Aimee Roberts is a research analyst at Frost & Sullivan specializing in enterprise marketing management. BtoB recently asked Roberts about the state of campaign management systems.

BtoB: What is the major benefit of a campaign management application?

Roberts: It helps you look at campaign optimization, to work through a multichannel work flow and come up with a plan that is able to target your campaign goals. Later, you can go back and see how well or how poorly everything worked out. What's interesting is everyone is using this software for different purposes. I think its greatest benefit is unifying customer message management.

BtoB: With various sales automation applications out there, such as customer relationship management (CRM) and sales force automation (SFA) packages, where does campaign management fit in?

Roberts: It works synergistically with existing CRM and SFA packages, offering supplemental campaign functionality. It comes in where CRM leaves off, increasing not only efficiency but also aiding in the scheduling and deployment of campaign-related tasks, saving time and reducing expenditures.

Campaign management optimizes the use of CRM and SFA packages, creating a linkage from back-end work flows to the final output. More unified campaign messages as well as a greater campaign impact are just two of the results.

BtoB: How can marketers justify the cost of adding in yet another layer of automation, in particular at smaller companies?

Roberts: There are a lot of inefficiencies in marketing tasks, especially when marketers are spread out across multiple departments or regional offices. But often, more modestly sized companies are the ones most in need of this software.

As one example, keeping all aspects of a marketing campaign in a database enhances institutional memory, since at smaller companies you can have just one key person leave and take all a company's marketing details with him. Also, smaller companies can benefit by eliminating the need for an ad or marketing agency to do all this tracking. You'll always need outside creative advice, but by bringing traffic and production in-house, companies can realize cost benefits almost immediately.