The Integrated Marketing Organization

The Integrated
Marketing
Organization
How to Lower Content Waste,
Increase Collaboration, and
Turbocharge Performance
Illustrations by Laura Beckman

ING CONTENT.
PERFORM-
BETTER-
CREATE
BETTER
TEAMS
The Integrated Marketing Organization: A Complete Guide to Building Higher-Performing Teams insights.newscred.com
Introduction
Why invest in “integrated marketing” now?

Isn’t it just a buzzword that’s been around
for years? When we say there’s a critical
mandate for building an integrated
marketing organization, it boils down to
increasing operational efficiency, increasing
collaboration, and increasing performance.
A quick survey of the landscape paints a bleak picture: the

old established marketing models have broken-down, there’s
mounting revenue pressure and scrutiny on marketing
investments, and there’s a laser focus on minimizing risks
and maintaining security, especially in the new era of GDPR.
The diversity of customers and markets, alongside the

explosion of channels, content and products, makes it hard
to develop targeted and relevant messages. And among
enterprise organizations, there is also an alarming trend of
decreasing budgets and siloed, inefficient work practices.
It’s time to integrate marketing. Because the budgets are

high and the stakes even higher.
The struggle
is real
45
45% of marketers feel they lack the
necessary talent, technology, and
processes to master omni-channel
%
brand marketing
CMO Council
31
Integrated campaigns
are 31% more effective
at building brands
%
Kantar MillwardBrown
10
Just 10% of organizations
rate themselves as
“advanced” in operations
%
25
SiriusDecisions
%
Only 25% of CMOs’ digital media investment
reaches target audiences, representing
more than $20 billion of marketing waste,
inefficiency and ineffectiveness
Association of National Advertisers
About this guide
As integrated marketing is incredibly complex and

nuanced, this ebook uses a proven framework to help
guide — rather than prescribe — how brands can define
(or redefine) their marketing organizations. We’ll explore
what’s really holding marketing organizations back from
being fully integrated, explain how our benchmarking
tool and methodology can evaluate your organization,
and offer actionable recommendations for improvement.
This paper is geared for both executives and marketing leaders

who want to meet those challenges head on, ready to finally bust
down organizational silos and improve their programs.
You’ll learn
++ How to build a case for integrated marketing
++ The symptoms of a poorly-integrated marketing organization
++ How to conduct an integrated marketing maturity self-assessment
++ The key stages of integrated marketing maturity
++ The ADEPT Methodology for effective integrated marketing
++ How to build an integrated marketing measurement framework
The case for
integrated marketing
Integrated Integrated marketing is the process Why invest in integrated marketing?

of unifying the marketing organization
Marketing: The ++ Improve operational effectiveness
to deliver a consistent and relevant and efficiency across the marketing
What and Why content experience to their audience organization
across all channels.
++ Break down silos and encourage
The case for delivering a powerful, collaboration and efficiency
unified customer experience is clear.
++ Champion omnichannel marketing in
A Gartner study found that campaigns
the client organization
integrating four or more digital
channels will outperform single- or ++ Position content as an asset that
dual-channel campaigns by 300% should be managed like all business IP
from a performance perspective.
++ Adopt a more strategic and
And when it comes to brand building,
sophisticated approach to enterprise
the global research company Kantar
marketing
Millward Brown found that integrated
campaigns are 31% more effective ++ Support the creation of a seamless
than un-integrated ones. and consistent customer experience
The integrated marketing approach Well-executed marketing operations

is also the key to marketing and integrated planning will bring
departments transitioning from teams together, drive unprecedented
cost centers to profit centers. By efficiency, and transform businesses.
working better together, marketing
departments both drive performance Ultimately, the brands that embrace
and increase operational efficiency. integrated marketing — possible
more than ever with technology — will
be the most successful. As a result,
operational efficiency will become part
of the executive mandate for marketing
leaders.
The symptoms
of inaction
Still not convinced that building ++ Duplication of efforts leading to content waste
an integrated marketing ++ Role confusion leading to a lack of accountability
organization will improve ++ Business goals are not aligned to your marketing
investments
performance? Here are some
++ Collaborative efforts are not being supported by
of the signs your organization
your technology setup
is failing to integrate.
++ No central place to store or access content
++ The marketing end-to-end process is not visible
++ Delays in deployment and publishing
++ Fragmented or disjointed customer journey
As a byproduct of competing priorities and pressure

to be first to market, most enterprises suffer
from one or more of these symptoms. Even teams
proactively trying to solve these issues often
have difficulty getting traction because of deeply
ingrained organizational silos.
Let’s reflect on why silos are so common (but also so

commonly despised).
A brief history
of silos
Many marketing teams were structured around These modern (read: siloed) marketing teams are not
specific channels. The rise of “digital marketing” set up for integrated marketing success. There are
fragmented not only the agency landscape but so many situations where internal teams inherently
the marketing function. Back in the day, we had a clash, including competition for budgets, attribution,
television and a newspaper, then we moved into the ideas and glory. There’s a belief that a culture of
digital era which saw us split teams between digital healthy competition fosters creative ideas, but the
and out-of-home channels. Mobile was separated “team of teams” model has repeatedly demonstrated
out (at least briefly) at many organizations, and paid that a culture of collaboration is more effective at
social media responsibilities often rest with yet producing creative results and also sets the team up
another team. for long term success.
Single channel Multichannel Omnichannel
If you are really serious We often make consumers the scapegoat for
the rise of ad blockers, low engagement rates,
about integrated
and falling profits when the real problem is the
marketing, your failure of legacy marketing operating models to
organization needs to support the modern customer journey.
shift from a culture of
Reclaim centralized oversight of the marketing
competition to a culture
function and full customer experience by
of collaboration. building out content operations within an
integrated marketing organization.
Siloed marketing teams
Team Technology Content Analytics
Introducing NewsCred’s
Integrated Marketing
Methodology
ADEPT and the Integrated
Marketing Maturity Index PRO -TIP
IMMI Assessment
To recap: integrated marketing is possible and A score of 50 is the average benchmark
necessary, and the teams that are relentless in for success; anything higher is closer to
the pursuit of this internal alignment are the ones mastery. Investing in the foundations of
that will succeed in an era of content velocity, ADEPT will help you get closer to the top.
global-local delivery, and omnichannel customer
expectations. Take the assessment g
But how do you know you’re doing it well? Or how

do you improve when you’re not doing it well? We
developed the Integrated Marketing Maturity Index
(IMMI) to help brands assess their operations and You may have some or all of the five ADEPT
governance proficiency. capabilities. The important thing is to document
and prioritize your gap areas, while understanding
This assessment tool was developed from third- this is not a linear model; you may have alignment
party analyst insights and over a decade of field and technology in place but slip in execution and
work with enterprise customers, combined with design, or vice versa. The idea is to ensure you’re
internal marketing and technical expertise. Using identifying both the areas of strengths and areas
IMMI, enterprise marketing leaders can assess for improvement across the ADEPT framework and
and benchmark their operational efficiency by begin to optimize accordingly.
answering a set of key criteria questions.
The IMMI tool is intended to serve as a leading
indicator to content operations success and how
effectively an organization is managing content.
The IMMI is based on the five core capabilities
of integrated marketing: alignment, design,
execution, process and technology (ADEPT)
A Alignment P Process
Evaluate your support from the top. It needs to go The process section delves into the workflows
beyond executive buy-in; you need (or need to be) that guide your marketing execution, specifically
an executive sponsor who will drive and champion how sophisticated and complete these workflows
change. This mandate includes creating cross- are and whether they are documented. Do your
functional buy-in, or integrated planning just isn’t workflows take into account different asset types,
possible. The marketing plan also needs to include approvals, compliance, and localization? Is there
adequate budget and time investment for the also a process for analyzing campaign and overall
project team. marketing performance?
D Design T Technology
Examine your planning model. Do you have a The technology criteria relate to whether your
direction-setting body to act as brand custodian? brand has adopted a secure and flexible planning
Are teams collaborating together to prioritize key technology solution for long-term collaboration that
themes across different marketing disciplines? Is includes automation intelligence. Is there a clear line
there a shared calendar view of all activities that of sight across content ideation, pitching, planning,
tie into key campaigns? And is there a documented production, publishing, distribution, optimization
marketing taxonomy and shared language? and measurement? Ultimately, technology should
help accelerate execution and build on desired team
E Execution behaviors such as collaboration and integrated
planning. This also includes flexible reporting on
This execution element looks at the rigor of
campaign, content, and operational performance.
following through on your plan, processes, and
guidelines. Is your team delivering on time and
at scale? Is there an adherence to best practices
relating to tagging assets appropriately to
metadata and taxonomy, auditing for relevancy and
redundancies? This includes identifying whether
your team is equipped to stand up marketing
operations and is trained on the functional
skills to execute successfully. Agile marketing
methodologies often come into play here.
Visualize your roadmap
with the Integrated
Marketing Maturity Curve
Your IMMI maturity score correlates to a point on NewsCred’s
Integrated Marketing Maturity Curve. The curve is a visualization
of the eight stages of integrated marketing maturity and gives us
both a way to benchmark and a blueprint for success. In terms of
maturity, there are eight key milestones for integrated marketing
which correlate to eight business value drivers:
8
Integrated Marketing Maturity Curve Execution
at scale
7
Asset
utilization
6
Empowered
5
governance
4 Integrated
3 technology stack
2 Holistic
1
workflows
Documented
Collaborative taxonomy
Executive
planning
mandate
The remainder of this
guide will provide detailed PRO -TIP
descriptions of the eight

Prioritization
milestones of integrated
There is no linear process for integrated
marketing success alongside
marketing maturity, because all organizations
practical recommendations are different. As marketing leaders and CMOs
to help improve your you’re best positioned to make the call on
organization’s integration, what gaps should be prioritized.
efficiency, and success.
Executive mandate and cross-functional buy-in Integrated tech stack
Facilitates cross-marketing collaboration Automates channel communications and

measurement
Collaborative planning
Streamlines marketing planning Empowered governance
Delivers strategic brand goals
Documented taxonomy
Ensures execution consistency Asset utilization + localization
Encourages marketing efficiency
Holistic workflows
Accelerates marketing output Execution at scale
Organizes marketing operations for growth
Integrated Marketing Milestone 1
Executive mandate and

cross-functional buy-in
First, ask whether there is alignment internally If you’re the executive, it’s about finding your
and whether there is buy-in to move towards champions and your cross-functional leaders who
integrated marketing. Because integrated will support you. And if you’re the champion, it’s
marketing requires breaking down silos and about finding like-minded peers and finding an
increased cooperation you need an executive executive who can help you drive this program.
sponsor and cross-functional cooperation. You In this milestone, you’re assembling your working
also need someone in a leadership role to drive group. This group then becomes the working group
the change in case there are obstacles along the tasked with uniting the marketing organization.
way. There is no world where integrated marketing
can be successful without executive support.
REC OMMENDATION NO. 1
Create a marketing operations SWOT analysis
At this stage it’s about alignment activities. One quick way to start a
conversation is to get together and do an integrated marketing SWOT
analysis, which of course stands for strengths, weaknesses, threats and
opportunities. This is a great exercise to start the conversation around
integrated marketing. Here are a couple of sample questions for your
situational analysis using the SWOT framework.
Strengths Opportunities
++ What are the strengths of your marketing ++ What could do be done today that isn’t being done?
operations? ++ What is missing in your marketing operations?
++ What capabilities, resources and talent are unique ++ What upcoming business changes will impact
to your team? operations?
++ What do internal and external stakeholders ++ Will these business changes affect you in a positive
perceive to be your operational strengths? manner?
Weaknesses Threats
++ What are the weaknesses in your marketing ++ What are the key obstacles in the overall marketing
operations and execution? organization?
++ What do other teams do better than you? ++ What might cause problems in the future? How?
++ What do internal and external stakeholders ++ What is happening outside of the organization that
perceive to be your weaknesses? might impact your operations?
Launch a stakeholder engagement survey
When it comes to the wider team, you can carry out an anonymous
survey to invite teams to provide their feedback to the working group.
You can use these sample questions or formulate your own — whatever
works for you. Then it’s about engaging with key stakeholders.
Stakeholder survey template
How to score What does your score mean?

0 Not doing it at all 0–10 Need to prioritize building a foundation for
1 Doing it, but not very well integrated marketing
2 Doing some of it but we need to improve
11–30 Core capabilities are there but need to take
3 We’re doing pretty well
gap areas to the next level
4 Doing this very well
5 We excel at this 31–50 Focus on advanced-level optimization
Score Marketing operations
Stakeholders from different departments, business units or markets are meeting regularly
/5
to help to validate key ideas, prioritize efforts, and assess performance and operations.
There is integrated planning in place to ensure there is one central view with coordination
/5
across teams.
There is a central bank or library for assets and this is being shared and repurposed
/5
across teams.
There are documented guidelines and policies, and this is understood and adhered to by
/5
people involved in the production process.
Performance is aligned to business goals and is monitored, analyzed and communicated

/5
on a regular basis.
There is clear line of sight across ideation, pitching, planning, production, publishing,
/5
distribution, optimization and measurement.
The production processes takes into account legal and other regulatory practices, and
/5
includes clear timeline and approvals.
Time and cost involved in creating assets is being measured and monitored to ensure
/5
operational efficiency.
/5 There is a shared language across teams with a documented glossary, taxonomy.
/5 There is a documented marketing strategy and/or playbook that everyone is using.
/ 50 f Total
Lead a stakeholder workshop PRO -TIP
Using the findings from your SWOT and stakeholder

Build executive support
survey, conduct a workshop session to outline the
Start by building a working group of
current state and future state of the organization.
like-minded peers, but it’s also critical
Here’s who needs to be involved:
to have the active support and
involvement of an executive capable
++ Anyone responsible for making decisions on
of cross-functional influence.
content
++ Range of people, from executives to those

executing on content
++ People who are potentially on the “editorial board” As the champion for integrated marketing, use
++ HR, PR, Marketing, Social, Lead Gen the session to communicate what the business
case is and communicate to the organization who
needs to be involved, what they have at stake and
You should walk away with some key priorities and
what the shared goals are.
an action plan. The objective of this workshop is
to also align key stakeholders and get their buy-in
Here are examples of what’s at stake:
on the process. An effective exercise would be a
stakeholder poll and/or interview asking them to ++ Siloed marketing can hurt your brand equity
assess how effectively they are managing content. and result in an inconsistent brand experience
for the customer
++ Fall behind other brands and competitors who

are advanced
++ Content and budget waste
++ Team confusion/people do not feel empowered

to do their jobs
Collaborative
planning model
Outlining a collaborative planning model gives your

working group (and everyone you share it with) a
tangible vision for how the company wants to coordinate
internally and work outside of silos. Teams need to map
this model out before they can put together processes
and formalize the roadmap with real workflows and
systems to ensure it’s happening.
Brief
The planning model should also help

Evaluation Creative
the team establish a cadence and
rationale for launching campaigns,
Lifecycle of an with consideration for investment
Integrated Marketing allocation and calendar frequency.
Campaign The working group should hold
planning sessions, whether weekly,
monthly, quarterly and/or annually, to
Production Channels
coordinate, plan and execute together.
Content
REC OMMENDATION NO. 1 REC OMMENDATION NO. 2
Develop an integrated Develop a content playbook of

campaign brief best practices
Start off with an integrated campaign brief. A playbook of best practices and guidelines
You can use the following questions to build can serve as a compass for the team
one out: throughout the execution process. Developing
the playbook itself helps to achieve alignment
++ What is the brand goal? and ensure consistency.
++ What is the business objective?

For global-local marketing, you should provide
++ How will you measure the success of the
best practices on localization — the process
campaign (must be measurable)?
of adapting content to better suit a local
++ Who are the target audience(s) for this market and its audience. This is more than
campaign? just translating content into another language
++ What is the budget and how is this or even changing references to be culturally
allocated? appropriate as this would come as standard
with translation.
++ What teams are involved in this
campaign?
++ What is the central campaign theme or

idea?
++ What are the key channels for

distribution, online and offline?
++ What target assets will be published as

part of this distribution?
++ What is the production workflow?
++ How did the campaign perform? What

lessons can you take for future planning?
Documented taxonomy
Don’t underestimate the role of a shared taxonomy in

facilitating marketing collaboration. If you’re at an enterprise
brand, executing a global-local strategy, working cross-
functionally, or managing a mature content marketing program,
you need a cohesive marketing taxonomy strategy across your
integrated planning, marketing calendar, and asset manager.
Establish a clearly defined language and labeling structure for

your marketing organization, and use the working group to put
PRO -TIP
governance in place to ensure it’s being used. This taxonomy
will help to foster cross-functional collaboration, understanding Warning signs
and breakdown silos organically. The universal language enables
There are clear signs of a
teams to work at a larger scale, streamlining processes for
poor marketing taxonomy
efficiency and fast-tracking outputs.
strategy. Are your teams
wasting time searching
The marketing taxonomy should support a shared understanding
for approved assets? Are
of the relationship between strategy elements like campaign
your content analytics not
themes, personas, and journey stages. As teams begin managing
easily segmented by target
an increasing number of cross-functional marketing programs
audience, format, or other key
and a growing library of content, consistent metadata is vital for
journey information?
accurate planning, organization, and measurement.
This integrated marketing maturity milestone is achieved when

everyone is tagging, labeling and filing assets and content
the same way. Start by prioritizing what areas to build shared
language around rather than tackling everything at once.
Documented taxonomy goes beyond shared language, it also
includes shared assets and shared data sources including
audience research and reporting.
Conduct discovery for your shared taxonomy
Conduct a preliminary brand review, including key stakeholder

interviews, website(s) review, and data/documentation review.
The objective is to work across teams to understand content
nomenclature, in order to create a shared language and
governance model for improved operational efficiency and
collaboration. Here are some key attributes:
++ Campaign themes
++ Business priorities
++ Brand values
++ Brand or content pillars
++ Audience segmentation
++ Customer stages
++ Markets
++ Formats
++ Team or business unit or market
Inventory shared data inputs
The key to breaking down silos is understanding the key

data outputs of each functional area — from market
research to reports. The problem is that much of this
data is stored in silos across disparate systems and often
analyzed using outdated attribution techniques that
ignore data from early in the journey.
Your inventory should start with identifying the collective

problems and requirements of the customer base along
with what data and insights are adding value to this
understanding, regardless of which audience segment or
business unit/team the data comes from.
Integration starts with effective identification of data and

how it can be shared across the organization. Some areas
you can look at are:
++ Market Research
++ Competitor Reports
++ Audience Demographics
++ Behavioral Insights
++ Customer Journeys
++ Organic vs. Paid Keywords
++ Campaign Results
Holistic workflows
Workflows are one of the most

under-scrutinized components of PRO -TIP
marketing operations. Building As your organization builds integrated

optimized workflows is a vital part marketing maturity, your workflows should
of integrated marketing because move from ad-hoc activities to more
sophisticated processes that take into
workflows provide clarity and
account different asset times, approvals
provide a way to standardize and global-local configurations.
an operational efficiency metric.
A workflow is a predetermined
process path specific to each task
as part of asset creation.
In the marketing world, established workflows can This milestone (“holistic workflows”) is about
be a key differentiator between top-performing ensuring that every asset, regardless if it’s a
content marketers and their less successful peers. social post or a video, has its own workflow. This
The CMI reports that “70% of the top-performing requires inventory of the asset production process:
B2B marketers rated their flow as excellent or very everything from ideation to sign off and approvals,
good, compared with 36% of the total sample, and taking into account the assets that need legal and
14% of the least successful.” compliance reviews.
Workflows encompass the steps that take you from The way workflows become holistic is by making
ideas to publication — they provide clear direction them centralized and agreed upon across functions.
for who needs to see each version and at which You might need different workflows for different
stage. Setting up a structured approach to content assets, campaigns, and projects.
processes and workflows will enable the team to
execute marketing on a streamlined, ongoing basis.
This can be particularly beneficial for clients who
operate in heavily regulated industries.
Develop workflows for each asset type
Create an inventory of all asset types your marketing

organization creates and then map the stages in the PRO -TIP
production cycle for each asset, prescribing checkpoints,
tasks and the ideal time required for completion. Brands in regulated
industries are increasingly
It’s critical to provide estimated elapsed time for each stage creating dedicated legal
so there is transparency on the duration it takes to create and regulatory teams with
the asset type. It’s helpful to outline roles and responsibilities the goal of rapid review of
throughout the whole execution process and including other time-sensitive marketing.
stakeholders and third parties such as agencies in the review.
Brief Write/create Strategy review Stakeholder review Publish
Asset type Which teams need to have Which teams need to have
sight/work on this type? sight/work on this type?
Infographics ++ Digital Marketing Translation is a third

++ Internal Comms party company
++ Legal
Example
++ Translation
Integrated
technology stack
Having an integrated technology stack is a sign of

maturity because it helps to automate your channel
communications and measurement and gives greater
overall visibility into marketing functions. The ideal
marketing tech stack supports both digital marketing
lead management and multichannel campaigns.
At this stage of maturity, there is Technology doesn’t deliver ROI —

normally already a commitment but when used correctly, the right
to integrating disparate tools technology helps marketers deliver
and technologies and removing ROI. The best thing a technology
redundancies. There are many free solution will ever do is make it easier
resources to help you assess new to achieve ROI on an effort that
technology vendors, but here are is powered by insights. Look for
some key questions to ask: technology that accelerates execution
and builds on desired team behaviors
++ Does your current technology like collaboration and integrated
tool and solutions support the planning.
integrated marketing efforts?
++ Do you have a technology solution

that offers clear line of sight into
operational activities?
++ Can you measure and report on all

aspects of the marketing cycle?
Conduct a marketing technology audit
This is a straightforward but surprisingly rare undertaking.

Do an audit of your organization’s tech stack and address any
redundancies. What’s the system of record for every team?
Does it allow you to integrate and invest in a system of record
that allows you to integrated your existing stack?
++ Content Management
++ Client Relationship Management
++ EDM and Marketing Automation
++ Event Management
++ Governance and Protection
++ E-Servicing
++ Measurement and Optimization
Configure data for operational efficiency reporting
To track operational efficiency, make sure your technology stack is configured

for reporting across three categories of metrics: input, output and performance.
Measuring integrated marketing efforts is about monitoring the relationship
between these metrics. The gold standard is to reduce both inputs and outputs
while increasing performance through integrated marketing.
Input Output Performance
The input is the effort that Output is everything Performance is the

goes into the production relating to the delivery or degree these variables
of all of your assets production of those assets are driving success
++ Average time to produce ++ Assets created vs assets ++ Pageviews

each asset published ++ Engagement rate
++ Average time to complete ++ Percentage of assets ++ Conversion rate
production stage completed on time
++ Leads generated
++ Average steps to produce ++ Average additional steps in
++ Revenue attribution
an asset asset production
++ Hours per user ++ Percentage of assets tracking
++ Active campaigns to on time finish
++ Percentage of assets used

across LOBs and markets
Empowered
governance
Governance refers to the practice of

establishing clear accountability for digital PRO -TIP
strategy, policy, and standards based To achieve this maturity

on roles, responsibilities, and decision- milestone, it’s not enough
making. A governance model should be to have a working group.
The working group must
custom-fit for your organization’s unique
be empowered to enforce
challenges and structure, but the below standards for consistency and
process can provide a framework. alignment to business goals.
Organizations often find governance the most challenging

aspect of operations, another side effect of the
fragmentation of the marketing organization. Capgemini
reports that fewer marketers in 2018 than in 2012 feel roles
and responsibilities for digital initiatives are clearly defined.
Your governance working group — also commonly known as

an editorial board, content council or center of excellence
— should be in charge of ensuring consistency, alignment
and policies. The group is generally made up of executives
or leaders that are representative of the cross-functional
alignment your marketing organization needs.
Investing in governance can help to scale initiatives

(particularly important for those working across multiple lines
of business and markets), mitigate risks, reduce costs and
promote collaboration.
Develop a governance model
An organizational structure is closely aligned with content models.

Every model has its strengths and weaknesses, and knowing
them can help you mitigate risks and optimize for operational
efficiency. Here’s a rundown of the three archetypes, including key
characteristics, structural advantages and disadvantages.
Centralized Independent Hybrid
The three archetypes
These archetypes are helpful in understanding your

model’s challenges and potential risk mitigation
tactics. Depending on the your brand’s current
marketing maturity, business goals, organizational
structure, resources, processes and personnel, you
may choose to adopt one or more of the following
optimization ideas.
Archetype: Centralized
In a centralized model, one team has full Structural advantages

ownership of the content. Centralized ++ Marketing is easy to standardize
organizational structures rely on this team to
++ Expedites content publishing process
make decisions and provide direction for the
company. This team sets the standards and ++ Easier to audit and manage content
guidelines for marketing success. Generally, ++ Simplifies technology stack
they are the marketing department or a subset
++ Provides consistent resources for updates
of the marketing department and have their
own budgets, goals and KPIs.
Structural disadvantages
++ Generic assets/content not specific to LOB

or country
++ Bottleneck and slower to market
++ Limited exposure to SME resources
++ No budget allocation at the LOB level,

resulting in duplicate content
++ Prioritization is difficult across countries or

LOB requests/pitches
Archetype: Independent
Each LOB or local team has their own Structural Advantages

marketing unit. Each team operates ++ Everyone’s responsible and autonomous
autonomously with individual program/
++ SME resources on hand, and more integrated
marketing focus. Marketing is siloed and
content
very grassroots in nature. The teams are
autonomous, generally with individual ++ LOBs own content, increasing content quality
budgets, and the organizational structure is ++ Content relevance/timeliness
relatively flat with diluted decision making.
++ Better able to leverage timely content
creation opportunities
Structural Disadvantages
++ Can be competitive among different local

teams/LOBs
++ Impossible to police consistency of brand
++ Harder to scale
++ Difficult to leverage existing content across

the organization for repurposing
++ Marketing buy-in is low
++ There can be an inconsistent tech stack
++ Inconsistent tone of voice
++ Difficult to manage and very low visibility

across LOBs
Archetype: Hybrid
In this model, content is created by a global center Developing a new governance model may include
and then repurposed to local markets or lines of (but is not limited to) the following activities:
business; this is also referred to as the global- ++ Conducting a deep dive of your marketing process
local model. There is a central (or global) resource
++ Identifying roles and responsibilities
with localization, and decision making is pushed
down. This is a hybrid model that places business- ++ Creating a planning model to integrate calendars
facing resources at the local or business-unit level ++ Identifying one-off “activations” versus “always on”
(business unit, line of business, local market) with production
centralized content services.
++ Determining attributes and meta-tagging
++ Understanding roles, responsibilities, and owners

Structural Advantages
++ Agreeing on a potential master view, process and
++ Centralized structure for establishing strategy
playbook
direction and vision
++ Centralized group has broad representation for

Governance is at the heart of integrated marketing
facilitating collaboration and consensus building
and focused on people (stakeholders and decision
(requiring local market (LM), line of business (LOB)
makers), processes (guidelines and policies) and
and Business Unit (BU) involvement)
platforms (the technologies and systems required to
++ Relatively easy to implement
execute flawlessly.)
++ Scalable and sustainable (over time)
++ Pushes down decision making Brands should invest in governance because it

accelerates and enhances other investments and
sets teams to deliver on their goals more efficiently
Structural Disadvantages
while managing risks, reducing costs, organizing
++ Requires local buy-in and involvement infrastructure, and increasing the customer
++ Strategy needs to take into account both global experience and engagement.
and local needs
++ Likelihood for inconsistent tech stack
++ Varying maturity of different LOB, LM, BU
++ Varying budget and staff resourcing
++ Implementation has to be rolled-out due to

custom approach of global-local
Establish a working group

(center of excellence)
With an established governance model and buy-in, the

center of excellence (COE) should be able to align the
PRO -TIP
organization’s digital activities around the needs of the
customer and the goals of the businesses. This direction- It’s important to distinguish
setting body gives direction and guidance across the the roles and responsibilities of
organization for content as a cross-departmental group that the COE and to communicate
assesses performance and sets standards for performance. the working group is not a
fulfillment center for other
The COE mandate can be as far-reaching as global, and it’s areas of the business.
important to remember that while they do not have control
over other teams, they do have jurisdiction when it comes
to best practices. Ideally, this body should have cross-
functional representatives and buy-in.
Use these suggestions to build your COE’s mandate:
++ Improve operational effectiveness and efficiency across

the marketing organization.
++ Break down silos and encourage collaboration and

efficiency.
++ Champion integrated marketing in the organization.
++ Position integrated marketing as a business benefit,

creating a profit center rather than cost center.
++ Adopt a more strategic and sophisticated approach to

enterprise integrated marketing.
Consider a global-local model
Establishing a global-local model can provide a structured

approach to setting up content processes and workflows
PRO -TIP
that enable your team to execute marketing on an ongoing
basis. Essentially, it provides the systems, structure and It is unrealistic to expect that
accountability needed to transform your brand into a global and local teams will
marketing center of excellence. work together seamlessly
from the beginning. It takes
All stakeholders in a global and local program must fully time for them to plan, pilot,
understand their role in strategy and production. These roles iterate, and find the right
and responsibilities should be signed off at global level and global to local balance.
then communicated to the local markets. Local markets
should be encouraged to be transparent if there are any risks
to them carrying out their responsibilities.
In many cases, a global content marketing program is

the very first collaboration between central and local
teams. In these cases, it also represents the beginning of
a deeper, internal transformation. By aligning on a global
marketing strategy, central and local teams are establishing
foundational processes across their organization.
Establish guidelines
There are different B R AND GUIDELINE S S TR ATEGY GUIDELINE S
types of guidelines Every enterprise organization Whether you call it a story filter or a
that a COE should will have their own brand scorecard, guidelines help ensure that
establish, including guidelines, from brand colors all content is aligned to a strategy. A
brand, strategy, and logos to tone of voice and strategy policy ensures all content
brand personality and values. is mapped to strategic goals and
asset, and editorial.
Brand guidelines help to create a decisions like personas, campaign
consistent brand experience and themes, channels, and CTAs. Before
can help to enforce brand memory content is published, every piece
structures and brand salience. should undergo a quality control
checklist. This is a best practice but
EDITORIAL GUIDELINE S will require support from content
The editorial policy covers a leads to ensure that implementation is
definition of content types and taking place across the board.
how content should be developed,
presented and formatted. The AS S E T GUIDELINE S
editorial policy, like one that exists Each asset that is part of your
in a traditional media newsroom, communications engine should have a
should also have a style guide and consistent look, feel, duration/length
a tone of voice for all content. and treatment. In addition to this,
word limits should be strictly adhered
to for the purposes of consistency
across all asset formats and channels.
Asset utilization
and localization
Proficient integrated marketing teams know not only know how to create
content but also reuse assets so they’re not contributing to marketing
waste. Digital assets should be repurposed in multiple formats across
multiple channels targeting multiple audience segments. This requires a
single source of truth for your approved assets: a library that everyone
can access and where assets can be labeled according to your
taxonomy. You can establish a working group that creates and shares
templates, design assets, and reusable evergreen content.
Audit existing content or assets
Conduct an audit to surface content that is R.O.T. (redundant, outdated or

trivial). Your audit will surface opportunities to improve content coverage and
performance; the main components of the audit should be a gap analysis and
a qualitative assessment. There are three types of audits you can conduct:
Full marketing inventory Sample marketing inventory

A complete listing of every item including A less detailed collection of example assets.
digital and non-digital assets (including print,
downloadable files and videos). For digital inventories, you can use a tool like
Screaming Frog to crawl content pages and collect
Partial marketing inventory available metadata that can be exported to a CSV
file. Use the CSV file to customize your own program
A listing of a subset of your marketing program
and then conduct a qualitative assessment based
(i.e., digital only). A partial inventory may include,
on a deeper review on each piece of content. This
for example, the top few levels of a hierarchical
assessment should provide you with insights on
site or the past six months of articles. All
relevancy and quality of the asset.
sections of the site will be covered.
The following template can help provide direction on

your qualitative assessment.
Qualitative content audit template
Purpose Quality
Why does this asset exist? Who is it intended Is the asset understandable? Is it organized clearly
for? What action is it trying to influence? and coherently? Is it accurate, correct and current?
Write here Write here
Context Engagement
Where does the asset appear? What other asset is Does the asset use appropriate techniques to
also in that location, or linked? How easy is it for engage and influence? Does it execute those
someone seeking it out to discover? Is it easy to techniques effectively?
scan or read? Is it in a usable format — including
headings, lists, images, tables, whitespace, etc?
Relevance Voice
Does the asset meet the (targeted and Does the asset consistently reflect the brand voice
inferred) audience’s needs, goals and and attributes? Does its tone adjust appropriately to
interest? Is it relevant? the context? Does the asset have a consistent style?
Execution at scale
Execution at scale means you’re optimizing your marketing operations

for growth across the organization. This milestone is all about efficiency
and effectiveness. Efficiency is about how quickly your marketing teams
can do things; effectiveness is not just about efficiency and volume, it’s
about whether each of these elements have the right level of ROI.
Execution
at scale
Integrated
technology stack
Comms
Executive mandate + Digital

crossfunctional buy-in Content
The link between maturity and efficiency As your organization advances in integrated
As new programs are launched lower in marketing maturity, more teams will naturally join
the maturity curve, operational efficiency the efforts — this is why the maturity curve actually
across the whole business is intially can be more of a wave with plateaus. As more teams
stunted, before growing again in stages, join, take into account the amount of time it takes
as shown in the graphic above. to onboard them. Each new team generally starts
at a lower point of the maturity curve, meaning
the overall efficiency of the business will pause
momentarily before accelerating again.
Benchmark for operational efficiency
Benchmarking your organization helps chart growth progress and build a

roadmap towards the ideal state. Here are some questions you can use to build
program benchmarks as new teams join the integrated marketing efforts.
Current State Ideal state
++ How long is it taking you to produce ++ How long should each stage take?
assets? ++ How many revisions should each asset go
++ What are the current sticking points or through?
roadblocks? ++ How many steps should we need to go
++ What stages are causing most pain? through?
++ What is taking too long? ++ How long do we need for legal approval?
++ What is being repeated? ++ How many stakeholders should be involved
++ Where are efforts being doubled? in each stage?
++ Where do we need to spend the most time?
About the author
Lieu Pham
VP, Strategy + Creative Services
NewsCred
Lieu Pham has more than 15 years’ experience in

strategy, marketing, and advertising across APAC,
EMEA, and North America. In her current role as
NewsCred’s Vice President of Strategy and Creative
Services, she develops the frameworks and workshops
for client success in both content marketing and
integrated marketing. Her expertise is in developing
actionable strategies for breaking down silos and
building better campaigns. She’s a regular speaker at
industry events and a mentor with She Runs It.
Key takeaways
Here’s your roadmap Well-executed integrated marketing can be transformative for

businesses, driving unprecedented efficiency and visibility that
to a more-efficient
brings teams closer together. NewsCred’s proprietary ADEPT
and better-performing methodology and companion Integrated Marketing Maturity
integrated marketing Index can help you benchmark your organization’s marketing
organization. governance, processes, and operations — all with the ultimate
goal of increasing marketing performance.
Here’s a summary of the tactical recommendations that

surround the eight milestones of integrated marketing. These
recommendations were designed to provide marketing leaders
with practical change management tactics and actionable
strategies for increasing an organization’s integrated marketing
maturity. The roadblocks to execution are often people-related —
fostering a true culture of collaboration (not competition) is really
key to successful integrated marketing.
NewsCred predicts that investing in integrated marketing now

will give brands first-to-market advantage and that boosting
operational efficiency will become a valuable KPI for marketing
teams. We encourage marketing leaders to break down silos,
support agile teams, and embrace true collaboration — ultimately
unifying both marketing and the customer journey.
INTEGR ATED MARKE TING MILE S TONE 1 INTEGR ATED MARKE TING MILE S TONE 2
E xecutive Mandate and Cross- Collaborative planning model

Functional Buy-in
++ Develop a campaign brief
++ Develop a marketing operations SWOT ++ Build a content playbook of best practices
++ Launch a stakeholder engagement survey
++ Follow up with a stakeholder workshop
Documented taxonomy Holistic workflows
++ Create a shared marketing taxonomy ++ Develop workflows for each asset type
++ Inventory your shared data inputs
Integrated Technology Stack Empowered governance
++ Conduct a centralized marketing ++ Develop a governance model

technology audit ++ Establish roles and responsibilities
++ Configure data for operational ++ Establish a global-local strategy
efficiency reporting
++ Build and enforce guidelines
Asset utilization and localization Execution at scale
++ Create a central asset library (utilizing ++ Benchmark for operational efficiency

the standardized labeling strategy)
++ Audit existing content and assets
newscred.com | insights.newscred.com | @newscred | (212) 989 4100

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The Integrated Marketing Organization

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The Integrated

Illustrations by Laura Beckman

Why invest in “integrated marketing” now?

A quick survey of the landscape paints a bleak picture: the

The diversity of customers and markets, alongside the

It’s time to integrate marketing. Because the budgets are

Association of National Advertisers

As integrated marketing is incredibly complex and

This paper is geared for both executives and marketing leaders

++ The symptoms of a poorly-integrated marketing organization

++ How to conduct an integrated marketing maturity self-assessment

++ The key stages of integrated marketing maturity

++ The ADEPT Methodology for effective integrated marketing

++ How to build an integrated marketing measurement framework

Integrated Integrated marketing is the process Why invest in integrated marketing?

The integrated marketing approach Well-executed marketing operations

an integrated marketing ++ Role confusion leading to a lack of accountability

++ The marketing end-to-end process is not visible

++ Delays in deployment and publishing

++ Fragmented or disjointed customer journey

As a byproduct of competing priorities and pressure

Let’s reflect on why silos are so common (but also so

Single channel Multichannel Omnichannel

Siloed marketing teams

Team Technology Content Analytics

Team Technology Content Analytics

Team Technology Content Analytics

But how do you know you’re doing it well? Or how

descriptions of the eight

organization’s integration, what gaps should be prioritized.

efficiency, and success.

Executive mandate and cross-functional buy-in Integrated tech stack

Facilitates cross-marketing collaboration Automates channel communications and

Streamlines marketing planning Empowered governance

Delivers strategic brand goals

Ensures execution consistency Asset utilization + localization

Encourages marketing efficiency

Accelerates marketing output Execution at scale

Organizes marketing operations for growth

Executive mandate and

Create a marketing operations SWOT analysis

REC OMMENDATION NO. 2

Launch a stakeholder engagement survey

How to score What does your score mean?

Score Marketing operations

Performance is aligned to business goals and is monitored, analyzed and communicated

/5 There is a shared language across teams with a documented glossary, taxonomy.

/5 There is a documented marketing strategy and/or playbook that everyone is using.

Lead a stakeholder workshop PRO -TIP

Using the findings from your SWOT and stakeholder

++ Range of people, from executives to those

++ Fall behind other brands and competitors who

++ Content and budget waste

++ Team confusion/people do not feel empowered

Outlining a collaborative planning model gives your

The planning model should also help

Develop an integrated Develop a content playbook of

++ What is the business objective?

++ What is the central campaign theme or

++ What are the key channels for

++ What target assets will be published as

++ What is the production workflow?

++ How did the campaign perform? What

++ Range of people, from executives to those

++ Fall behind other brands and competitors who

++ Team confusion/people do not feel empowered

++ What is the central campaign theme or

++ What are the key channels for

++ What target assets will be published as

++ How did the campaign perform? What

++ Do you have a technology solution

++ Can you measure and report on all

++ Average time to produce ++ Assets created vs assets ++ Pageviews

++ Hours per user ++ Percentage of assets tracking

++ Percentage of assets used

++ Generic assets/content not specific to LOB

++ No budget allocation at the LOB level,

++ Prioritization is difficult across countries or

++ Can be competitive among different local

++ Difficult to leverage existing content across

++ Difficult to manage and very low visibility

++ Understanding roles, responsibilities, and owners

++ Centralized group has broad representation for

++ Implementation has to be rolled-out due to

++ Improve operational effectiveness and efficiency across

++ Break down silos and encourage collaboration and