All-in-One Marketing Platform

Buyers guide

In today’s world of marketing, the old saying "be where your customers are" is taking on a whole new meaning. Consumers are constantly swarmed with advertisements or content about products all day through social media, television, email, and more. Cutting through the noise to deliver your message requires a powerful set of tools.

For many companies, a standalone marketing system for a single channel is all they need or can afford, but all-in-one marketing platforms are growing in popularity to give even small businesses affordable, valuable software to manage every marketing channel.

This guide will offer details on these comprehensive marketing suites. We’ll cover:

• What is an all-in-one marketing platform?
• Common features of an all-in-one marketing platform
• What type of buyer are you?
• Benefits and potential issues
• Market trends to understand

What is an all-in-one marketing platform?

An all-in-one marketing platform is a suite of software tools designed to manage every aspect of an organization’s marketing efforts. They help to manage and automate the customer data, marketing materials, workflows, and analytics for multiple methods of connecting with existing and potential customers—from email newsletters to strategic social media campaigns.

When all of these features are contained in a single system, it’s much easier to gather data and analyze it for useful trends. Marketing professionals can quickly generate reports on important metrics, such as email open rates, online engagement, or conversions, then arrange customer data into demographic segments for a more personalized approach.

Common features of an all-in-one marketing platform

The functionality that is included in an all-in-one marketing platform combines the value of multiple features users commonly find in standalone products. With a comprehensive suite, you’ll find many of the following features:

What type of buyer are you?

The holistic capabilities of an all-in-one marketing platform is compelling for many types of organizations, but may be more suited for a particular type of business.

Solo entrepreneurs who manage their own marketing: For those just getting a business off the ground, an all-in-one marketing system can offer great functionality for today and well into the future. However, the cost of adopting a comprehensive suite packed with all of the bells and whistles is likely much more than is needed.

Small businesses with limited resources: Many small businesses need basic assistance with marketing initiatives, but may also want to support their growth with more advanced marketing techniques. These buyers must carefully evaluate the all-in-one marketing platforms available to understand which offers the most functionality with a reasonable subscription cost.

If none of the suite options match their budget, the better option is to determine which marketing methods are critical now, and adopt a standalone system for each marketing channel.

Large enterprises with a team of marketers: Larger, more sophisticated marketing teams may also use an integrated marketing suite, but it’s more common for them to leverage specialized best-of-breed tools and create custom integrations. This approach is costly and time-consuming, but provides enterprises with the best individual marketing tools that are integrated like an all-in-one system.

Benefits and potential issues

Keep in mind that integrated marketing suites offer a wealth of functionality benefits, but the return on investment (ROI) can vary depending on which methods of marketing a company plans to use, and how large and complex the campaigns will be. Below are more details about the benefits and potential issues:

• Seamless data sharing among tools: The most significant advantage of an all-in-one marketing system is the ability to easily share data from one feature to another, expanding the user’s viewpoint to see how each action can impact the entire campaign. For example, companies can share data about sales with marketers to inform the target audience for a social media campaign.
• Integrated suites can be more affordable: For launching small-scale marketing campaigns using multiple formats, an integrated suite can be an affordable option. The power and capabilities of each feature in a suite will indicate the cost, so smaller businesses that don’t need cutting-edge functionality should carefully compare features to the total cost of ownership.

Market trends to understand

• Personalization drives modern B2C campaigns: Consumers are increasingly dividing their time among several productivity and entertainment experiences throughout the day, instead of simply turning on the television—as a result, U.S. companies spent more than $20 billion more on digital marketing than TV ads in 2019, according to Gartner research. Marketers are using more personalized content to grab attention online, which requires marketing software that can both capture user data and target segmented groups of valuable customers.
• Account-based marketing (ABM) changes B2B in 2020: Business-to-business (B2B) marketers reaching out to a wide audience are starting to see less impact, and a more focused account-based marketing style is fueling more than 70% of the campaigns for midsize to large companies by the end of 2020. An all-in-one system provides the data necessary to craft highly-customized materials used for this marketing method.