{"id":81199,"date":"2024-08-14T20:20:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-14T20:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/glossary\/marketing-information-system\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T00:24:30","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T00:24:30","slug":"marketing-information-system","status":"publish","type":"glossary","link":"https:\/\/mailrelay.com\/en\/glossary\/marketing-information-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Marketing Information System"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A marketing information system<\/strong> (MIS, or SIM in Spanish) is an organized structure of people, tools and processes that collects, analyzes, stores and distributes up-to-date information for making marketing decisions.<\/p>\n\n

In Latin America it is also called sistema de informaci\u00f3n de mercadotecnia<\/strong>. It combines internal and external data so the team decides based on data, not intuition.<\/p>\n\n

What is a marketing information system?<\/h2>\n\n

The idea was proposed by Philip Kotler<\/a> in 1966. He described it as the “nerve center” of a company’s marketing: the place where information arrives and from which it goes out to the decision-makers.<\/p>\n\n

An MIS is not a specific piece of software. It can be a spreadsheet, a CRM<\/a> and Google Analytics, properly connected. Or an analytics platform with dashboards<\/a> for the whole team.<\/p>\n\n

What makes it a system is the method. You know what information you need, where it comes from, who reviews it and how often it arrives.<\/p>\n\n

What are the components of a marketing information system?<\/h2>\n\n

According to Kotler’s classic model, it has four parts. Each one answers a different question.<\/p>\n\n

Component<\/th>What it answers<\/th>Common sources<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Internal records<\/td>What is happening inside my company?<\/td>Sales, orders, costs, CRM, email statistics<\/td><\/tr>
Marketing intelligence<\/td>What is happening outside, day to day?<\/td>Competitors, social media, press, trade fairs, sales reps<\/td><\/tr>
Market research<\/td>What answer do I need to a specific question?<\/td>Surveys, focus groups, market research studies<\/a><\/td><\/tr>
Decision support system<\/td>What do I do with all this data?<\/td>Reports, KPIs<\/a>, forecasting models<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n

Internal records<\/strong> are the data you already have: sales, customers and the results of each campaign. It is the cheapest part and the one that delivers results soonest.<\/p>\n\n

Marketing intelligence<\/strong> is the continuous monitoring of the environment. Competitors’ prices, trends, complaints on social media or what your sales reps tell you.<\/p>\n\n

Market research<\/strong> is done on demand. If you want to know why repeat purchases are falling, you ask your customers in a survey.<\/p>\n\n

The decision support system<\/strong> combines everything above. With analytics tools, and increasingly with artificial intelligence<\/a>, it turns data into a recommendation.<\/p>\n\n

\"The<\/figure>\n\n

How does a marketing information system work?<\/h2>\n\n

It works as a repeating cycle. These are the five steps to set it up:<\/p>\n\n

    \n
  1. Define what you need to know.<\/strong> Start from the decisions you make every month: which product to promote, to whom or with what budget.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Choose the sources and tools.<\/strong> Decide which internal and external data answer those questions and where you will store them.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Collect quality data.<\/strong> No duplicates, in the same format and with the consent required by the GDPR.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Analyze and summarize.<\/strong> Turn the figures into a few indicators that can be understood at a glance.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. Distribute and decide.<\/strong> Each person gets what they need, on time, in a report or a dashboard.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n

    Then you measure the results of what you decided and start again. That way the system improves with every cycle.<\/p>\n\n

    What is a marketing information system for?<\/h2>\n\n

    Its value lies in reducing uncertainty. These are its main advantages:<\/p>\n\n