The effective balancing of marketing resources within middle-sized and enterprise organisations is a daunting task. According to recent research, on average organisations restructure their marketing resources every 2.5 years often with little or no gain. Such restructuring causes numerous headaches for entire departments and often creates more problems than it was meant to solve.
So, should marketing resources be centralised or decentralised? The major reason that restructuring efforts tend to be sub-optimal is due to the fact that the majority of businesses lay the foundations of their restructuring strategy on this dilemma. The bigger and more globally dispersed an organisation is, the more often this question arises.
Centralise or Decentralise? Is there a third option?
One sustainable way to go about the effective management of resources is for organisations to explore the sustainability of a demand centre.
According to Sirius Decisions definition, a demand centre is a hub of shared marketing services, infrastructure and processes, designed to enable organisations to bring programs to market by leveraging key corporate assets and best practices.
Although the concept is relatively new within the marketing ecosystem, it is quickly becoming a key organisational component for elevating marketing performance by driving consistent, repeatable and scalable demand creation efforts.
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5 Ways Your Organisation Can Benefit from a Demand Centre
Marketers working within middle-sized to large enterprises are often faced with the challenge of proving the ROI of marketing efforts. Unfortunately to this day, marketing is rarely viewed as a growth driver within an organisation.
A well planned and implemented demand centre approach can change this view and demonstrate the difference between a marketing strategy that drives revenue, and one that doesn’t.
Here are five reasons why your organisation will benefit from a demand centre:
#1: Marketing mix evolution
By 2015, inbound marketing will become the go-to marketing approach for organisations with a demand centre. For organisations without one, outbound will remain the number one marketing strategy. SiriusDecisions estimates that by 2015, more than 70% of leads will come from inbound marketing and a demand centre model will enable organisations to rapidly embrace digital marketing and respond to the changing buyer behaviours.
#2: Content optimisation
One of the biggest benefits of a demand centre is the centralisation of content collateral in one place. This enables organisations with decentralised offices to benefit from a vast content asset library. According to recent estimates, organisations without a demand centre must locally create 61% more content than organisations with a demand centre.
#3: Field marketing optimisation
When production of universal marketing collateral such as product datasheets, presentations etc. are centralised in a single hub, local marketers can focus on areas of increasing importance (e.g. pipeline acceleration, local account-based strategies etc.). This optimises the work of field marketers and enables them to create more regionally focused campaigns and accelerate growth.
#4: Keeps the Focus on Lead Progression
Having a demand centre keeps marketers throughout the enterprise focused on the pipeline. The demand centre’s primary purpose is to support those tasked with creating targeted campaigns for focused market segments and channel partners by optimising lead management through each stage of the funnel. Demand centre team members effectively manage the transition of leads from marketing to sales and directly impact revenue by providing the following services:
Campaign measurement
Content planning
Data management, analysis and analytics
Lead handover management
Call centre management for lead qualification
Inbound marketing planning and operation
#5: Continuously Improves Processes
Real-time visibility into campaign results helps marketers enhance their testing strategy, utilise automation technologies to their full potential and refine best practices.
Key to success is sharing learning’s across the entire enterprise to assure universal adoption. Creating a library of learnings that all stakeholders can access assures continuous improvement and the optimisation of all activities related to lead progression, velocity, and sales-readiness.
Adopting a demand centre approach will significantly improve the work of regional marketers, drive growth and improve processes across the entire organisation. Although a demand centre model can deliver significant benefits for organisations, there is not a one-size-fits-all implementation approach. For this reason organisations may also consider the implementation of regional demand centres (utilising regional in-house resources) or a virtual demand centre (utilising a mix of internal and external competence and resources) aligned with the existing structure, needs and business goals of the organisation.
Do you already have a demand center? If so, how has your organisation structured it, and what challenges and benefits are you seeing? I would love to hear your experiences!
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