Are you looking for a tool that offers marketing planning and budget management? Do you want to be able to manage campaigns and professionalize project management in marketing? Is a central platform for performance measurement on your wish list, too?
Marketing Resource Management software gives you precisely these features – and more.
But the individual MRM providers can differ significantly.
So how do you know which software is right for your business?
We have compared two of the most popular Marketing Resource Management platforms with a strong focus towards budget & spend management to provide you with an overview. We also show you which general aspects to take into account when purchasing MRM software.
Marketing Resource Management Software: What to Consider
Today, companies searching for a project management tool or marketing resource management solution will quickly find numerous options. Independent research firms and platforms like Capterra offer comprehensive software listings, giving companies an initial overview of the range of functions and quality of the tools.
As more businesses lean into free software discovery platforms, they’re finding that when it comes to buying software, it’s not a case of one size fits all.
There are many aspects to consider, such as software evaluation scorecards, before committing to a Marketing Resource Management tool.
Budgeting Made Easy
In an era where software vendors pay keen attention to details, stop wasting time on error-prone spreadsheets.
Instead, manage global budgets and keep on top of your marketing budget with our all-in-one cloud-based software designed for resource management.
Create, manage, and plan budgets, set spending limits, and break them down into allocations for marketing campaigns, channels, and much more.
Automate Forecasts
Generate automated forecasts using predictive analytics presentation tools to see trends at a glance.
Determine if you’re overspending or underspending.
View estimates vs. actuals and let MARMIND, a top-tier management software, calculate the remaining budgets for you.
💡 Tracking features like ROI give you an understanding of where every dollar in your marketing budget goes without diving deep into spreadsheets.
Manage Global Budgets and Spend
With the need to optimize resources and improve speed to market, create multiple budget planning areas using our project management tool. Consolidate and collaborate on global budgets across your organization. Use different currencies, budget groups, and spend types and create seamless workflows to improve your marketing operations and budgeting process.
Software customization
When evaluating software vendors, first you need to do is to find out whether it is possible to customize the software according to evolving business needs.
Customization ensures that you have the flexibility to add additional features later on.
It is, however, also important to ensure that the standard version of the product already provides all the main features you need. That way, not too much customization is needed to meet your requirements. Some MRM solutions involve a great deal of development work from the beginning, meaning that each customer receives an individual solution that is very different from the standard version.
MARMIND is known for its very high level of configurability.
That means that the platform can easily be adapted to a company’s individual requirements without the need for extra development work. Customers can therefore work with the standard solution while still benefiting from customization – without missing out on the advantages of on-going product updates.
Based on these tailoring options built on standard software, MARMIND is more what one would understand as a solution provider than a classic software vendor.
Workflows and Processes
Process optimization is often the key to success in a larger marketing team – and this becomes particularly clear when Marketing Resource Management software is introduced. Efficient resource management simply isn’t possible with chaotic processes.
So, choosing a provider that can also support you in process optimization saves a great deal of time in the long run. Especially the control processes and data workflows between an MRM solution and the financial / ERP systems in place are some of the key aspects of managing marketing budget & spend in real time.
Consulting Services
Professional services like consulting not only help with process optimization but can also provide support for change management.
Software is only ever as good as the person using it.
Choosing a provider with experience in the field of user adoption can help you inspire your colleagues when it comes to using the new software, as well as integrating it in the right way into your existing MarTech stack and future architecture.
Another tip is to take a look at the provider’s own network. Companies with a good network of technology and implementation partners benefit from their partners’ expertise, making them a particularly good source of support when setting up your tools.
Integrations
For enterprise marketers (and not only), integrations are an essential part of any Marketing Resource Management solution. After all, the aim is to create seamless workflows making your marketing processes more efficient, and an important aspect of this is integrating other solutions.
For example, connecting your ERP system to seamlessly transfer budget and cost data to your MRM system.
👉🏻 But that’s not all: Whether marketing automation, social media management, or analytics – the right MRM software allows you to integrate all sorts of different tools, acting as an online hub for effectively manage your marketing.
Pricing
The pricing models of some software are still based on the number of users, while other providers already make use of value-based pricing models that are not affected by the number of users/licenses.
Instead, these models draw on factors such as the number of organizational units to make pricing more transparent, which helps to extend the use of the Marketing Resource Management solution throughout more departments and complimentary user groups besides pure Marketing. Make sure to ask about the pricing model before you make a decision. That way, you avoid any unpleasant surprises later on.
💡 Going through software comparison pages and collecting user reviews can offer additional insights.
Are you interested in learning more about marketing planning and budget management? Read our blog, an invaluable mine of great resources.
Allocadia vs. MARMIND: Feature Comparison
Do you want to say goodbye to Excel sheets and PowerPoint presentations in marketing? Well, Marketing Resource Management solutions were developed to resolve exactly this issue. ✔️
Allocadia (part of the Brandmaker Group of Companies) and MARMIND are two of the most well-known MRM providers on the market.
Allocadia specializes only in Budget & Spend Management within the Marketing space, and it’s a rather capsuled solution. It is not really offering an overall Marketing Resource Management service.
MARMIND, however, is offering a complete MRM system.
It follows a more comprehensive approach and focuses on optimizing all processes and workflows around planning, budgeting & spend, and performance measurement. The platform also offers all essential features for efficiently managing campaigns as well as for content and digital asset management.
Overall, MARMIND offers a fully-equipped Marketing Cockpit to be able to steer the customer’s marketing as efficient and effective as possible – In real time, which is pivotal in current market conditions!
A Marketing Resource Management solution is defined as a “suite of tools that enables marketers to manage planning and budgeting, project and program management, collaboration and calendaring, content production, asset management, and performance analytics” – by Forrester’s definition in the recently published NowTech Report for Q1, 2022.
PLANS
Keep on top of your marketing activities with an interactive marketing plan.
BUDGETS
Plan and manage your marketing spend from start to finish.
RESULTS
Monitor and track campaign performance across channels, keeping an eye on the overall rating and ROI tracking.
Our feature comparison below reveals the exact differences between the solutions:
| Allocadia | MARMIND | |
|---|---|---|
| Strategic planning | ||
| Marketing calendar (GANTT) | ||
| Campaign planning | ||