Does your marketing operations team leverage a process or framework for managing your marketing stakeholder’s incoming requests? If not, now is the time to start.
Frameworks and processes help you deliver flawless campaigns or project execution, and also be more effective. In this blog, we’ll be diving into two frameworks that you can use at your organization. First, we’ll review a campaign execution framework, followed by a framework that works better for larger, more complex projects or programs.
Basic campaign execution framework
Let’s set the stage:
Imagine you’re at an enterprise-level company.
You’re the Marketo admin for a centralized operations team serving several different marketing groups. Each of these groups are focused on a unique vertical of the business, and each marketing group also has a stakeholder.
These stakeholders are looking to deploy marketing campaigns in your organization’s Marketo Instance, and to manage the intake process, you use JIRA. This allows your marketing operations and project management teams to manage the flow of requests from stakeholders.
Today, you’re focused on a specific campaign request. A marketing stakeholder has submitted a request in JIRA using your intake form.
The task submission checklist details all key elements of the campaign including required assets, content, and audience segmentation details. The project has been assigned to someone on your MOPs team and the triage process begins.
Step One: Triage
In order to complete the build in Marketo, the triage person will make sure all key elements of the campaign are included in the request. It’s not uncommon for this step to include some back-and-forth communication; whether that’s due to the request missing details or the assets aren’t up to snuff. For example, they may provide a low-resolution image that needs to be replaced.
Once triage is complete, best practice is to assign the build of the program to another associate on your marketing operations team. Why? Assigning a unique person to each step in this process is beneficial for two reasons:
- To ensure fresh eyes
- To reduce the chance of error
Step Two: The Build
Since the request has been triaged already, the builder should have everything they need to execute the task.
Once the builder completes this task, and depending on your team size, they should pass it along to a QA person (for smaller teams, it would go back to the original triage person).
Step Three: Quality Assurance
The QA person will review for accuracy based on the original request, which we like to call the source of truth, They’ll test as needed, which oftentimes includes using a tool like EmailOnAcid to make sure the email renders correctly across all platforms and devices.
After triage, build, and QA is completed, a test can be sent to the original requestor – the marketing stakeholder – to review and provide feedback and approval.
As you can see, ensuring that each of these steps are completed eliminates the chance for error. Once your campaign has been approved, the send date and time and recipients can be confirmed, and your error-free marketing campaign can be checked off as executed.
Happy marketing stakeholders make for happy marketing operations teams!
Advanced requests? We’ve got you covered
We all know that every request of marketing operations will not be a simple campaign.
In fact, sometimes the request is more complicated and in-depth, such as building an engagement program for nurture, creating customer lifecycle campaigns, or lead scoring.
If this is the case, it’s best to follow a framework that looks something like this:
- Benchmark
- Engineer
- Activate
- Thrive
Step One: Benchmark
To begin, we recommend organizing a discovery or kick-off meeting with your marketing stakeholders. Let’s call this the benchmarking step.
This step is particularly important when working with new marketing stakeholders and teammates. During this meeting, ask important questions to truly get to know how the team operates and to understand the details of the project.
💡 Within a large enterprise organization, it’s not uncommon for different marketing teams to operate uniquely. This is why it’s important to not treat anything as one size fits all.
Take some time to understand the marketing team’s existing processes, successes, and challenges related to the project request to better identify how to add value and determine the best approach.
As you know, there are often multiple approaches to use in Marketo. Consider each viable option and as always, KISS – keep it simple stupid.
The benchmark stage includes:
- Discovery meetings, introductions, and relationship building
- Documentation of the current state, such as team structure and other important details
- Asking all the questions related to the project request
- Pro top: a project manager can be helpful here to make sure no stones are left unturned
- Review of processes and how work will be managed
The outcome of this step should result in solid notes around the project, including an overview, requirements, and dependencies, along with the developing ideas of how your marketing operations team will design an approach. And with that, you enter the engineering step where you’ll design the solution itself.
Step Two: Engineering
In this step, you’ll work closely with your marketing stakeholder. This way, requirements are clear and no stone is left unturned.
Your marketing operations team will work with the marketing stakeholder to:
- Gather project-specific details through requirements calls
- Document the approach and program design
- Validate the approach with the marketing stakeholder
- Get approval on the documentation
- Define metrics to measure success
Once the solution is engineered, your marketing operations team can move forward with activation.
Step Three: Activation
During this stage of the project, your team will build and test the programs, assets, and other components to ensure information is flowing properly and that the solution operates as expected.
The activation step includes:
- Delivering the project as planned
- Building and implementing custom solutions
- Configuring tools and systems
- Testing the program and documenting results
- Conducting UAT with the marketing team
- Launching the campaign or program
Once the campaign or program has launched, the marketing operations team can set the stage for thriving into the future.
Step Four: Thriving
Training and knowledge transfer are an integral part of the delivery process.
The marketing stakeholder should understand how the solution works – even if only at a high level. They should know why it was designed a certain way, as well as how to use and maintain it. Documentation will come in handy as a safeguard for the future.
Review the goals to determine the success of the project that was delivered. We recommend conducting a retrospective, so that you can focus on continuously improving with the marketing team on future projects.
During the thrive step, you should:
- Conduct training and knowledge transfer sessions
- Help with change management
- Configure tools and systems
- Measure ROI of the project
Take your marketing operations to the next level
Are you frustrated with the outcomes of working with another Marketo partner? We invite you to book an introductory call with us. Let us demonstrate how we’re different and what results we can achieve together. Get in touch.
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