Introduction
Marketing operations is responsible for the technical aspects of marketing campaigns, processes and practices.
Define the marketing operations strategy.
Defining the marketing operations strategy is a crucial first step in building out this function. The marketing operations strategy should be aligned with your overall marketing strategy and should include the following components:
- Alignment with overall business goals and objectives. Your organization’s overarching goals are critical to defining your strategic initiatives, so make sure you’ve taken these into account when creating your plan.
- Flexibility and scalability. Keep in mind that market conditions can change rapidly, so be willing to adjust as necessary—but don’t overreact or get ahead of yourself by trying things that aren’t yet ready for prime time!
- Clear communication of expectations for all stakeholders involved (including yourself).
Create a marketing technology (Martech) stack.
- What is a martech stack?
- How is it different from a marketing stack?
- What are the components of a martech stack?
- How do you create a martech stack?
The first step to creating a martech stack is to understand what’s in your current marketing tech toolkit. You may already have some key tools in place, such as CRM software and email marketing services. But if you’re looking for ways to improve your existing setup, consider integrating new technologies into your existing systems or replacing old ones altogether with another tool that can offer more functionality and flexibility.
Establish measurements to optimize your marketing operations performance.
In order to understand how well your marketing operations are performing, you will need to first establish measurements.
When defining these metrics, it’s important to define the problem you want to solve before you start solving it. In other words, don’t get caught up in what other people are doing and what their goals are. Instead of following others’ lead, set your own goals—and make sure they’re ambitious but realistic.
Develop best practices for campaign planning and execution.
- Provide guidelines and templates for campaign planning
- Define the roles and responsibilities of the team members who will be involved in campaign planning and execution
- Outline how processes should be followed, including approvals, decision-making, scope creep management and resource allocation
- Define a process for measuring campaign effectiveness and optimizing future campaigns
Manage the marketing database – including data integration, data cleansing and data maintenance.
- Manage the marketing database – including data integration, data cleansing and data maintenance.
A marketing operation team must be able to manage the database effectively in order to achieve the goals of the company. This includes importing new clients who will engage with your products; keeping an updated list of all existing customers; ensuring that you know where each person is located and what they have purchased from you previously, and ensuring that you have up-to-date information on every single one of them. Without this information, it will be difficult for any business to make informed decisions about who should receive what offers at what time.
Provide reporting on marketing operations KPIs.
Marketing operations KPIs are a key part of measuring and reporting on marketing performance. They can be used to identify opportunities for improvement, help you with budgeting, and even influence how you prioritize projects.
As the owner of these metrics, it is your responsibility to create a report that outlines each month’s goals and results for your team. This will allow them to see what they’re doing well, where they need improvement, and where their efforts are paying off.
Facilitate campaign kickoffs, status reports and retrospective meetings.
- Facilitate campaign kickoffs, status reports and retrospective meetings.
- Provide recommendations for improvement.
Marketing operations is responsible for the technical aspects of marketing campaigns, processes and practices.
Marketing operations is responsible for the technical aspects of marketing campaigns, processes and practices. This includes making sure that the websites are up to date and optimized for performance, as well as monitoring who’s interacting with what content on social media and how they’re interacting with it.
Marketing operations also help develop new tools that make it easier for marketers to do their jobs more efficiently. For example, if a marketer needs to send out an email blast but doesn’t have time because they’re too busy updating their website, marketing ops can create a tool so that all you need to do is type in your message and click “send.”
It’s important not just because it can save you time but also because it makes sure that everything looks consistent across all platforms (for instance all emails will include links back).
Conclusion
As you can see, marketing operations is a vital role within any modern marketing organization. With the right resources and processes in place, marketing operations can help companies overcome obstacles to produce more efficient and effective campaigns. If your company doesn’t have a dedicated marketing operations team yet, now may be the time to consider it!
