This article will introduce you to the essentials you need to know australia whatsapp number data 5 million about distributed marketing. We will define distributed marketing, present its main advantages and the steps to follow to implement it within your organization.
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Summary
What is distributed marketing?
What are the benefits of distributed marketing?
Key steps to successfully implementing distributed marketing
Which tool to choose?
Success story: Canopé Network and Actito
What is distributed marketing?
Distributed marketing consists of decentralizing the marketing strategy of a network company by offering more decision-making and operational room for maneuver to local teams . Distributed marketing is decentralized marketing.
Distributed marketing is distinguished from traditional marketing organizations characterized by total control of initiatives by headquarters. It contrasts the hierarchy of traditional organizations with a more horizontal model .
This organizational model is based on the idea that each local market has distinct characteristics , whether cultural preferences, specific purchasing behaviors, more or less significant local competition, etc.
Distributed marketing seeks to capitalize on these differences by allowing field teams, points of sale, stores, subsidiaries, branches, franchises to adapt the marketing strategies defined by headquarters to the needs and particularities of their environment.
In principle, distributed marketing can be compared to decentralization in politics, which aims to give more power to regions, departments and municipalities, or to the concept of “ glocal ” which consists, for a multinational, of adapting its strategy according to the different national markets.
What are the benefits of distributed marketing?
The benefits of distributed marketing can be summarized in 4 key words.
Autonomy
The main effect of distributed marketing is to make local teams more autonomous in their marketing actions. This mode of organization offers more freedom to teams in designing campaigns based on the principle that they know the market better than the teams at headquarters.
The autonomy given to local teams helps to stimulate creativity : field teams are no longer limited by a “one-size-fits-all” approach dictated by headquarters. Distributed marketing gives teams the opportunity to experiment with innovative marketing approaches, tailored to their audience.
This liberation of creativity that team autonomy makes possible often leads to more authentic and engaging marketing strategies that are supposed to resonate better with local customers.
Autonomy is both the main characteristic and the main advantage of the distributed approach to marketing.
Personalization
Distributed marketing allows marketing campaigns and operations to be personalized to best meet the specific needs of local consumers.
So, distributed marketing is both an advantage for local teams, which it frees up, and for customers who are approached in a more personalized way.
Personalization can be achieved, for example, by setting up email campaigns celebrating a local event or a holiday specific to a given territory.
Distributed marketing makes it possible to adapt the content of communications, offers and solicitations according to local specificities.
That said, a personalized marketing strategy at the local level is not necessarily the result of distributed marketing. A company that has its central marketing department manage personalized Facebook campaigns based on the geographic area of its audiences is not doing distributed marketing.
The fundamental principle of distributed marketing is the decentralization of marketing initiatives to local teams.
Proximity
Proximity is a fundamental value for consumers. Distributed marketing allows for the deployment of proximity marketing , for the reasons mentioned above: the content of the campaigns, or even the choice of deploying a particular campaign, are no longer defined by the company's distant headquarters but by local teams who know the characteristics and preferences of local customers.
Distributed marketing brings the place of decision-making closer to consumers.
Harmonization
Distributed marketing is not an anarchic system where each local team, each subsidiary, each franchise, each point of sale would define in its corner its objectives and its means of communication. Autonomy is not independence .
The art of distributed marketing is to give local teams some freedom while controlling the consistency of marketing initiatives at the global level. This consistency, this harmony of marketing practices, is essential to preserve brand identity.
Beyond personalization, messages and campaigns should reflect the company's core values, brand identity and overall goals.
To ensure this harmonization of marketing practices beyond local differences, brands often put in place guidelines, charters and use centralized marketing solutions containing content libraries and locally adaptable templates.
Using templates (emails, for example) provides flexibility to local teams in creating content while ensuring that each communication respects brand standards and identity .
Distributed marketing is the art of achieving a skillful balance between local autonomy and headquarters control.
Key steps to successfully implementing distributed marketing
Let’s move from the why to the how. Here, in broad strokes, are the steps to follow to implement distributed marketing within an organization.
1 - Define the strategy
The first step should not surprise you, it is the classic step with which any project begins: defining the objectives and the strategy:
Why do you want to deploy distributed marketing?
What type of distributed marketing?
It’s about defining the company’s long-term goals and how distributed marketing can help achieve them. These goals could be increasing brand awareness, improving customer engagement, driving sales in specific markets… Goals need to be formulated and prioritized.
Then, there are several ways to implement distributed marketing and this is a topic that should be addressed at the beginning of the project. There are actually two questions to address:
How much autonomy should be granted to local teams, where should the cursor be placed between autonomy and control?
What tools and processes should be used to facilitate communication between the local and central levels?
Finally, we recommend that you think from the outset about the performance management system that will allow you to measure the impact of your distributed marketing strategy.
2 - Segment the data
Data segmentation involves identifying the different local market segments that the company is targeting. What are the local customer groups that you are targeting? The inhabitants of a particular city, urban area, department, administrative or cultural region?
You need to define the territories and scales at which marketing will be decentralized.
This is the same exercise as segmenting customers based on socio-demographic or behavioral criteria. The difference here is that the criterion used is entirely geographic and must take into account the organization of the company.
Indeed, segmentation choices are partly determined by the organization of the company, its network of points of sale, and its geographical location.
3 - Create the work tools
Using common marketing tools is the best way to ensure harmonization of marketing practices in a distributed marketing context. Most of the time, marketing tools remain centralized .
If you don't have the right marketing tools, you'll need to consider implementing new tools. The most important criterion is to choose tools that offer advanced features in terms of rights and access management .
The implementation of distributed marketing then involves the design of a certain number of templates, the creation of content libraries and the implementation of dashboards.
Templates are models of messages, designs , and formatting that help ensure consistency (visual, in particular) regardless of the campaigns. The same goes for content libraries , which can include image banks, video banks, editorial charters, sample texts, slogans, guides, case studies, technical sheets, etc.
Dashboards allow you to measure the performance of marketing campaigns at a global and local level .
In a distributed marketing logic, it is necessary to set up at least two levels of dashboards :
Dashboards for local teams to help them track the performance of their campaigns.
A dashboard for headquarters or top management providing an overview of the performance of marketing actions and comparing the performance of different territories.
4 - Define the roles and access of each person (central vs local)
Distributed marketing is a political choice. Should local teams be given a high level of freedom or should headquarters maintain a high level of control?
Autonomy does not exclude control . The best solution is usually to choose a middle ground between complete autonomy and rigid control: headquarters defines the broad outlines of the strategy and provides the tools, local teams can be responsible for designing and executing campaigns specific to their local implementation.
This is a whole set of questions that you will have to answer: Who does what? Who checks? Who decides? Who can create content, who must validate it, who must publish it? Who manages reporting? How do the central and local levels work together in decision-making and execution?
These choices are eminently political . Once made, they must be transcribed into a clear distribution of roles and access.
As we saw above, it is essential to choose tools (like Actito) that allow you to finely manage the rights (reading and writing) as well as the accesses of the different users.
Beyond production and reporting tools, it is important to identify collaborative tools that will be used to facilitate communication between teams and between levels (headquarters/local).
5 - Train local teams
Distributed marketing has the characteristic of entrusting greater autonomy and responsibility to local teams in the definition and design of marketing actions.
It is the local teams that are the main actors and facilitators of the distributed marketing strategy. It is therefore important to train them well in this new role, in this new state of mind that the company wishes to disseminate.
Training should include all the elements that will enable distributed marketing to work:
A detailed presentation of the strategy that the company wishes to implement.
A clear definition of roles and responsibilities.
Training on the tools that will be used by local teams to manage campaigns (use of templates, etc.), reporting (use of dashboards, etc.), communication with headquarters.
A presentation of the target processes, rules, design method, production and supervision of local campaigns.
6 - Analyze the results and monitor the budget
It is important to closely monitor the results obtained through the decentralization of marketing initiatives. How are local campaigns performing? What is the impact on the budget of the new organization? What is the return on investment?
Measuring results is essential . It allows you to measure the effectiveness of distributed marketing, identify areas for improvement and adjust the strategy accordingly. We also recommend thinking about the indicators and dashboards to use right from the project framing phase.
Which tool to choose?
Choosing the right tool is essential to successfully orchestrating distributed marketing strategies.
Actito presents itself as a preferred solution for companies wishing to have a powerful, flexible and intuitive tool. Actito's optional Distributed Marketing module gives you access to a new interface, called DMA (Distributed Marketing Application).
With this specific application, you can delegate the sending of campaigns to local operators (point of sale managers, club, workshop, etc.) who know their customers very well, since they are in direct interaction with them. These campaigns are based on preparation by your central teams who will have determined the identity aspects of the brand, the fixed or customizable components of the content and the targets to address.
This optional Distributed Marketing module therefore allows you to minimize content and targeting errors when sending your campaigns (especially when your local teams have an extensive network, with local marketing teams having little time to devote and being inexperienced in preparing campaigns).
