At inRiver we are preparing for a major release that will
contain something that we believe will change how the industry looks at
product information management in the future. In an earlier blogpost I talked
about the challenges of designing an efficient workflow and why we need to
focus on efficiency and automation in the marketing process. The new
module, inRiver Campaign Planner, is a very good example of how useful a
workflow engine can be as part of the marketer’s daily work.
For many companies, the campaign is one of the most
important tools to drive cross-channel performance. However, cross-channel
campaign management can be a huge challenge as it is very hard to plan and
follow up on all activities in all channels and markets. This is especially the
case for retailers that often have campaigns that must be consistent across many
different channels like direct mail, newspaper adverts, eCommerce and in-store displays.
If the campaigns are multi-market, they must also manage the translation
process, and keeping track of all translations can be quite a challenge on its
own.
inRiver Campaign Planner creates a single marketing view of
all campaign activities and the progress of the production of all campaign-related
material. It eliminates many of the workflow inefficiencies around cross-channel
campaign planning and -execution. Execution
is really the key word here, because the real value is always created in the
execution, and not in the planning. As inRiver owns and controls the
information that goes out to all on- and off-line channels, the production
process becomes more efficient, and the distribution to all channels can be
automated. Campaign Planner does not only help to plan campaigns, it will
execute or automate all activities as well. A dashboard (see screenshot) gives
an overview of the progress and puts the marketeer in full control of all
ongoing activities.
It would be very hard to achieve all this with a typical stand-alone
campaign planning tool, as it does not have control and ownership of the
information that makes up the campaign - e.g. products, banners, images, videos
and print originals. Besides bringing a whole new capability to the inRiver
platform, Campaign planner is also the first of many new vertical app clients that
sports a completely new user interface design. inRiver Campaign Planner will be
released on June 9th together with inRiver 5.4.
