Enterprise marketing management (EMM) systems: Current use and future prospects

To gather data on current and future use of enterprise marketing management solutions in Europe, Unica and Ovum conducted an online survey of 300 senior marketing executives in December 2005–January 2006. Respondents represented a range of industry sectors and were equally divided among France, Germany and the UK. Most respondents expressed confidence about the strategic value of marketing in supporting the organisation, and good practice in marketing was said to be widespread. In contrast to the pervading optimism, UK respondents in particular were pessimistic about their ability to achieve the organisation's marketing objectives, due to a lack of marketing expertise. Technology, in particular the internet, was central to marketing, with e-mail and the web being the most popular channels, but traditional approaches such as direct mail and word-of-mouth marketing were continuing to play an important role. The majority of organisations had no immediate plans to implement innovative new technology-related channels, such as blogs and Really Simple Syndicate (RSS) feeds. Nearly three quarters of organisations measured marketing performance, the most popular metrics being customer satisfaction and the number of new clients. Return on investment (ROI) was the most popular new metric planned for implementation in 2006. Exactly half the respondents claimed to have heard of EMM, which was better known in France than elsewhere. Several point solutions were in use, the most popular being real-time marketing and marketing resource management (MRM). None of these solutions was, however, used by more than 40 per cent of the organisations. In general, planned implementation of new EMM solutions reflected the current usage levels, but there were indications of strong growth in lead management solutions. Lack of awareness was cited as the main reason for not investing in EMM, but concern with costs and budgets was also widespread among the organisations surveyed. In conclusion, the survey demonstrated that holistic EMM solutions are not in common use, and although they are likely to become more widespread in future, several factors hinder the spread. Despite these findings, the survey did indicate that elements of EMM — such as personalised e-mail marketing and MRM — are becoming increasingly common among European marketers. For example, 32 per cent of the respondents indicated that they are using MRM technology to manage their marketing functions. The figures reflecting lack of plans for blogs and RSS feeds suggest that businesses are investing their budgets in core, enterprise-level technology to support the marketing function, rather than spending it on less proven tactics.