The definition of a top-performing marketing operations team varies from organization to organization based on factors like team structure, company size, and specific needs.
This may lead you to wonder: how do I know if my team is top-performing? What KPIs are top-performing teams looking at, and what goals should we be working towards? Before you begin answering these questions, you’ll first need to determine what kind of marketing operations team you are. At Perkuto, we typically see marketing operations teams fall into one of these two categories:
- Team A: Your marketing operations team is an execution arm for marketing stakeholders
- Team B: Your marketing operations team is more of a demand generation/Marketo admin hybrid function
Team A would want to set goals around meeting project timelines, providing flawless campaign execution, documenting processes, and reporting, while Team B would want to focus on KPIs around lead generation, SQLs, and revenue generation (be sure to have an attribution model in place).
💡 Does your marketing operations team have an attribution model in place? If not, now is the time to start. Our attribution tool of choice is Bizible.
Our takeaway here is to begin by defining your KPIs so you can determine whether or not your team is high-performing.
Next lesson: How can top-performing teams continue to hone their craft and set themselves up for even more success?
We’ve identified three key areas to lead top-performing teams into the future, which are:
- Leverage frameworks for success
- Go ALL IN on automation
- Embrace marketing operations communities
Leverage frameworks for success
First, we’ll talk about frameworks. A crucial component of frameworks includes detailed documentation. We have an entire strategy video dedicated to documentation because it plays such a key role. Why?
Let’s face it – tight budgets, fueled by the uncertainty of our global economy, then add the pressure to optimize resources. All while furthering productivity. Sound about right?
Quick stat: MarTech investments make up 26% of marketing budgets, yet marketers are only utilizing 58% of their MarTech stack’s potential, says Gartner.
Frameworks provide marketing operations leaders a proven means to fast-track their success for three reasons:
- Provides a strong foundation to build and grow upon
- Reduces execution time
- Cost-efficient
The take-home message here is that you can increase your efficiency by using a framework. It’s a no-brainer.
So, how can you start building frameworks to utilize at your organization? The elements of a solid marketing operations framework are what we call SCORE:
S – Scalable
C – Cohesive
O – Organized
R – Reliable
E – Efficient
💡 Get on the fast track to success through our SCORE Architecture Framework. This framework is based on proven best practices on more than 1,500 Marketo instances, and offers pre-built and pre-tested programs.
Go all-in on automation
Automation at the enterprise level is here.
In fact, a new role is emerging dedicated to the enterprise automation function. This role will be tasked with automating and streamlining business processes across the organization.
Currently, enterprise automation at most companies is, at best, an ad-hoc activity executed by IT or business systems or functional ops teams. Yet, since the gains are so tangible, we think we’ll soon see more dedicated specialist teams owning this as an organization-wide initiative.
The skills required for this will come directly from marketing operations teams.
So, how do you prepare your team? Start by getting excited about Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS).
Platforms like Workato, Mulesoft, Tray.io, Zapier, and others can effortlessly and programmatically move data from one system to another without breaking a sweat.
Next-level marketing operations teams will identify inefficiencies, automate tedious and manual tasks, and do more with less by leveraging these automation tools.
Think you’re ready to automate? Here’s a list of things you can automate at your organization:
- List uploads
- Manual deduplication
- Adding opportunity contact roles
- Data cleansing and normalization
- Catching erroneous lead sources
- Troubleshooting system integration/sync issues
- User provisioning
- Campaign creation
And did we mention list uploads?
Embrace marketing operations communities
Top-performing marketing operations teams are always leveling up.
Lead them to the water by engaging with the very dynamic marketing operations communities and endless resources for documentation, learning, and development.
Here are five resources to help you stay attuned to the latest best practices:
Marketo Nation
No surprise here – if you’re a Marketo user, leveraging Marketo Nation is the first step to take when trying to expand your knowledge base. Through Marketo Nation, users are able to browse discussion boards to help their peers assess complications or create their own thread when they have an issue they can’t solve.
Marketo User Groups
Join your local group, in-person or virtually, to learn from experts, network, and make friends. The community is close-knit, and getting to know other Marketo users in your area can pay dividends when you need to phone a friend.
Marketo Virtual User Group
This YouTube channel consists of nearly 100 videos, webinars, and learning sessions specifically designed for digital marketers using Marketo automation software.
MO Pros community
Join other marketing operations professionals in the MO Pros community! This community is designed to foster trust, communal learning, and the personal development of all of its members. They also have their own Slack channel!
Marketing operations podcasts
There are too many to list them all, but a few great ones include:
So what do you think – does this sound about right to you? The future includes:
- Leveraging frameworks and documentation to create predictable outcomes in shorter periods of time
- Embracing the automation movement to reduce manual tasks and automate at the enterprise level
- Doubling down in the community for learning and development to network and level up your skills
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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