In this issue of the Journal of DAM — Volume 4, Number 4, we bring you a series of interviews led by Michael Moon on the topic of Marketing Operations, covering recent innovations in the field due to shifts in the marketing supply chain and the growing complexities of marketing measurement and customer relationship management.

Many of these innovations stem from higher levels of participation from consumers and the increased transparency available to investors, due to both social media and Web 2.0 technologies. As Gary Katz points out, “Web 2.0 may create some uplift in two-way communication, but it also contributes to increased liability exposure.”

In this issue’s installment of Cycle Time, Michael Moon presents an excerpt from his recent Henry Stewart DAM/MOM Symposium presentation, on the topic of what he refers to as the demise of the “Marketing Procedural.” As he defines it, a Marketing Procedural is the historical manner of executing a marketing operation — which implodes on contact with the new digital self-service world — a theme that runs through many of the interviews following.…

Beth Weesner and Shawn Mielke, Principals with Marketing Transformation Services, speak with us on the transformation of the role of the CMO within the new marketing agency; Subhankar Bhattacharya, Principal of Media and Entertainment for HCL America, discusses the increasing urgency of producing relevant content quickly, due to consumer attention span; Gary Katz, Principal for CommPros Group, contributes more insights into the new role of the CMO; Laura Patterson, Principal for Vision Edge Marketing, makes the case for the power of web analytics; and finally, Inna Proshkina, Marketing Director for InvisibleCRM, brings us some perspective on how a CRM platform can achieve the user adoption necessary to effectively leverage these analytics for the marketing organization.

What is the new role of the CMO in today's complex marketing landscape? Beth Weesner and Shawn Mielke address the challenges presented by today's self-directed consumers. As Michael Moon states, “the notion of a self-directed consumer and how you market to them has fundamentally forced marketers into thinking in terms of a 360-degree engagement model.” The new CMO needs to be more tech-savvy and grounded in analytics in order to deal with disruptive social media technologies.

As marketing organizations have begun to migrate value out of the traditional agency and service provider network, into their own operations, how has the web accelerated that migration of value? We spoke with Subhankar Bhattacharya on the current and future state of marketing for the entertainment industry. As the content lifecycle shortens due to speeded-up consumer attention spans, there is a complex media mix required to keep up with the increased need to produce more and more relevant content.

Web 2.0 amplifies and reinforces a shift from selling to naïve prospects to building trusted relationships with savvy customers. How can a CMO best manage this transition? According to Gary Katz, the ideal CMO will bring to the table a range of skills spanning vendor management, financial analytics, project management and, overall, the ability to map processes and capture best practices.

How can predictive models enable an enterprise to calculate the ROI of their marketing efforts? We spoke with Laura Patterson on the importance of web-powered real-time analytics, whereas historically a rear-view mirror approach to analytics was the only possibility. Laura advocates the use of real-time analytics to track and monitor marketing activities to enable marketing agencies and CMOs to take a forward-looking view at their ROI measurements.

Marketing automation — including CRM systems — are a key tool necessary to generate the real-time analytics needed for marketers to move into forward-looking ROI calculations. How can we ensure that marketers will be effective users of CRM systems? Inna Proshkina spoke to us in detail on the challenges of CRM user adoption, and how InvisibleCRM has structured its technology to meet those challenges.

Thanks for joining us! In our next issue, we’ll cover business process management: featuring interviews with Skiff Wager of SEW Consulting, Italio Ghalimi of Intalio, Ed Sullivan of Aria Systems, Bill Sheeran of Clearstory, Mike Beckerle of Oco, Peter Gallagher of Deloitte Consulting and more!