“Marketing operations is the central nervous system of marketing,” said James Delande, BrandMaker’s Director of Product Marketing, at our MarTech conference. “What that means is that the integration with other applications in your stack, and the visibility and control you gain, will provide you with the ability to make decisions on the fly.”
Many brands know marketing ops is an important piece of any campaign, but not all know how to orchestrate them effectively with high-level strategies. For instance, enterprise marketing teams spend 80% of their time on marketing ops, with only 20% used for marketing strategy, according to McKinsey.
“This is something you should think about because of the effect that it has on your team satisfaction and retention,” Delande said. “They want to be doing strategic work, they want to see and make decisions on the fly. They don’t want to be filling out reports or juggling spreadsheets, so we need to help that ratio change.”
Well-orchestrated marketing ops have the potential to both encourage team member productivity and improve campaign ROI. Here are six reasons why ops is a foundational piece of successful digital marketing strategies.
It impacts everything marketing does
Marketing ops use your technology and process to improve campaign effectiveness and efficiency, meaning it plays a role in everything from day-to-day functions to big picture strategizing.
“By integrating and deploying marketing operations, you gain efficiency,” said Delande. “This is how some companies regularly get to market faster, respond to opportunities and avoid calamities.”
Marketing ops is an accelerator
Since marketing ops touches each aspect of your campaigns, it can be a perfect vehicle for business acceleration. It can also help foster growth when each connection is harmonized.
“It [marketing ops] is also an accelerator because it connects to all apps in your stack, like CRM, ERP, and DAMs for visibility, control, and performance,” Delande said.
It can expand your budget without breaking it
“Marketing operations can spread your budget, but without it, you can break your budget,” Delande said. “So, with integrated marketing operations, you can determine the ROI and be able to finally turn your cost center into a revenue generator.”
Many marketers may be wary of spending too much on marketing ops in fear of breaking their budget. But, when invested in quality people and systems, brands can establish benchmarks, forecast ROI, and streamline revenue generation processes.
Ops is a market multiplier
“Marketing operations is a market multiplier,” Delande said. “Each process you improve is multiplied as it affects other processes contributing to a bigger impact in the marketplace.”
When brands invest in ops as their campaign foundation, the other marketing processes benefit. Their impact is that much greater when the engine of your marketing machine is supported.
Read next: A journey into the minds of marketing ops professionals.
It offers a competitive advantage
Teams that support their marketing ops often find themselves at an advantage over their competitors. This is because it gives brands more accurate data, enabling a clearer view of how their competition is performing. It also helps marketers adjust their strategies more easily.
“When you have the agility to make critical course corrections in real-time, you gain a valid, valuable advantage over your competitors, so it can boost team morale and performance.”
It improves team morale and performance
Marketing team morale rises when campaigns perform well. So well-structured, efficient ops and the successes they bring can help lift team members’ confidence — it can also bring more enjoyment to their work.
“Inefficient ops consumes your skilled staffs time with mindless, repetitive tasks that wear them down,” Delande said.
He added, “Marketing ops shifts work, strategy, and performance for excitement and satisfaction.”
Watch the rest of this presentation at the MarTech conference here (free registration required).
About The Author
Corey Patterson is an Editor for MarTech and Search Engine Land. With a background in SEO, content marketing, and journalism, he covers SEO and PPC to help marketers improve their campaigns.
