Could Marketing Become The Latest As-A-Service Offering?

After Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service, Infrastructure-as-a-Service and a variety of other as-a-service options, it is only natural that somebody should think about doing the same in marketing. In an article reviewing trends in the industry, Econsultancy editor-in-chief Ashley Friedlein discusses why a Marketing-as-a-Service (MaaS) model could be exactly what marketing needs in the future.

In this respect, according to Friedlein, digital marketing is already transforming. Winning campaigns are no longer the top priority for marketing departments, as adopting a set of tools and models to build such campaigns have replaced it. Replicability is what marketers should focus on, and the way to achieve replicability requires having the right “building blocks.” These include (but are not limited to) content, data, rules and algorithms. Having these will allow industry professionals to create unique combinations for campaigns in a way that is both quicker and more efficient. It is also more scalable than the current one-hit approach.

This development in the marketing world is especially relevant, as the industry environment has changed to one where content marketing is key. In fact several large brands, including Mondelez and Procter & Gamble, have announced they will be spending the bulk of their marketing budgets on programmatic buying. This makes the need for the right tools, blueprints and underlying models all the more topical, says Friedline. A case in point would be infographics: they are a very successful format but creating an infographic as a one-off product is very time-consuming and costly. If, however, marketers use tools and services designed for creating infographics, they will save a lot of time and money and will still produce a successful piece of visual content.