To create and manage a top notch marketing plan, you have to ask a lot of questions.  Most are complex questions with elusive answers.  Questions like:

• What is the optimal marketing mix?
• What are the P&L ramifications of a price advance?  What if the competition doesn’t follow?
• What if we reduce our trade budget by 15%?
• What if we increase TV advertising by 80 GRP’s?
• Why did last quarter come in ahead or behind plan?
• What will happen to our brand equity if we cut 4th quarter advertising?
• Are we going to hit our revenue number for the year?  If not, what can we change now to make it?

With M3, marketers have the answers to these types of questions at their fingertips, immediately from their desktop, without taking shortcuts.  Utilizing powerful forward looking simulation and optimization engines in conjunction with marketing mix models and current data, M3 helps marketers analyze the complex, non-linear interactions of consumer demand across accounts, markets, and channels; between competitive and complementary products; through various seasons; and in consideration of any number or type of marketing vehicles, competitive actions, environmental factors or channel activities.

Clear P&L Impact
But M3 is far more than an analytics platform.  It’s a complete planning application that operates in terms of Profit and Loss (P&L) effects and enables broad collaboration.  Multiple marketing planners across multiple departments can contribute simultaneously to the master marketing plan.  Each person will focus on their area of expertise--pricing, media, a sales territory, or a particular brand--and M3 incorporates these inputs into the full brand or division-wide plan.  The results are clearly measured in terms of a P&L statement that is configured to the specific requirements of the brand.  And if more than one P&L format is required to show different line items for another department or to highlight effects on a distribution channel partner, for example, those can be created simultaneously.

Continuously Plan, Track, and Optimize
M3 supports the decision-making process during focused planning periods, but more importantly, M3 also supports marketers as they execute against the plan by highlighting opportunities for course correction when “actual” data arrives and exposes changing market conditions.  The effect of new coupons, media campaigns, or products, for example, can be quickly evaluated in terms of full P&L effects.  And through use of advanced genetic algorithms, M3 lets marketers mathematically optimize their entire marketing spend at the touch of a button.  This automatic conversion of marketing mix analysis into an actionable plan allows marketers to truly understand how to achieve specific business goals such as “making the back half.”

Manage Brand Equity
Marketers must also ensure the long term health of the brand, so equity measures of any variety may be used alongside financial performance metrics from the P&L.  That's right--you can optimize your marketing plan utilizing both financial and equity measures together!  A planner could, for instance, ask M3 to identify the best marketing plan to improve volume and profit, without allowing equity to erode, and M3 would find the solution that best meets these competing objectives. 

Click here for an overview of specific M3 features.