Marketing Operations: Beyond the Bits and Bytes

In our previous post, Jon Miller did a great job discussing the science side of Marketing Operations. His blog also include a link to another insightful blog post from Andy Hasselwander of MarketBridge on the subject. There's no denying that the science or left-brained side of MO is very sexy to data-driven executives running technology and other types of companies. But there's a lot more to MO than numbers, bits and bytes.

Fundamentally, MO is both a COO and change management process within the marketing department. Technology, process and metrics are vitally important. But so is raising the stature and influence of marketing to a more strategic role, aligning with stakeholders both in and outside marketing, and winning buy-in for marketing initiatives (which should be funded in support of enterprise straegic objectives).

Just like there are a only handful of CEOs that can effectively balance technological depth with vision, business savvy and leadership, there are very few technologists who can successfully lead an MO function. If you find one, more power to you. But let's not forget that there are plenty of effective MO pros who can lead technologists that aren't technologist themselves. They might come with deep experience in one or a combination of the following disciplines: lead management, sales enablement, channel marketing, change management, knowledge management, organization development, customer experience management, strategic planning, research, project management, process design, campaign management, measurement, analytics, product management, and, of course, corporate marketing. This list is certainly not exhaustive.

The sexy stuff like technology specification, dashboard development and metrics definition is certainly not easy. Infrastructure never is. But the real challenge is building an ecosystem of support so you deploy the right technology for the organization, make better decisions that are backed by stakeholder buy-in and resources, and continously learn as a team from your experience so the MO of marketing in your organization is constantly adapting to capitalize on the opportunities in the market (while never losing the unique and genuine essence of that which makes your enterprise different.)

Gary