Marketers in all types of enterprises are facing growing pressures to improve marketing productivity. CEO's are demanding that marketers develop and execute programs that drive revenue growth, streamline marketing operations to eliminate waste, decrease cycle times, reduce costs, and demonstrate the economic return generated by every marketing investment.

These demands for greater marketing accountability have become more insistent just as the marketing environment has become more complex. Digital technologies have created new marketing channels and enabled marketing techniques that would have been impossible only a few years ago. But, today's marketers also face a daunting array of challenges:

• The explosion of marketing content—The proliferation of marketing channels and techniques has caused the volume of marketing content (and the number of marketing assets) to increase exponentially.

• The need for greater marketing customization—Prospects and customers now have easy access to a wealth of online information, and they are choosing when and how they will access information about potential purchases. In addition, the environment is filled with advertising and marketing messages. In these circumstances, marketers must create and deliver highly customized messages and materials to create effective engagement, while simultaneously maintaining control of the brand.

• The growth of cross-channel communications—Prospects and customers now want to interact with enterprises through a variety of communications channels, and they expect companies to speak with a consistent voice across all channels. Managing true cross-channel communications has become a basic requirement for effective marketing.

Enterprises that operate globally face even greater complexity as they must deal with multiple languages, distinctive cultural characteristics, and diverse legal and regulatory requirements.

Many marketers have turned to technology to improve marketing productivity and help manage increased marketing complexity. Over the past two decades, many companies have implemented some or all of the following marketing technologies:

• Digital asset management
• Marketing campaign management
• Marketing analytics
• Enterprise content management
• Personalization/document customization
• Marketing asset management
• Marketing resource management

These technologies have enabled marketers to drive significant improvements in productivity within defined functional areas. But in many companies, they remain unconnected "islands of technology." The next major advance in marketing productivity will require an integrated suite of technology tools that enable marketers to mange the full breadth and scope of the marketing function.

At ADAM Software, we call this integrated suite of technological capabilities a marketing execution platform, and we are now seeing the outlines of this solution emerge. In future posts, I'll describe the business challenges that are driving the need for marketing execution platforms and the benefits they can provide.

Jan Dejosse, CMO - ADAM Software