How can your marketing operations team deliver more value to the business?

Let's face it, B2B marketing can feel like juggling chainsaws. But a strong marketing operations team can be your game-changer. These superstars don't just keep the lights on; they help us shine brighter. They automate the mundane tasks that bog us down, freeing us up for creative brainstorming and strategic thinking. Plus, they're data wizards. They translate all those marketing numbers into actionable insights, so we can fine-tune campaigns on the fly and ditch what's not working.

In my experience, the marketing operations team plays an integral role in our campaign strategy. I involve them from the outset to review campaign goals and objectives. They consistently demonstrate their ability to contribute valuable insights and recommendations. When aligned with the business/campaign objectives, they can optimize processes, leverage data, foster cross-functional collaboration, and adapt to market changes. As a marketing manager, there have been occasions where I initially sought different reports to assess campaign performance. Upon seeking assistance from the ops team, they provided an alternative report that proved to be more insightful and effective.

I think of Marketing Ops as a 'Marketing as a Service' (MaaS) model, effectively becoming the engine that powers every facet of the organization. By deeply understanding and committing to the overarching company strategy and KPIs, we're not just aligned; we're fully integrated into sales, strategic partnerships, product development, brand, etc. With a MaaS mindset, we can operationalize marketing cross-functionally and at scale, ensuring it's not a standalone function but a central service that supports and amplifies the efforts of every team, acting as the vital connective tissue of the organization.

I think that the best thing to do is to have a full commitment of all the people involved to the business objectives we want to reach. Then we define all the marketing assets to use and how the people involved (also outside the marketing team) can or have to contribute.

I think it's important first-off to develop an overall 12-month marketing plan utilizing a cross-functional team approach: 1. Collaborate with cross-functional business stakeholders to define a 12-month marketing plan that includes OKR's relevant to their teams. 2. Guide the marketing plan development every 12 months by including cross-functional stakeholders and teams in the marketing planning process. Conduct regular check-ins to report on progress. 3. Once you get buy-in from cross-functional stakeholders be sure to present the 12 month marketing plan to those teams when completed. 4. Define a meeting cadence throughout the year to conduct follow ups with cross-functional teams to ensure company-wide marketing OKR alignment.

Too few organizations connect the marketing plan to the business strategy and evaluate its effectiveness in supporting it. Understanding the rationale behind each processed lead and its alignment with the business strategy shifts the Marketing Operations role from simple operational efficiency to a critical component of sustained growth. This understanding ensures that every marketing action is a strategic step forward. Marketing Operations must be the referee in deciphering each lead's potential impact on achieving business objectives. Identifying this fit and measuring the success of marketing programs to achieve it, is critical for organizations.

Understanding the Bigger Picture: Marketing ops needs to be on the same page as the entire company, grasping the mission, values, and overall goals. Translating Goals into Action: They should take those big-picture ideas and translate them into actionable marketing objectives and priorities. Focus on What Matters: For example, if expanding to new markets is key, marketing operations should tailor their efforts to support and measure that specific initiative.

Think of your marketing team as a communications optimization tool. How many of your business goals require good communications to be realized? Have hiring and retention goals? Marketing can help create persuasive messaging for current and prospective employees. Need to discover new markets? Marketing research can uncover new opportunities. Struggling with employee morale? Partner HR with the marketing team. There are dozens of ways to integrate the marketing department into the entire organization's goals. Who better to implement internal and external company messaging than the messaging and brand experts already at your disposal? Many companies silo marketing and miss the department's full value.

For your marketing operations team to truly add value, it’s crucial to sync up with the broader business strategy. Dive into the company’s mission, values, and big-picture goals to see how they translate into your marketing efforts. Say the goal is to break into new markets; your team should then pivot to support and track the success of that move. This alignment means you’re not just ticking off marketing tasks; you’re directly fueling the company’s growth and success. It’s about making sure every marketing move you make is a step forward for the business as a whole.

1. Understanding the "Why" Behind the Strategy: It's not enough to simply know the business goals. Marketing operations needs to understand the "why" behind them. What market trends or customer needs are driving these goals? This deeper understanding allows them to develop more impactful marketing initiatives.

Knowing Who We're Serving is Key Marketing ops isn't just about tech and data (although they're great at that too!). To truly add value, we need to understand who we're serving – both customers and internal stakeholders like sales and product teams.

Marketing operations teams should simplify the complex, allowing Marketers to keep up the momentum of delivering, safe in the knowledge that they don’t have to know the inner workings of every system and process. Marketers deliver with more confidence and pace if they’re underpinned by a robust marketing operations function that’s fully up to speed with the strategy and can create seamless connections between their execution and outcomes. I’ve been very fortunate to work with some true professionals in this space, and what a difference it makes to teamwork and overall performance!

Why not to create a team (maybe with an agile concept) where we include sales people? they might not have marketing capabilities (which might be anyhow available in other resources in the team) but surely they can speak the customer's language better than any survey.

In today's business landscape, the mantra of "customer first" is ubiquitous, yet the reality often falls short of the rhetoric. Many companies claim to prioritize their customers, yet their actions reveal a different story—one where internal organizational goals take precedence over genuine customer needs.True customer-centricity requires more than just lip service. Companies must align their organizational goals with the interests of their customers to build trust, loyalty, and long-term success. This means listening actively, empathizing deeply, and continuously adapting to evolving customer preferences and expectations.Let's move beyond the buzzwords and make "customer first" more than just a slogan.

The marketing operations team play a critical role in a company. They have a global vision of what the business is doing, and have extensive knowledge about how to optimize processes. I think it's extremely useful for a company that their marketing operations team have a relevant role in the company.

Constantly refining our processes and workflows is at the heart of our marketing operations team's mission. We're dedicated to enhancing efficiency by assessing, documenting, and automating tasks where possible. Collaboration and communication are key, fostering a dynamic environment for sharing insights and feedback. Our focus remains on delivering exceptional results through streamlined practices and a commitment to continuous improvement.

Embrace Marketing Automation & Integration: Leverage marketing automation platforms to automate repetitive tasks like lead nurturing, email marketing, and social media scheduling. Integrate your marketing technology stack to ensure seamless data flow and avoid information silos.

A constante revisão e melhoria dos processos de marketing garantem a eficiência operacional e a entrega consistente de resultados de alta qualidade. 💼 A automação e a padronização de tarefas ajudam a reduzir erros e a liberar tempo para atividades estratégicas e criativas. Facilitar a colaboração e a comunicação entre as equipes por meio de ferramentas adequadas promove uma cultura de eficiência e inovação.

Review and refine your marketing processes and workflows for efficiency and effectiveness. Look for bottlenecks, redundant tasks, or opportunities for automation. Streamlined operations can increase productivity, reduce costs, and improve campaign execution and speed to market.

I completely disagree with what the AI has written here, as the context of this article is "How can your marketing operations team deliver more value to the business?" If you want to do this you will not achieve it by reporting on marketing operations KPIs. Those are for operationally running your team. You need to figure out how to translate your data into business value. Ask questions like what does increased engagement on platform x actually mean. It could indicate a fundamental shift in demographics for your customer base. What does reduced email engagement actually mean?

Marketing operations team has the responsibility of churning the data coming from the ground marketing team into vital and key insights with respect to the key performance indicators of the organisation. They are the best team to understand changes in customer perspective or demographic changes and accordingly share their insights to higher management to enable them to make the right decision at the right time.

A medição precisa e a análise dos resultados de marketing são essenciais para avaliar o desempenho e demonstrar o retorno sobre o investimento. 📊 Relatórios claros e concisos ajudam a comunicar o impacto das atividades de marketing para as partes interessadas e a orientar decisões futuras. Incorporar feedback e aprendizados dos dados permite ajustes contínuos e aprimoramentos nas estratégias de marketing.

Establish metrics and KPIs to track the performance of your marketing activities. Regularly review and analyze these metrics to assess what’s working and what’s not. Transparently report these results to stakeholders, using the data to demonstrate your team’s impact and inform future strategies.

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) and regularly report on them to demonstrate the impact of marketing operations on the business. Use these insights to justify investments and inform future strategies.

I think it may seem obvious, but understanding the overall company goals and aligning with the GTM (Go-To-Market) plan is essential. Secondly, focus on a service-led mindset to enable marketing, sales, and customer success teams to achieve their goals. Lastly, foster an environment of continuous improvement and experimentation. Recognize that you won't always get it right the first time, and constant adjustments are necessary. This means establishing strong feedback loops and proactively developing solutions to accelerate growth and demonstrate value.

I think it's really important to always be exploring new tools and processes. If there's something missing in your workflow, there's probably a tool out there to help. Mastering these resources can really boost efficiency and spark creativity. And by keeping up with the latest trends, you can stay adaptable in the constantly changing digital world, which helps you and your team meet and even exceed business goals.

Continuous learning is crucial for success in marketing operations. Utilize diverse educational resources such as online courses, webinars, and networking to remain abreast of trends. Seek advice from mentors and colleagues, applying newfound knowledge to your tasks. This proactive stance not only improves your skills but also accelerates your career advancement and greatly benefits your team. Maintain a curious and dedicated approach to personal development for sustained professional achievement.

Encourage continuous learning and development within your team. Stay updated with the latest marketing trends, technologies, and best practices. Investing in skill development not only improves team performance but also keeps your strategies fresh and competitive.

Strive to work with the best vendors available. Seize every chance to learn from them, viewing each interaction as a learning opportunity. The skills acquired from vendors could potentially be leveraged for in-house operations, enhancing overall efficiency.

After identifying the strengths and weaknesses of marketing, it becomes clearer which capabilities need to be developed, sustained at their current level, scaled-down, outsourced, or automated. However, it's often easier for leaders to launch new initiatives or maintain the status quo than to reallocate resources from existing activities.

Stop calling them Marketing Operations, call them The Growth Engine. It clarifies their role from the beginning – they're not just about the mechanics, they're all about driving business results. Working with @efraimgolan and @ariel-lopez really emphasized this for me. They constantly pushed our team and myself to understand the "why" behind everything we did. Every campaign, integration, even the individual emails in the nurture sequence. They wanted to know the goal – how is this contributing to getting more SQLs in our case. Not all marketing operations are able to get to that level early on. You have to take them through the business processes, the goals, the metrics and why what they are doing is so valuable to the company.

Get real Customer insights from the field. Being a fly on the wall and unlearning customer behaviours can help you shape your marketing strategies to meet or surpass customer expectations. Marketing Teams should involve cross-domain expertise and look at the Inter-dependencies and inter-connections as well as the potential future impact of technology, financial, social and geo-political trends that are shaping customer affinities or driving loyalties. Just like increase in online meetings (Bonus for Zoom) led to reduced business travel (impact to Airlines)... Such indirect impacts can only be looked at when Marketing looks into a 360-degree view and consider all internal and external factors impacting a product or a service.

Sempre há espaço para inovação e aprimoramento nas operações de marketing, e é importante permanecer aberto a novas ideias e perspectivas. 🌱 Explorar oportunidades de melhoria contínua e compartilhar insights valiosos contribui para o desenvolvimento tanto pessoal quanto organizacional. Esteja atento às tendências emergentes e às melhores práticas da indústria para garantir a relevância e a eficácia das estratégias de marketing.

Try to divide strategies and tactics into short-term and long-term results tactics. And then rate them in terms of required investment. This can help communicate strategies and make selecting the right tactics for each goal easier.