In today’s digital world, new brand and regulatory compliance requirements provide a significant challenge for marketing and creative teams to overcome. With the right strategy and tools in place, CMOs and their teams can effectively address these challenges.
Every marketer has been there: a customer – internal or external – has just moved up the deadline for a project, the team is now working double-time to complete edits, and there are still more signoffs required. For many creative teams and marketers, these circumstances are becoming more common as they are pushed to deliver more content for more platforms than ever before. Brand and regulatory compliance are frequently disregarded or seen as just another obstacle in the never-ending effort to deploy marketing campaigns on schedule due to the emphasis on volume and frequency of delivery.
In today’s digital environment, marketing compliance is a big challenge for marketing and creative teams to conquer, and its complexity has grown far beyond copyright designations and trademark attribution.
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Marketing compliance challenges
Marketing compliance constitutes the complete internal standards that a marketing or creative team must meet to adhere to brand rules for public-facing material or the law, in the case of regulatory compliance. With so much on the line, content movements between collaborators and decision-makers are now being analyzed just as closely as the language and imagery in the content. That means that the processes, systems, and tools utilized during the planning, content creation, distribution, and content delivery stages of a marketing campaign, are all subject to regulatory scrutiny. This capability also includes the acts of any brand or advertising partners who are coordinating campaign promotions.
Despite being architects of complex digital advertising campaigns, many marketing and creative teams put up with project feedback techniques that are often challenging for auditing and communication, such as email, sticky notes, hard copy printouts, and other non-digital means.
Revamping marketing compliance
So, how do creative and marketing professionals deal with compliance issues, and how do they recognize what they need to improve internal processes?
When developing the best content management functionalities that address compliance, teams must have the necessary processes in place to ensure that the right people review the correct version at the right time in the workflow order. These elements, whether integrated with third-party solutions or built internally, allow work to move swiftly up the chain and leave a clear, concise record for compliance and regulatory purposes, such as:
- Audit Trails – For teams to show who accessed, commented on, and made decisions on a proof, digital breadcrumbs are essential. If or when proof of regulatory compliance is requested, it’s critical to make sure those running records are conveniently available and completely accurate.
- Version Control – Teams must “lock” proof and then save source files and final versions in an appropriate format and place to ensure that all work is done on the most recent version.
- Logged Comments – When identifying why a new version was developed, it’s critical to keep track of and date every annotation, comment, or reply made on a proof.
- Review Automation and Confidentiality – When there isn’t an appropriate system in place, controlling who has access to what, when, and where is a tall order. Automated workflows can ensure that the right individuals receive the right content at the right time while maintaining confidentiality throughout the review process.
- Security – Review automation and confidentiality aid security operations both internally and externally. Before proof is accessed for review, teams benefit from additional layers of security, and implementing authorization practices is crucial.
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New requirements in a changing industry
Brand and regulatory compliance might arise when a system is based on sporadic check-ins, emails, phone calls, and reminders. Remote work has also brought attention to flaws in previous systems for supporting geographically dispersed teams, such as email. Implementing an automated workflow to make the approval process for marketing content easier and decrease the need for manual review is critical to keeping things moving smoothly and guaranteeing compliance. Building a solid marketing compliance program with the correct tools, workflows, and automation will support brands in functioning as efficiently as possible, regardless of the standards they must follow.
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