Revolutionizing Content Supply Chain Efficiency

Challenge

Today's consumers demand superior digital experiences, yet many enterprises face challenges in modernizing their marketing operations to deliver high-quality, personalized content at scale.

The complexity is understandable, as the content supply chain involves multiple departments and functions, from workflow planning to creation, production, and activation. These functions often operate across various platforms, with the entire content creation process reliant on manual, error-prone processes.

This is exactly what our client, a leading healthcare company that delivers a third of all pharmaceuticals across North America, was struggling with.

With a diverse range of product lines and brands—including wholesale medical supplies, pharmaceutical distribution, healthcare technology solutions, and new business units—coupled with a high volume of requests, our client faced challenges such as incomplete job requirements, inefficient proofing, inconsistent markup, and prolonged time to market.

Efficiency Hindered by Manual Tasks 

The overwhelming number of campaign requests resulted in a significant amount of manual email builds that required the dedicated efforts of four full-time staff members. Not to mention, the process for campaign requests was sent via email, which created inefficient processes for the marketing operations team and increased manual execution. The team also faced challenges due to a high turnover rate, requiring frequent training sessions for newcomers on the tools and processes. This made it challenging for the team to meet the relentless demand efficiently. 

“We needed to relieve the workload of email marketers by introducing more automation while maintaining existing tools and processes in place.” 

Streamlining Processes Amidst Rising Campaign Volume

With the recent addition of a new business unit, this layered even more campaign requests to the already full plate. This surfaced the urgency to find a solution that would not only reduce manual work and streamline processes but a solution that would make it easier to produce campaigns. 

Reclaim Time for Impactful Work Focus

Since the marketing team was spending the majority of their time on campaign execution, they had less time to focus on high-impact work that would allow them to grow into more strategic positions. Architecting a solution that would automate campaign execution processes and reduce manual work would allow employees to win back time and regain focus on their career development plans.

Solution

Solution Engineering

To expedite processes and improve campaign efficiency, MERGE evaluated and selected complementary technologies that would streamline the client’s content supply chain. By exposing the client to various solutions and guiding them through the decision-making process, they were able to make a more informed decision about which tools they would be adding to their stack.

The discovery and analysis phase allowed the team to create and document the functional requirements.

During the design, MERGE’s engineers created a solution in alignment with the client’s needs and constraints. MERGE designed each component, including the data architecture, content extraction, transformation, and loading process, automation workflows, and quality assurance testing protocols for the automation of 78 different marketing program scenarios.

After creating a proof of concept and customer acceptance of the solution, in a sandbox environment, the team was ready to start the build.

Architecture and Build

To fully leverage the power of automation, MERGE architectured the solution using Workfront Fusion, an integrated platform for Workfront, that comes with pre-built connections to Workfront and Marketo, and Jeto Connect, a MERGE integration solution that allowed the development of custom functions and simplifying the integration with all the platforms.

Since the client’s goal was to expedite processes, MERGE crafted the integration architecture that would automate the build by sourcing information from Workfront Projects, which sourced content from Word and XLS Documents.

Software Development

MERGE developed custom functions and a lambda software application that were essential in the transformation of the content uploaded in Workfront. The lambda service queried Word documents, looking for specific predetermined headers, and then converted the rich text file into an HTML document which could be sent into Marketo as tokens.

“When a Workfront project is created, a new Marketo Program is created, Documents are Extracted, Transformed and Loaded back to Marketo tokens to form a fully blown Email program, all within 2 minutes”

Project and Change Management

Throughout the project, the biggest underlying theme was change management – since their content supply chain was being overhauled (and many employees’ responsibilities were being shifted as a result), incorporating a sound change management strategy was essential.

In addition to change management, MERGE helped with the project management aspect, guiding the client through the various project phases, milestones, and deliverables, as well as coordinating a team of 8+ employees.

Lastly, MERGE trained the client’s team on these new processes and workflows to ensure the transition would be as seamless as possible.

Results

Over the course of 9 months, MERGE’s team of developers, Marketo architects, and technical consultants dedicated 400+ hours to creating a solution that would streamline the client’s content supply chain and lift the manual execution burden from employees. 

Now, our client can instantaneously develop assets and emails that are automatically formatted in Marketo. Not only does this cut down on the manual aspect, but it has also allowed employees to win back time. Rather than being bogged down by manual execution, these employees can focus on high-impact, strategic initiatives and advancing their careers. 

Ultimately, this solution eliminated manual labor, reduced the cost of developing marketing campaigns, and streamlined the process of campaign execution.