The Integrated Marketing Organization - NewsCred · what’s really holding marketing organizations back from being fully integrated, explain how our benchmarking tool and methodology

The Integrated Marketing Organization

Illustrations by Laura Beckman

How to Lower Content Waste,

Increase Collaboration, and

Turbocharge Performance

https://newscred.com

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insights.newscred.comThe Integrated Marketing Organization: A Complete Guide to Building Higher-Performing Teams

Introduction

Why invest in “integrated marketing” now? Isn’t it just a buzzword that’s been around for years? When we say there’s a critical mandate for building an integrated marketing organization, it boils down to increasing operational efficiency, increasing collaboration, and increasing performance.

A quick survey of the landscape paints a bleak picture: the

old established marketing models have broken-down, there’s

mounting revenue pressure and scrutiny on marketing

investments, and there’s a laser focus on minimizing risks

and maintaining security, especially in the new era of GDPR.

The diversity of customers and markets, alongside the

explosion of channels, content and products, makes it hard

to develop targeted and relevant messages. And among

enterprise organizations, there is also an alarming trend of

decreasing budgets and siloed, inefficient work practices.

It’s time to integrate marketing. Because the budgets are

high and the stakes even higher.


The struggle is real

Integrated campaigns

are 31% more effective

at building brands

Kantar MillwardBrown

31%

45%45% of marketers feel they lack the

necessary talent, technology, and

processes to master omni-channel

brand marketing

CMO Council


10%Just 10% of organizations

rate themselves as

“advanced” in operations

SiriusDecisions

25%Only 25% of CMOs’ digital media investment

reaches target audiences, representing

more than $20 billion of marketing waste,

inefficiency and ineffectiveness

Association of National Advertisers


About this guide

As integrated marketing is incredibly complex and nuanced, this ebook uses a proven framework to help guide — rather than prescribe — how brands can define (or redefine) their marketing organizations. We’ll explore what’s really holding marketing organizations back from being fully integrated, explain how our benchmarking tool and methodology can evaluate your organization, and offer actionable recommendations for improvement.

You’ll learn

+ How to build a case for integrated marketing

+ The symptoms of a poorly-integrated marketing organization

+ How to conduct an integrated marketing maturity self-assessment

+ The key stages of integrated marketing maturity

+ The ADEPT Methodology for effective integrated marketing

+ How to build an integrated marketing measurement framework

This paper is geared for both executives and marketing leaders

who want to meet those challenges head on, ready to finally bust

down organizational silos and improve their programs.


The case for integrated marketing

Integrated Marketing: The What and Why

Integrated marketing is the process

of unifying the marketing organization

to deliver a consistent and relevant

content experience to their audience

across all channels.

The case for delivering a powerful,

unified customer experience is clear.

A Gartner study found that campaigns

integrating four or more digital

channels will outperform single- or

dual-channel campaigns by 300%

from a performance perspective.

And when it comes to brand building,

the global research company Kantar

Millward Brown found that integrated

campaigns are 31% more effective

than un-integrated ones.

The integrated marketing approach

is also the key to marketing

departments transitioning from

cost centers to profit centers. By

working better together, marketing

departments both drive performance

and increase operational efficiency.

Why invest in integrated marketing?

+ Improve operational effectiveness

and efficiency across the marketing

organization

+ Break down silos and encourage

collaboration and efficiency

+ Champion omnichannel marketing in

the client organization

+ Position content as an asset that

should be managed like all business IP

+ Adopt a more strategic and

sophisticated approach to enterprise

marketing

+ Support the creation of a seamless

and consistent customer experience

Well-executed marketing operations

and integrated planning will bring

teams together, drive unprecedented

efficiency, and transform businesses.

Ultimately, the brands that embrace

integrated marketing — possible

more than ever with technology — will

be the most successful. As a result,

operational efficiency will become part

of the executive mandate for marketing

leaders.


Still not convinced that building an integrated marketing organization will improve performance? Here are some of the signs your organization is failing to integrate.

The symptoms of inaction

+ Duplication of efforts leading to content waste

+ Role confusion leading to a lack of accountability

+ Business goals are not aligned to your marketing

investments

+ Collaborative efforts are not being supported by

your technology setup

+ No central place to store or access content

+ The marketing end-to-end process is not visible

+ Delays in deployment and publishing

+ Fragmented or disjointed customer journey

As a byproduct of competing priorities and pressure

to be first to market, most enterprises suffer

from one or more of these symptoms. Even teams

proactively trying to solve these issues often

have difficulty getting traction because of deeply

ingrained organizational silos.

Let’s reflect on why silos are so common (but also so

commonly despised).


A brief history of silos

Many marketing teams were structured around

specific channels. The rise of “digital marketing”

fragmented not only the agency landscape but

the marketing function. Back in the day, we had a

television and a newspaper, then we moved into the

digital era which saw us split teams between digital

and out-of-home channels. Mobile was separated

out (at least briefly) at many organizations, and paid

social media responsibilities often rest with yet

another team.

These modern (read: siloed) marketing teams are not

set up for integrated marketing success. There are

so many situations where internal teams inherently

clash, including competition for budgets, attribution,

ideas and glory. There’s a belief that a culture of

healthy competition fosters creative ideas, but the

“team of teams” model has repeatedly demonstrated

that a culture of collaboration is more effective at

producing creative results and also sets the team up

for long term success.

OmnichannelMultichannelSingle channel


https://insights.newscred.com/the-leadership-book-every-executive-must-read-team-of-teams/

We often make consumers the scapegoat for

the rise of ad blockers, low engagement rates,

and falling profits when the real problem is the

failure of legacy marketing operating models to

support the modern customer journey.

Reclaim centralized oversight of the marketing

function and full customer experience by

building out content operations within an

integrated marketing organization.

Team Technology Content Analytics

Technology Content AnalyticsTeam

Technology Content AnalyticsTeam

If you are really serious about integrated marketing, your organization needs to shift from a culture of competition to a culture of collaboration.

Siloed marketing teams


To recap: integrated marketing is possible and

necessary, and the teams that are relentless in

the pursuit of this internal alignment are the ones

that will succeed in an era of content velocity,

global-local delivery, and omnichannel customer

expectations.

But how do you know you’re doing it well? Or how

do you improve when you’re not doing it well? We

developed the Integrated Marketing Maturity Index

(IMMI) to help brands assess their operations and

governance proficiency.

This assessment tool was developed from third-

party analyst insights and over a decade of field

work with enterprise customers, combined with

internal marketing and technical expertise. Using

IMMI, enterprise marketing leaders can assess

and benchmark their operational efficiency by

answering a set of key criteria questions.

Introducing NewsCred’s Integrated Marketing Methodology

IMMI AssessmentA score of 50 is the average benchmark

for success; anything higher is closer to

mastery. Investing in the foundations of

ADEPT will help you get closer to the top.

PRO -TIP

Take the assessment g

ADEPT and the Integrated Marketing Maturity Index

You may have some or all of the five ADEPT

capabilities. The important thing is to document

and prioritize your gap areas, while understanding

this is not a linear model; you may have alignment

and technology in place but slip in execution and

design, or vice versa. The idea is to ensure you’re

identifying both the areas of strengths and areas

for improvement across the ADEPT framework and

begin to optimize accordingly.

The IMMI tool is intended to serve as a leading

indicator to content operations success and how

effectively an organization is managing content.


https://newscred.typeform.com/to/wEdCUG

T Technology

The technology criteria relate to whether your

brand has adopted a secure and flexible planning

technology solution for long-term collaboration that

includes automation intelligence. Is there a clear line

of sight across content ideation, pitching, planning,

production, publishing, distribution, optimization

and measurement? Ultimately, technology should

help accelerate execution and build on desired team

behaviors such as collaboration and integrated

planning. This also includes flexible reporting on

campaign, content, and operational performance.

The IMMI is based on the five core capabilities of integrated marketing: alignment, design, execution, process and technology (ADEPT)

D Design

Examine your planning model. Do you have a

direction-setting body to act as brand custodian?

Are teams collaborating together to prioritize key

themes across different marketing disciplines? Is

there a shared calendar view of all activities that

tie into key campaigns? And is there a documented

marketing taxonomy and shared language?

E Execution

This execution element looks at the rigor of

following through on your plan, processes, and

guidelines. Is your team delivering on time and

at scale? Is there an adherence to best practices

relating to tagging assets appropriately to

metadata and taxonomy, auditing for relevancy and

redundancies? This includes identifying whether

your team is equipped to stand up marketing

operations and is trained on the functional

skills to execute successfully. Agile marketing

methodologies often come into play here.

P Process

The process section delves into the workflows

that guide your marketing execution, specifically

how sophisticated and complete these workflows

are and whether they are documented. Do your

workflows take into account different asset types,

approvals, compliance, and localization? Is there

also a process for analyzing campaign and overall

marketing performance?

A Alignment

Evaluate your support from the top. It needs to go

beyond executive buy-in; you need (or need to be)

an executive sponsor who will drive and champion

change. This mandate includes creating cross-

functional buy-in, or integrated planning just isn’t

possible. The marketing plan also needs to include

adequate budget and time investment for the

project team.


Your IMMI maturity score correlates to a point on NewsCred’s Integrated Marketing Maturity Curve. The curve is a visualization of the eight stages of integrated marketing maturity and gives us both a way to benchmark and a blueprint for success. In terms of maturity, there are eight key milestones for integrated marketing which correlate to eight business value drivers:

Visualize your roadmap with the Integrated Marketing Maturity Curve

Integrated Marketing Maturity Curve

Executive

mandate

Collaborative

planning

Documented

taxonomy

Holistic

workflows

Integrated

technology stack

Empowered

governance

Asset

utilization

Execution

at scale

1 2 3

4

5

6

7

8


The remainder of this guide will provide detailed descriptions of the eight milestones of integrated marketing success alongside practical recommendations to help improve your organization’s integration, efficiency, and success.

PrioritizationThere is no linear process for integrated

marketing maturity, because all organizations

are different. As marketing leaders and CMOs

you’re best positioned to make the call on

what gaps should be prioritized.

PRO -TIP

Integrated tech stack

Automates channel communications and

measurement

Empowered governance

Delivers strategic brand goals

Asset utilization + localization

Encourages marketing efficiency

Execution at scale

Organizes marketing operations for growth

Executive mandate and cross-functional buy-in

Facilitates cross-marketing collaboration

Collaborative planning

Streamlines marketing planning

Documented taxonomy

Ensures execution consistency

Holistic workflows

Accelerates marketing output


First, ask whether there is alignment internally

and whether there is buy-in to move towards

integrated marketing. Because integrated

marketing requires breaking down silos and

increased cooperation you need an executive

sponsor and cross-functional cooperation. You

also need someone in a leadership role to drive

the change in case there are obstacles along the

way. There is no world where integrated marketing

can be successful without executive support.

Integrated Marketing Milestone 1

Executive mandate and cross-functional buy-in

If you’re the executive, it’s about finding your

champions and your cross-functional leaders who

will support you. And if you’re the champion, it’s

about finding like-minded peers and finding an

executive who can help you drive this program.

In this milestone, you’re assembling your working

group. This group then becomes the working group

tasked with uniting the marketing organization.


REC OMMENDATION NO. 2

Launch a stakeholder engagement survey

When it comes to the wider team, you can carry out an anonymous

survey to invite teams to provide their feedback to the working group.

You can use these sample questions or formulate your own — whatever

works for you. Then it’s about engaging with key stakeholders.

Strengths

+ What are the strengths of your marketing

operations?

+ What capabilities, resources and talent are unique

to your team?

+ What do internal and external stakeholders

perceive to be your operational strengths?

Weaknesses

+ What are the weaknesses in your marketing

operations and execution?

+ What do other teams do better than you?

+ What do internal and external stakeholders

perceive to be your weaknesses?

Opportunities

+ What could do be done today that isn’t being done?

+ What is missing in your marketing operations?

+ What upcoming business changes will impact

operations?

+ Will these business changes affect you in a positive

manner?

Threats

+ What are the key obstacles in the overall marketing

organization?

+ What might cause problems in the future? How?

+ What is happening outside of the organization that

might impact your operations?


Create a marketing operations SWOT analysis

At this stage it’s about alignment activities. One quick way to start a

conversation is to get together and do an integrated marketing SWOT

analysis, which of course stands for strengths, weaknesses, threats and

opportunities. This is a great exercise to start the conversation around

integrated marketing. Here are a couple of sample questions for your

situational analysis using the SWOT framework.


Stakeholder survey template

How to score

0 Not doing it at all

1 Doing it, but not very well

2 Doing some of it but we need to improve

3 We’re doing pretty well

4 Doing this very well

5 We excel at this

What does your score mean?

0–10 Need to prioritize building a foundation for

integrated marketing

11–30 Core capabilities are there but need to take

gap areas to the next level

31–50 Focus on advanced-level optimization

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 5

/ 50

Score Marketing operations

Stakeholders from different departments, business units or markets are meeting regularly

to help to validate key ideas, prioritize efforts, and assess performance and operations.

There is integrated planning in place to ensure there is one central view with coordination

across teams.

There is a central bank or library for assets and this is being shared and repurposed

across teams.

There are documented guidelines and policies, and this is understood and adhered to by

people involved in the production process.

Performance is aligned to business goals and is monitored, analyzed and communicated

on a regular basis.

There is clear line of sight across ideation, pitching, planning, production, publishing,

distribution, optimization and measurement.

The production processes takes into account legal and other regulatory practices, and

includes clear timeline and approvals.

Time and cost involved in creating assets is being measured and monitored to ensure

operational efficiency.

There is a shared language across teams with a documented glossary, taxonomy.

There is a documented marketing strategy and/or playbook that everyone is using.

f Total/ 50



Lead a stakeholder workshop

Using the findings from your SWOT and stakeholder

survey, conduct a workshop session to outline the

current state and future state of the organization.

Here’s who needs to be involved:

+ Anyone responsible for making decisions on

content

+ Range of people, from executives to those

executing on content

+ People who are potentially on the “editorial board”

+ HR, PR, Marketing, Social, Lead Gen

You should walk away with some key priorities and

an action plan. The objective of this workshop is

to also align key stakeholders and get their buy-in

on the process. An effective exercise would be a

stakeholder poll and/or interview asking them to

assess how effectively they are managing content.

Build executive supportStart by building a working group of

like-minded peers, but it’s also critical

to have the active support and

involvement of an executive capable

of cross-functional influence.

PRO -TIP

As the champion for integrated marketing, use

the session to communicate what the business

case is and communicate to the organization who

needs to be involved, what they have at stake and

what the shared goals are.

Here are examples of what’s at stake:

+ Siloed marketing can hurt your brand equity

and result in an inconsistent brand experience

for the customer

+ Fall behind other brands and competitors who

are advanced

+ Content and budget waste

+ Team confusion/people do not feel empowered

to do their jobs



Collaborative planning model

Outlining a collaborative planning model gives your working group (and everyone you share it with) a tangible vision for how the company wants to coordinate internally and work outside of silos. Teams need to map this model out before they can put together processes and formalize the roadmap with real workflows and systems to ensure it’s happening.

The planning model should also help

the team establish a cadence and

rationale for launching campaigns,

with consideration for investment

allocation and calendar frequency.

The working group should hold

planning sessions, whether weekly,

monthly, quarterly and/or annually, to

coordinate, plan and execute together.

Creative

Channels

Content

Production

Evaluation

Brief

Lifecycle of an

Integrated Marketing

Campaign



Develop a content playbook of best practices

A playbook of best practices and guidelines

can serve as a compass for the team

throughout the execution process. Developing

the playbook itself helps to achieve alignment

and ensure consistency.

For global-local marketing, you should provide

best practices on localization — the process

of adapting content to better suit a local

market and its audience. This is more than

just translating content into another language

or even changing references to be culturally

appropriate as this would come as standard

with translation.


Develop an integrated campaign brief

Start off with an integrated campaign brief.

You can use the following questions to build

one out:

+ What is the brand goal?

+ What is the business objective?

+ How will you measure the success of the

campaign (must be measurable)?

+ Who are the target audience(s) for this

campaign?

+ What is the budget and how is this

allocated?

+ What teams are involved in this

campaign?

+ What is the central campaign theme or

idea?

+ What are the key channels for

distribution, online and offline?

+ What target assets will be published as

part of this distribution?

+ What is the production workflow?

+ How did the campaign perform? What

lessons can you take for future planning?


Don’t underestimate the role of a shared taxonomy in facilitating marketing collaboration. If you’re at an enterprise brand, executing a global-local strategy, working cross-functionally, or managing a mature content marketing program, you need a cohesive marketing taxonomy strategy across your integrated planning, marketing calendar, and asset manager.


Documented taxonomy

Warning signsThere are clear signs of a

poor marketing taxonomy

strategy. Are your teams

wasting time searching

for approved assets? Are

your content analytics not

easily segmented by target

audience, format, or other key

journey information?

PRO -TIP

Establish a clearly defined language and labeling structure for

your marketing organization, and use the working group to put

governance in place to ensure it’s being used. This taxonomy

will help to foster cross-functional collaboration, understanding

and breakdown silos organically. The universal language enables

teams to work at a larger scale, streamlining processes for

efficiency and fast-tracking outputs.

The marketing taxonomy should support a shared understanding

of the relationship between strategy elements like campaign

themes, personas, and journey stages. As teams begin managing

an increasing number of cross-functional marketing programs

and a growing library of content, consistent metadata is vital for

accurate planning, organization, and measurement.

This integrated marketing maturity milestone is achieved when

everyone is tagging, labeling and filing assets and content

the same way. Start by prioritizing what areas to build shared

language around rather than tackling everything at once.

Documented taxonomy goes beyond shared language, it also

includes shared assets and shared data sources including

audience research and reporting.



Conduct discovery for your shared taxonomy

Conduct a preliminary brand review, including key stakeholder

interviews, website(s) review, and data/documentation review.

The objective is to work across teams to understand content

nomenclature, in order to create a shared language and

governance model for improved operational efficiency and

collaboration. Here are some key attributes:

+ Campaign themes

+ Business priorities

+ Brand values

+ Brand or content pillars

+ Audience segmentation

+ Customer stages

+ Markets

+ Formats

+ Team or business unit or market



Inventory shared data inputs

The key to breaking down silos is understanding the key

data outputs of each functional area — from market

research to reports. The problem is that much of this

data is stored in silos across disparate systems and often

analyzed using outdated attribution techniques that

ignore data from early in the journey.

Your inventory should start with identifying the collective

problems and requirements of the customer base along

with what data and insights are adding value to this

understanding, regardless of which audience segment or

business unit/team the data comes from.

Integration starts with effective identification of data and

how it can be shared across the organization. Some areas

you can look at are:

+ Market Research

+ Competitor Reports

+ Audience Demographics

+ Behavioral Insights

+ Customer Journeys

+ Organic vs. Paid Keywords

+ Campaign Results


Workflows are one of the most under-scrutinized components of marketing operations. Building optimized workflows is a vital part of integrated marketing because workflows provide clarity and provide a way to standardize an operational efficiency metric. A workflow is a predetermined process path specific to each task as part of asset creation.


Holistic workflows

As your organization builds integrated

marketing maturity, your workflows should

move from ad-hoc activities to more

sophisticated processes that take into

account different asset times, approvals

and global-local configurations.

PRO -TIP

In the marketing world, established workflows can

be a key differentiator between top-performing

content marketers and their less successful peers.

The CMI reports that “70% of the top-performing

B2B marketers rated their flow as excellent or very

good, compared with 36% of the total sample, and

14% of the least successful.”

Workflows encompass the steps that take you from

ideas to publication — they provide clear direction

for who needs to see each version and at which

stage. Setting up a structured approach to content

processes and workflows will enable the team to

execute marketing on a streamlined, ongoing basis.

This can be particularly beneficial for clients who

operate in heavily regulated industries.

This milestone (“holistic workflows”) is about

ensuring that every asset, regardless if it’s a

social post or a video, has its own workflow. This

requires inventory of the asset production process:

everything from ideation to sign off and approvals,

taking into account the assets that need legal and

compliance reviews.

The way workflows become holistic is by making

them centralized and agreed upon across functions.

You might need different workflows for different

assets, campaigns, and projects.


Brands in regulated

industries are increasingly

creating dedicated legal

and regulatory teams with

the goal of rapid review of

time-sensitive marketing.

PRO -TIP


Develop workflows for each asset type

Create an inventory of all asset types your marketing

organization creates and then map the stages in the

production cycle for each asset, prescribing checkpoints,

tasks and the ideal time required for completion.

It’s critical to provide estimated elapsed time for each stage

so there is transparency on the duration it takes to create

the asset type. It’s helpful to outline roles and responsibilities

throughout the whole execution process and including other

stakeholders and third parties such as agencies in the review.

Brief Write/create Strategy review Stakeholder review Publish

Asset type Which teams need to have

sight/work on this type?

+ Digital Marketing

+ Internal Comms

+ Legal

+ Translation

Translation is a third

party company

Infographics

Which teams need to have

sight/work on this type?

Exa

mp

le


Having an integrated technology stack is a sign of maturity because it helps to automate your channel communications and measurement and gives greater overall visibility into marketing functions. The ideal marketing tech stack supports both digital marketing lead management and multichannel campaigns.


Integrated technology stack

At this stage of maturity, there is

normally already a commitment

to integrating disparate tools

and technologies and removing

redundancies. There are many free

resources to help you assess new

technology vendors, but here are

some key questions to ask:

+ Does your current technology

tool and solutions support the

integrated marketing efforts?

+ Do you have a technology solution

that offers clear line of sight into

operational activities?

+ Can you measure and report on all

aspects of the marketing cycle?

Technology doesn’t deliver ROI —

but when used correctly, the right

technology helps marketers deliver

ROI. The best thing a technology

solution will ever do is make it easier

to achieve ROI on an effort that

is powered by insights. Look for

technology that accelerates execution

and builds on desired team behaviors

like collaboration and integrated

planning.



Conduct a marketing technology audit

This is a straightforward but surprisingly rare undertaking.

Do an audit of your organization’s tech stack and address any

redundancies. What’s the system of record for every team?

Does it allow you to integrate and invest in a system of record

that allows you to integrated your existing stack?

+ Content Management

+ Client Relationship Management

+ EDM and Marketing Automation

+ Event Management

+ Governance and Protection

+ E-Servicing

+ Measurement and Optimization



Configure data for operational efficiency reporting

To track operational efficiency, make sure your technology stack is configured

for reporting across three categories of metrics: input, output and performance.

Measuring integrated marketing efforts is about monitoring the relationship

between these metrics. The gold standard is to reduce both inputs and outputs

while increasing performance through integrated marketing.

Input

+ Average time to produce

each asset

+ Average time to complete

production stage

+ Average steps to produce

an asset

+ Hours per user

+ Active campaigns

+ Assets created vs assets

published

+ Percentage of assets

completed on time

+ Average additional steps in

asset production

+ Percentage of assets tracking

to on time finish

+ Percentage of assets used

across LOBs and markets

+ Pageviews

+ Engagement rate

+ Conversion rate

+ Leads generated

+ Revenue attribution

Output Performance

The input is the effort that

goes into the production

of all of your assets

Output is everything

relating to the delivery or

production of those assets

Performance is the

degree these variables

are driving success


Governance refers to the practice of establishing clear accountability for digital strategy, policy, and standards based on roles, responsibilities, and decision-making. A governance model should be custom-fit for your organization’s unique challenges and structure, but the below process can provide a framework.

Organizations often find governance the most challenging

aspect of operations, another side effect of the

fragmentation of the marketing organization. Capgemini

reports that fewer marketers in 2018 than in 2012 feel roles

and responsibilities for digital initiatives are clearly defined.

Your governance working group — also commonly known as

an editorial board, content council or center of excellence

— should be in charge of ensuring consistency, alignment

and policies. The group is generally made up of executives

or leaders that are representative of the cross-functional

alignment your marketing organization needs.

Investing in governance can help to scale initiatives

(particularly important for those working across multiple lines

of business and markets), mitigate risks, reduce costs and

promote collaboration.



To achieve this maturity

milestone, it’s not enough

to have a working group.

The working group must

be empowered to enforce

standards for consistency and

alignment to business goals.

PRO -TIP



Develop a governance model

An organizational structure is closely aligned with content models.

Every model has its strengths and weaknesses, and knowing

them can help you mitigate risks and optimize for operational

efficiency. Here’s a rundown of the three archetypes, including key

characteristics, structural advantages and disadvantages.

The three archetypes

These archetypes are helpful in understanding your

model’s challenges and potential risk mitigation

tactics. Depending on the your brand’s current

marketing maturity, business goals, organizational

structure, resources, processes and personnel, you

may choose to adopt one or more of the following

optimization ideas.

Centralized Independent Hybrid


Archetype: Centralized

In a centralized model, one team has full

ownership of the content. Centralized

organizational structures rely on this team to

make decisions and provide direction for the

company. This team sets the standards and

guidelines for marketing success. Generally,

they are the marketing department or a subset

of the marketing department and have their

own budgets, goals and KPIs.

Structural advantages

+ Marketing is easy to standardize

+ Expedites content publishing process

+ Easier to audit and manage content

+ Simplifies technology stack

+ Provides consistent resources for updates

Structural disadvantages

+ Generic assets/content not specific to LOB

or country

+ Bottleneck and slower to market

+ Limited exposure to SME resources

+ No budget allocation at the LOB level,

resulting in duplicate content

+ Prioritization is difficult across countries or

LOB requests/pitches


Archetype: Independent

Structural Advantages

+ Everyone’s responsible and autonomous

+ SME resources on hand, and more integrated

content

+ LOBs own content, increasing content quality

+ Content relevance/timeliness

+ Better able to leverage timely content

creation opportunities

Structural Disadvantages

+ Can be competitive among different local

teams/LOBs

+ Impossible to police consistency of brand

+ Harder to scale

+ Difficult to leverage existing content across

the organization for repurposing

+ Marketing buy-in is low

+ There can be an inconsistent tech stack

+ Inconsistent tone of voice

+ Difficult to manage and very low visibility

across LOBs

Each LOB or local team has their own

marketing unit. Each team operates

autonomously with individual program/

marketing focus. Marketing is siloed and

very grassroots in nature. The teams are

autonomous, generally with individual

budgets, and the organizational structure is

relatively flat with diluted decision making.


Archetype: Hybrid

Developing a new governance model may include

(but is not limited to) the following activities:

+ Conducting a deep dive of your marketing process

+ Identifying roles and responsibilities

+ Creating a planning model to integrate calendars

+ Identifying one-off “activations” versus “always on”

production

+ Determining attributes and meta-tagging

+ Understanding roles, responsibilities, and owners

+ Agreeing on a potential master view, process and

playbook

Governance is at the heart of integrated marketing

and focused on people (stakeholders and decision

makers), processes (guidelines and policies) and

platforms (the technologies and systems required to

execute flawlessly.)

Brands should invest in governance because it

accelerates and enhances other investments and

sets teams to deliver on their goals more efficiently

while managing risks, reducing costs, organizing

infrastructure, and increasing the customer

experience and engagement.

In this model, content is created by a global center

and then repurposed to local markets or lines of

business; this is also referred to as the global-

local model. There is a central (or global) resource

with localization, and decision making is pushed

down. This is a hybrid model that places business-

facing resources at the local or business-unit level

(business unit, line of business, local market) with

centralized content services.

Structural Advantages

+ Centralized structure for establishing strategy

direction and vision

+ Centralized group has broad representation for

facilitating collaboration and consensus building

(requiring local market (LM), line of business (LOB)

and Business Unit (BU) involvement)

+ Relatively easy to implement

+ Scalable and sustainable (over time)

+ Pushes down decision making

Structural Disadvantages

+ Requires local buy-in and involvement

+ Strategy needs to take into account both global

and local needs

+ Likelihood for inconsistent tech stack

+ Varying maturity of different LOB, LM, BU

+ Varying budget and staff resourcing

+ Implementation has to be rolled-out due to

custom approach of global-local



Establish a working group (center of excellence)

With an established governance model and buy-in, the

center of excellence (COE) should be able to align the

organization’s digital activities around the needs of the

customer and the goals of the businesses. This direction-

setting body gives direction and guidance across the

organization for content as a cross-departmental group that

assesses performance and sets standards for performance.

The COE mandate can be as far-reaching as global, and it’s

important to remember that while they do not have control

over other teams, they do have jurisdiction when it comes

to best practices. Ideally, this body should have cross-

functional representatives and buy-in.

Use these suggestions to build your COE’s mandate:

+ Improve operational effectiveness and efficiency across

the marketing organization.

+ Break down silos and encourage collaboration and

efficiency.

+ Champion integrated marketing in the organization.

+ Position integrated marketing as a business benefit,

creating a profit center rather than cost center.

+ Adopt a more strategic and sophisticated approach to

enterprise integrated marketing.

It’s important to distinguish

the roles and responsibilities of

the COE and to communicate

the working group is not a

fulfillment center for other

areas of the business.

PRO -TIP


It is unrealistic to expect that

global and local teams will

work together seamlessly

from the beginning. It takes

time for them to plan, pilot,

iterate, and find the right

global to local balance.

PRO -TIP


Consider a global-local model

Establishing a global-local model can provide a structured

approach to setting up content processes and workflows

that enable your team to execute marketing on an ongoing

basis. Essentially, it provides the systems, structure and

accountability needed to transform your brand into a

marketing center of excellence.

All stakeholders in a global and local program must fully

understand their role in strategy and production. These roles

and responsibilities should be signed off at global level and

then communicated to the local markets. Local markets

should be encouraged to be transparent if there are any risks

to them carrying out their responsibilities.

In many cases, a global content marketing program is

the very first collaboration between central and local

teams. In these cases, it also represents the beginning of

a deeper, internal transformation. By aligning on a global

marketing strategy, central and local teams are establishing

foundational processes across their organization.



Establish guidelines

B R AND GUIDELINE S

Every enterprise organization

will have their own brand

guidelines, from brand colors

and logos to tone of voice and

brand personality and values.

Brand guidelines help to create a

consistent brand experience and

can help to enforce brand memory

structures and brand salience.

EDITORIAL GUIDELINE S

The editorial policy covers a

definition of content types and

how content should be developed,

presented and formatted. The

editorial policy, like one that exists

in a traditional media newsroom,

should also have a style guide and

a tone of voice for all content.

There are different

types of guidelines

that a COE should

establish, including

brand, strategy,

asset, and editorial.

S TR ATEGY GUIDELINE S

Whether you call it a story filter or a

scorecard, guidelines help ensure that

all content is aligned to a strategy. A

strategy policy ensures all content

is mapped to strategic goals and

decisions like personas, campaign

themes, channels, and CTAs. Before

content is published, every piece

should undergo a quality control

checklist. This is a best practice but

will require support from content

leads to ensure that implementation is

taking place across the board.

AS S E T GUIDELINE S

Each asset that is part of your

communications engine should have a

consistent look, feel, duration/length

and treatment. In addition to this,

word limits should be strictly adhered

to for the purposes of consistency

across all asset formats and channels.



Asset utilization and localization

Proficient integrated marketing teams know not only know how to create content but also reuse assets so they’re not contributing to marketing waste. Digital assets should be repurposed in multiple formats across multiple channels targeting multiple audience segments. This requires a single source of truth for your approved assets: a library that everyone can access and where assets can be labeled according to your taxonomy. You can establish a working group that creates and shares templates, design assets, and reusable evergreen content.


Audit existing content or assets

Conduct an audit to surface content that is R.O.T. (redundant, outdated or

trivial). Your audit will surface opportunities to improve content coverage and

performance; the main components of the audit should be a gap analysis and

a qualitative assessment. There are three types of audits you can conduct:

Full marketing inventory

A complete listing of every item including

digital and non-digital assets (including print,

downloadable files and videos).

Partial marketing inventory

A listing of a subset of your marketing program

(i.e., digital only). A partial inventory may include,

for example, the top few levels of a hierarchical

site or the past six months of articles. All

sections of the site will be covered.

Sample marketing inventory

A less detailed collection of example assets.

For digital inventories, you can use a tool like

Screaming Frog to crawl content pages and collect

available metadata that can be exported to a CSV

file. Use the CSV file to customize your own program

and then conduct a qualitative assessment based

on a deeper review on each piece of content. This

assessment should provide you with insights on

relevancy and quality of the asset.

The following template can help provide direction on

your qualitative assessment.


Qualitative content audit template

Relevance

Does the asset meet the (targeted and

inferred) audience’s needs, goals and

interest? Is it relevant?

Voice

Does the asset consistently reflect the brand voice

and attributes? Does its tone adjust appropriately to

the context? Does the asset have a consistent style?

Write here Write here

Context

Where does the asset appear? What other asset is

also in that location, or linked? How easy is it for

someone seeking it out to discover? Is it easy to

scan or read? Is it in a usable format — including

headings, lists, images, tables, whitespace, etc?

Engagement

Does the asset use appropriate techniques to

engage and influence? Does it execute those

techniques effectively?


Purpose

Why does this asset exist? Who is it intended

for? What action is it trying to influence?

Quality

Is the asset understandable? Is it organized clearly

and coherently? Is it accurate, correct and current?




Execution at scale

Execution at scale means you’re optimizing your marketing operations for growth across the organization. This milestone is all about efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is about how quickly your marketing teams can do things; effectiveness is not just about efficiency and volume, it’s about whether each of these elements have the right level of ROI.

As your organization advances in integrated

marketing maturity, more teams will naturally join

the efforts — this is why the maturity curve actually

can be more of a wave with plateaus. As more teams

join, take into account the amount of time it takes

to onboard them. Each new team generally starts

at a lower point of the maturity curve, meaning

the overall efficiency of the business will pause

momentarily before accelerating again.

The link between maturity and efficiency

As new programs are launched lower in

the maturity curve, operational efficiency

across the whole business is intially

stunted, before growing again in stages,

as shown in the graphic above.

Integrated technology stack

Execution at scale

Executive mandate + crossfunctional buy-in

Comms

Digital

Content



Benchmark for operational efficiency

Benchmarking your organization helps chart growth progress and build a

roadmap towards the ideal state. Here are some questions you can use to build

program benchmarks as new teams join the integrated marketing efforts.

Current State

+ How long is it taking you to produce

assets?

+ What are the current sticking points or

roadblocks?

+ What stages are causing most pain?

+ What is taking too long?

+ What is being repeated?

+ Where are efforts being doubled?

Ideal state

+ How long should each stage take?

+ How many revisions should each asset go

through?

+ How many steps should we need to go

through?

+ How long do we need for legal approval?

+ How many stakeholders should be involved

in each stage?

+ Where do we need to spend the most time?


Lieu Pham has more than 15 years’ experience in

strategy, marketing, and advertising across APAC,

EMEA, and North America. In her current role as

NewsCred’s Vice President of Strategy and Creative

Services, she develops the frameworks and workshops

for client success in both content marketing and

integrated marketing. Her expertise is in developing

actionable strategies for breaking down silos and

building better campaigns. She’s a regular speaker at

industry events and a mentor with She Runs It.

Lieu Pham

VP, Strategy + Creative Services

NewsCred

About the author


Key takeaways

Well-executed integrated marketing can be transformative for

businesses, driving unprecedented efficiency and visibility that

brings teams closer together. NewsCred’s proprietary ADEPT

methodology and companion Integrated Marketing Maturity

Index can help you benchmark your organization’s marketing

governance, processes, and operations — all with the ultimate

goal of increasing marketing performance.

Here’s a summary of the tactical recommendations that

surround the eight milestones of integrated marketing. These

recommendations were designed to provide marketing leaders

with practical change management tactics and actionable

strategies for increasing an organization’s integrated marketing

maturity. The roadblocks to execution are often people-related —

fostering a true culture of collaboration (not competition) is really

key to successful integrated marketing.

NewsCred predicts that investing in integrated marketing now

will give brands first-to-market advantage and that boosting

operational efficiency will become a valuable KPI for marketing

teams. We encourage marketing leaders to break down silos,

support agile teams, and embrace true collaboration — ultimately

unifying both marketing and the customer journey.

Here’s your roadmap to a more-efficient and better-performing integrated marketing organization.


INTEGR ATED MARK E TING MILE S TONE 1

Executive Mandate and Cross-

Functional Buy-in

+ Develop a marketing operations SWOT

+ Launch a stakeholder engagement survey

+ Follow up with a stakeholder workshop


Collaborative planning model

+ Develop a campaign brief

+ Build a content playbook of best practices


Documented taxonomy

+ Create a shared marketing taxonomy

+ Inventory your shared data inputs


Holistic workflows

+ Develop workflows for each asset type


Integrated Technology Stack

+ Conduct a centralized marketing

technology audit

+ Configure data for operational

efficiency reporting



+ Develop a governance model

+ Establish roles and responsibilities

+ Establish a global-local strategy

+ Build and enforce guidelines


Asset utilization and localization

+ Create a central asset library (utilizing

the standardized labeling strategy)

+ Audit existing content and assets


Execution at scale

+ Benchmark for operational efficiency


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The Integrated Marketing Organization - NewsCred · what’s really holding marketing organizations back from being fully integrated, explain how our benchmarking tool and methodology