate step systemkonform to be prepared. The user of a Web-to-print system call the templates in the Web application, this to customize or personalize (for series documents). The results can be control during machining and before the final order in a preview that is generated on the Web server by the user. The final version of the document is finally transformed into a print-ready PDF file on the Web server and processed to the printing process in further production steps.

Multichannel Publishing System is software to the creation and publication of journalistic content, in particular newspapers, magazines and annual reports. An essential feature is the separation of content, data structure and design (layout), as well as the possibility of controlling access or build up a workflow. Collaborative work from remote locations and different editors on the same document is appropriately supported.

A TM (Translation Memory System) refers the use of technologies and systems for the automation of the translation process and translation management. Intensive and repetitive manual tasks are eliminated, while improving the cooperation and increase the efficiency.

Marketing Resource Management is regarded as a series of processes and skills that help companies to improve the organization and optimization of internal and external marketing resources. MRM applications cover the following areas of expertise: 

• Planning and budgeting of marketing activities and campaigns (strategic planning and financial management)
• Creation and development of marketing programs and content (creative production solutions and project management)
• Gathering and management of content and knowledge (digital values, content and knowledge management)
• Fulfillment and distribution of marketing assets, content and other marketing material (marketing fulfillment)
• Measurement, analysis and optimization of marketing resources (MRM Analytics)