We are a specialty consulting firm exclusively focused on measuring and improving the financial return from marketing investments. With experience in dozens of industries, we use a broad toolkit of unique approaches to find just the right way to break through the political, cultural, and structural obstacles to help you crack your toughest measurement challenges.

Featured Webcast: Tony Palmer, SVP & CMO, Kimberly-Clark

View our one-on-one interview with Tony Palmer as he discuss marketing performance measurement in the latest installment of Measured Thoughts.

Do You Need a Marketing Knowledge Base?

Every weeknight, around 6 p.m., your company's entire collective knowledge about customers, markets, competitors, opportunities, and threats walks right out the door. And, depending on the size of your company, it's likely that every week one or more of those "knowledge workers" fails to return the next morning, taking with them their piece of the knowledge puzzle. Poof. Gone.

If that isn't scary enough, think about the workers who do return every morning, and the number of decisions they are making based on the wrong impression of what is known ... or unknown. Think about the amount of time they spend guessing about what direction the market is headed or how customers will respond to a proposed change in the product or service. Not because they don't care to get it right, but because they don't know what is "knowable" and what is not. They have no simple, efficient way to query the tribal knowledge developed over years or decades, and dispersed among their fellow marketers, who are scattered across regions or SBUs.

And don't even get us started on the inefficiencies and productivity drains of man-years wasted in marketing departments just looking for documents, never mind the costs of reacquiring insights that were once gained or purchased, but not properly documented.

True, the problem exists in most corners of the organization — IT, operations, customer service, and manufacturing. But it is particularly acute in marketing. Why? Marketing is the commonly acknowledged "softer" side — the blend of art and science that delivers marketing excellence. Marketing requires a unique kind of brainpower: pattern recognition capabilities that link, for example, the insights gained in one focus group with the experiences from observing customers in the day-to-day buying process.

All of this is at risk without some sort of marketing knowledge base (MKB).

In most companies, marketing information is scattered all over the place — on shelves, on people's hard drives, in obscure filing systems. A marketing knowledge base pulls all that disparate information together and makes it accessible to all, on demand, thereby creating an asset of real value to the company.

What Is a Marketing Knowledge Base, Anyway?
Marketing knowledge bases come in myriad forms and flavors, but essentially they share the following characteristic: an electronic library containing information relevant to marketing decision making, directly accessible on demand and searchable.

Notice that this definition says nothing about the technology underlying the knowledge base. An MKB is not defined as a particular software program, or even a particular platform or format. It's simply an electronic library that helps marketers gain access to the information they need to do their jobs. The technology can be very straightforward, or rather complex.

Notice, too, that the MKB is different — and separate — from other electronic tools used by marketers. It is not part of the marketing automation system, or the marketing database that contains information about customers and prospects. Neither is it part of sales force automation, the contact management system, nor the CRM system.

Rather, the marketing knowledge base is a repository for information of interest to marketers such as primary and secondary research, presentations, proposals, competitive intelligence, and historical campaign performance reports. Some MKBs also include collateral materials, stock photography, and other "digital assets" used in marcom executions.

You might ask: How is a knowledge base different from a corporate library? By its philosophy, and purpose. A corporate library is a passive store of information, protected and preserved. A knowledge base is intended to be used many times each and every day to extend the knowledge and skills of its users, with flexible, fingertip access, in an atmosphere of empowerment.

What Are the Benefits of Having One?
At the top of the list of MKB benefits is sheer productivity enhancement. Employees may spend a good part of their days simply hunting around for information. If marketing department members can find the information they need to do their jobs quickly and easily, they will produce more, and with greater satisfaction.

But there are other benefits, as well. Companies invest in gathering useful information all the time, in all corners of the organization. The information may be a piece of primary or secondary research, acquired to support a certain project or short-term decision. It may be a customer testimonial collected by one marketer that could be repurposed for use by others. If the information sits idle, the return on investment is limited to its first use. An MKB, however, allows the information to become a true corporate asset, to be used again and again.

An MKB also helps you avoid duplicate data acquisition. How often have you found that you paid twice for an analyst report? Or conducted focus groups that sounded pretty familiar to ones completed last year? Or signed off on sending someone to a conference that two people from another office went to earlier? When marketing information is assembled in one place, you not only avoid paying twice for the same info, but you can also leverage the purchasing power of a larger group when negotiating with vendors.

With an MKB, you also avoid one of the most perilous facts of corporate life: information that walks out the door when employees leave. As turnover grows, critically important data is lost. A knowledge base is your insurance that your investments in information remain in-house, and can be put to use, no matter what.

On a more mundane point, a repository of marketing information eliminates the need to produce and distribute information. It remains in place for easy access, on demand. As computer storage costs continue to decline, the cost savings simply increase. It's far better to post an item than to circulate it via e-mail or — worse — in hard copy. Particularly in this BlackBerry age we live in. Finally, a knowledge base improves your organizational efficiency. It forces you to make ongoing decisions about what data to keep and what to toss. It improves decision making and reduces sales cycle time. It extends the skill and knowledge of your employees. You may even find that it improves customer satisfaction.

Issues to Ponder Before You Get Started
You will benefit from giving early consideration to several points as you think through the pros and cons of implementing a marketing knowledge base. Among them:

Set objectives, and then success metrics. Like any marketing project, your MKB will need a business case, and annual support. So your life will be easier if you clarify in advance what you want the tool to do, and how you will measure success.
Decide how elaborate you want it to be. Some knowledge bases are designed to be simple "shared drive" repositories, where data can be posted and accessed. Others can become very complex, enabling cross-document searching, structured feedback and updating, and workflow automation.
Avoid "scope creep." The amount and variety of the information that can be gathered up might be overwhelming. It makes sense to start with a pilot program, focusing on a few carefully selected categories of information, or maybe just a single geography, so that any mistakes you make are small ones, and the project can gain momentum over time. However, plan ahead sufficiently to maintain control as the capability spreads, to avoid incompatible libraries springing up in siloed work groups.
Sell in to senior management. The benefits of a marketing knowledge base are clear — and fairly obvious — but that doesn't mean that you don't have to sell the concept to your peers and your management. Take the time to explain the value, and keep the public relations effort going until the economic value is certain.
Think ease of use. If your knowledge interface is kludge-y, the search engine is weak, or data isn't there, word will spread quickly. To reinterpret Marshall McLuhan, it's almost more important that the medium be simple and inviting than that the content be complete and accurate. Take the time to work with end users, and design the tool to optimize the user experience.
Consider roles and responsibilities. Who will own information gathering, posting, and maintenance? What level of security is required for access? How widely do you want to share the information?

Some Technologies to Consider
Click here for a detailed look at technology options.

Having considered these issues in advance will make your life easier later on.

Implementing a Marketing Knowledge Base
Planning
Like any project, a marketing knowledge base benefits from prior planning in advance of execution. Start by addressing these areas:

Objectives. Where do you see the key benefit accruing from your marketing knowledge base? You may want your objectives to focus on time saving, employee productivity, or cost saving. The objective will deeply influence the shape of the project, so select it with care. And don't select more than one primary and one secondary objective. Keep it simple — and specific. For example, an excellent objective relating to time saving might be: Free up two hours per week per marketing director.

Metrics. The objectives will naturally lend themselves to appropriate metrics. But what's essential is that you identify them in advance, and that the data be easy to gather, or built on accepted assumptions. For example, a cost-saving metric might track the reduction in purchase of secondary research. So you will need to benchmark prior period spending before the knowledge base is built and set up a system to identify the variations. Employee productivity might be measured through a survey instrument that queries the percentage of their time spent on data gathering before and after the knowledge base is available. Or perhaps survey employees on their awareness of what knowledge the department has, and benchmark accuracy of response against future surveys.

Scope. The scope of your project will powerfully impact the cost of the MKB and the variety of people who need to be involved.

Cost: MKBs need not be expensive, especially when you take advantage of the power of the Internet as the user interface. But you don't want to face any budget surprises as you go along. Once you have a definition of requirements, work with your IT counterparts to get a clear estimate of costs, and allow a contingency fund for changes you'll want to make as you go that you're not able to see clearly at the outset.
Team: Who needs to be involved? You'll benefit from forming a team made up of users and enablers. On the user side, consider marketing people from across functions (e.g., research, advertising, events, PR), sales, and customer service. On the enabling side, of course, are IT, finance and — if you have one — a corporate librarian. Depending on the scope, you may need representatives from other functions, such as HR.

Security. Marketing information can be highly sensitive, so give plenty of attention to security requirements. At a minimum, access should be password-protected. Your IT department may insist that it reside behind the corporate firewall, to keep competitive eyes off your data. You may even want to create several levels of data access, for example, allowing only certain employees to access financial or performance information.

Data collection
Where will the information come from? You know it's all over your company, on shelves, in files, on hard drives. One fail-safe technique for identifying both data sources and informational needs is a series of in-person interviews with the stakeholders. You'll find that users will fall into various segments, based on user sophistication and their job requirements. Understanding your users will not only help with content development, but also increase the later chances of successful usage.

Develop decision rules. Give careful consideration to the thorny issue of data posting. The best solution is a semi- to fully-dedicated resource identified to own this task. Companies that rely on a distributed model, expecting various employees to post content on their own initiative, find it hard to gain compliance about what data can, or will, be posted.

And think about rules for keeping things "on file" versus discarding them when their useful lifespan has passed. If the repository has an archival mission, the information may stay longer. But many items will be dated and worthless in a matter of months. Remember, this is an opportunity for you to get control of your marketing information — and that means sifting and deleting, as much as it means gathering and organizing.

Execution
The execution phase will involve a number of elements. Among them:

Technology. As a marketer, it's your job to define the requirements and characteristics from a user's perspective. But let your IT colleagues define the technology. This way, you get not only their expertise, but also their buy-in and commitment to the project.

Administration. The scope and style of your knowledge base will dictate the best way to administer the content. Options range from complete decentralization, where users are responsible for posting and maintaining their material, to a high degree of management by a dedicated staff. Essentially you trade off costs for control. Many companies settle on a middle ground, where users feel empowered to share their work, but an administrator is keeping an eye on the content development — if only on a part-time basis.

Promoting the tool. If you build it, will they come? No. You have to get the word out. For best results, use a combination of media: e-newsletters, intranet postings, team meetings, seminars, and e-mail. Essential to your success will be active cheerleading by senior management, and positive word of mouth among the troops.

Organizing the content. You may organize content around product or business units on the one hand, or marketing functional areas on the other. It depends entirely on the nature of your user base, and their needs. Ideally, it helps to vary the navigation by audience segment.

The biggest obstacle to developing an effective MKB is just starting one. No one has the time to think it through, and of course there is never any available headcount. But these are the very same obstacles we encounter whenever we seek to undertake something with a more long-term than immediate benefit. Funny how we overcome such obstacles to launch a multi-year branding campaign, but we struggle when it comes to prioritizing what could be our most important asset — our tribal knowledge of the discriminants between success and failure.

A marketing knowledge base turns disparate information into a corporate asset, improves productivity, and saves time and money. Once you have it in place, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.