What is marketing operations and why is it essential for your business
As the promotional engine of your company, your marketing department has many responsibilities. Its main tasks are to tell your company’s story, reach out to potential clients, nurture current customers, and promote your products and services.
Because your marketing department is divided into teams with different goals, it is challenging to pull them in the same direction. So, how do you make sure your efforts are consistent throughout your marketing?
You need a management system to connect your people, processes, and technology – you need marketing operations (MOps).
In this post, we’ll dive into the inner workings of MOps and find out how crucial it is for your company’s success.
What is Marketing Operations?
Marketing operations (MOps) – not to be confused with marketing operations professionals (MOPs) – is the foundation of your marketing efforts. It oversees your entire marketing program facilitating communication between teams. MOps reinforces your marketing strategy and ensures that your marketers understand your main marketing goals.
With MOps, your marketing people, processes, technology, and metrics are coordinated. As a result, marketing teams have fewer barriers to completing their objectives, making your entire marketing efforts more streamlined, efficient, and cost-effective.
Where Does Marketing Operations Fit in Your Company?
In any business, all roads lead to marketing. It’s the department that promotes your products and services, and it serves as the face of your company.
That being the case, every element of your business drives your marketing efforts. You see, MOps not only governs your marketing department but it also connects every core element of your company. Further still, it creates a link between your marketing and IT departments.
Here are a few marketing elements your MOps should oversee:
- Marketing strategy – planning, deploying, and monitoring your overall strategy
- Customer experience and journey – mapping the journey, data analysis, and customer feedback
- Campaign development – determining main goals and campaign budget
- Target personas – finding your ideal customer based on your products and services
- Content management – researching the market to find the right content strategy
Your MOps should oversee your IT department’s main functions:
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems – performance measurement and reports
- Data warehouse – analyzing relevant marketing data
- Data science – extracting knowledge from algorithm-driven data
- Data systems – analyzing big data to improve the marketing strategy
- Disaster recovery – planning for an eventual loss of sensitive data
In short, MOps is connected to every part of your company. Still, it primarily focuses on the link that bridges your marketing and IT departments.
Who Are the People Behind Your Marketing Operations?
Depending on your company’s size and management structure, you may have a different person in charge of your MOps. Ideally, a CMO stands at the top of MOps, but it’s not uncommon to have a CEO or COO running MOps.
According to a study by MO Pro Community and Hubspot, over 76% of MOps professionals have a marketing background. The remaining 24% of MOps professionals do not identify themselves as marketers. So we can deduce that the MOps scope goes beyond marketing and touches every part of a company.
Should You Have a Marketing Operations Team?
It depends on the size of your company. For small businesses, MOps can be handled by one individual (although it’s a daunting task that will require a highly skilled marketer with IT knowledge). But ideally, you’ll need a:
- Marketing operations manager
- Generation specialist
- Marketing technology specialist
For mid-size companies, you should add at least two more team members to the list above:
- Content specialist and
- Data specialist
In larger companies, CMOs or CEOs oversee MOps teams. Typically, a MOps team looks like this:
- CEO or CMO
- Director of marketing operations – Manages the entire marketing effort
- Marketing technology manager – Manages a team of technology specialists
- Data manager – Manages a team of data specialists
- Content manager – Manages a team of content creators
It seems like a lot of people, but MOps is a crucial business function that requires a team of experts to make it work. That said, overlooking its importance may be a significant flaw in any business, no matter its size.
What Problems Does Your Marketing Operations Solve?
The increasing complexity of the marketing landscape makes it more challenging for companies to target their ideal customers effectively. Companies must adapt and use the right staff and tools to generate sales and retain customers.
MOps helps you develop an effective marketing strategy. In the long term, MOps can increase ROI, boost customer satisfaction, and give you an in-depth look into your company’s data, ultimately allowing you to focus your efforts on what is or isn’t performing.
Here are four common marketing problems that MOps can solve:
1. You have too much MarTech
Using MOps can help you decide which marketing tools are essential for your business. It will allow you to choose what’s necessary, get rid of what isn’t, and decrease tech spending.
2. Your Marketing teams aren’t on the same page
MOps synchronizes your marketing teams and streamlines campaigns by removing barriers. Your teams are more efficient and have more freedom to pursue their goals without waiting for other teams.
3. Data reports and metrics aren’t available to your entire marketing department
MOps facilitates data sharing between departments and marketing teams, making it possible for each team to have the necessary metrics to measure their campaigns’ success.
4. Your marketing process is slow
MOps helps you speed up your marketing tasks from start to finish. Your marketing campaigns are planned, deployed, and analyzed faster.
In a nutshell, MOps is essential for companies of all sizes and business models. It makes a company better suited to cope with today’s marketing world and helps you foresee your growth at a glance.
Last Thoughts
MOps is an integral part of your marketing. It bridges the gap between teams, breaks down barriers to optimize processes, increases efficiency through technology, and keeps your marketing efforts aligned with your overall goals using data and metrics.
Essentially, MOps is an all-seeing eye that helps you craft a better marketing strategy. It also makes it easier for CMOs and marketing directors to make changes rapidly without restructuring their entire marketing operations. In short, even though MOps is a fairly new concept, it’s necessary for your business.
Author
Peter Fechter
Peter is Digital Marketing Manager at MARMIND and is mainly responsible for website and lead management. When he's not busy creating content, he is developing new strategic approaches for campaign planning.
