SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. — It was a rough year for marketers, as is often the case anytime there’s a dip in the economy, but cutting back on marketing budgets doesn’t mean companies need to cut back on marketing programs, according to a speaker at this week’s Gartner CRM Summit.

Last year, said Kimberly Collins, research vice president with the Stamford, Conn.-based research firm, more than 75% of companies surveyed by Gartner said they would cut 20% or more of their marketing budget. The solution, Collins said, is to spend more — on marketing resource management (MRM).

“It becomes very challenging for marketing to get any budget in this recession,” Collins said. “MRM really helps put companies in a position to be more agile. There are always going to be highs and lows. Agile marketing organizations will always be able to adjust.”

MRM is a set of processes that tries to enhance and optimize marketing processes, both internal and external, she said.

“There’s a lot of areas in marketing that remain unmeasured and I hear it’s ‘because it’s unmeasured we start to cut it out of our budget,'” Collins said. “With MRM, you begin to measure things you were not able to measure before.”

Marketing resource management consists of five disciplines: strategic planning and financial management; creative production management; marketing fulfillment; marketing performance management; and knowledge management.

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