The headline caught my eye: “Marketing as a Service: A New B2B Marketing Model” because David James Agency has been around for the last eight years providing marketing services, and certainly agencies have been around longer than that providing marketing services.
The concept has been spawned by UBM, the publisher behind many leading electronics publications. They are promoting a new best practices whitepaper (PDF download, registration required), on the topic. The premise is that marketing is harder now with new skill sets needed for lead generation, analytics, content marketing, community building and other Web 2.0 programs for marketing. From the UBM blog:
As marketing goes through its biggest revolution in the last 75+ years, the laws of physics – reach and frequency, branding and call to action – have been upended. A new “mash-up” of lead generation & nurturing, content marketing, social engagement and analytics is creating a new era in marketing. Marketing as a one-way broadcast model, done in a series of campaigns simply doesn’t work anymore. Successful marketing today requires a content-centric, conversational approach that engages and sustains a community of prospects, customers and influencers.
The solution is to augment internal marketing teams with both external experts (like DJA) and a new class of editorial community.
Modeled on the Software as a Service paradigm, this go-to-market approach fuses quality content, engaged audiences, user experience, and business analytics with the latest digital technologies to cost-effectively deliver sustainable marketing programs.
Once a brand has engaged prospects and customers with a compelling story, this “community” needs to be sustained and nurtured. This shifts B2B marketing from a project and campaign orientation to marketing as an ongoing service – integrating on and off line.
What exactly is Marketing as a Service (MaaS)? Marketing as a Service is a rapidly-emerging model for B2B marketers to accelerate their time to market, rapidly scale resources and deliver accountable ROI. Modeled on the Software as a Service paradigm, this go-to-market approach fuses quality content, engaged audiences, user experience, and business analytics with the latest digital technologies to cost-effectively deliver sustainable marketing programs.
An example of MaaS can be found through advanced, integrated editorial communities (www.internetevolution.com, http://www.enterpriseefficiency.com/, www.allanalytics.com ) we are delivering via MaaS with companies like IBM, Dell and SAS. MaaS is being applied through the many integrated, virtual environments and online events we host. And, it can also be seen with advanced work on revenue-driven marketing and marketing automation initiatives. Here is a very recent post on the different phases in this marketing journey to illustrate the shift in varying needs: Technology Marketers Journey Through Automation-dom).