This interview was conducted by Microsoft Customer Advocacy Writer Molly Apel and published on the Microsoft Customer Success website.

Executive Summary: Today’s CMOs are expected to spend an increasing amount of time wearing a CIO hat. According to Wolfgang von Enckevort, Managing Director at Vepro, an agency that helps companies optimize marketing processes and customer engagement solutions, while taking on the responsibility for technology is simplified with the right software, there are a few crucial things that must happen before that software can be implemented. Here are three things von Enckevort says CMOs must do before they can bring in marketing systems that will optimize their marketing organization.

3 Questions CMOs Must Ask Themselves to Successfully Implement Marketing Software

While you may have a robust customer relationship marketing (CRM) database and an established cadence of respectable marketing activities, odds are there are costly inefficiencies within your marketing department that are eating into your budget—and causing lost opportunities. Wolfgang von Enckevort, Managing Director at Vepro, anagency that helps companies optimize marketing processes and customer engagement solutions, recommends marketing software in conjunction with a CRM database to reduce waste, automate tasks, and streamline processes. He says that as he approaches new clients, he finds they often overlook three key questions that stand in the way of the successful implementation of marketing technology.

1. Did You Know Your CRM software Is NOT Marketing software?
   As organizations grow they often continue to launch their email and social media activities manually. “Companies may be convinced purchasing CRM software is a magic bullet for a comprehensive sales, marketing, and service management solution. But there’s so much functional depth in these areas that CRM alone simply doesn’t cover. It’s really just the foundation. Today, Microsoft Dynamics Marketing is the secret sauce that fits right in between your CRM technology and media tools,” says von Enckevort. Dynamics Marketing capitalizes on the information in systems like Microsoft Dynamics CRM, applying it to marketing-specific scenarios, like granular segmentation, lead generation, and multi-channel campaign management.
   
2. Does Everyone Agree on Process?
   Before a company comes to a consensus on marketing software, agreeing on and documenting processes is critical. “Technology doesn’t fix broken processes. Identifying and understanding gaps in internal communication needs to be resolved before a company even starts to implement any sort of marketing software – and with each client, there are almost always disagreements about internal processes,” explains von Enckevort. “Dynamics Marketing has beautiful color dashboards that can automate campaigns with lots of dependencies, but the company needs the processes in place to turn them into reality.” Without solid processes to map the software to, a company won’t be able to truly leverage the benefits of Dynamics Marketing.
3. Can Your Marketing Department Pick Up where IT Left Off?
   With technology solutions moving to the cloud, companies can expect their marketing software to update often—adding significant additions and optimizations—rather than once-in-a-blue-moon. Adds von Enckevort, “Marketing leaders really need to take solution lifecycle management into account – this makes managing the IT very simple. A cloud-based solution like Dynamics Marketing never stands still. It’s constantly evolving and improving. Having a plan and strategy can ensure a team will seamlessly integrate those features that enhance or streamline their activities.” Marketing teams that get technology and take on the management of these systems will win.

About Vepro

Vepro doesn’t just advise on optimizing business with software-based marketing solutions, the company was built around cloud-based collaborative market management solutions, like Microsoft Dynamics Marketing in the Cloud. Their company’s mantra is enabling marketing success - enabling customers to do great things with technology. The company works directly with clients as well as with Microsoft Partners. “Being a Microsoft Partner ourselves, that is a little bit unusual.” Says von Enckevort, “We train other Microsoft partners using Microsoft technology under the marketing paradigm and focus. In the past 3 years, or 4, now -- we have trained more than a thousand partners, as well as Microsoft staff around the world on the Microsoft Dynamics product.”