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corporate marketing groups can be so focused on tactics and fire
fighting that they jeopardize their marketing investment. The tendency
to overreact to events, tackle symptoms rather than underlying fundamental
problems and jump at the opportunity to please the boss can prove
fatal. Crippled marketing efforts can leave promising companies
in the dust, or at least handicapped at the starting gate.
Admired technology companies (like Cisco, Symantec and Adobe) are
leveraging Marketing Operations to improve performance and measure
ROI as they refine their marketing organizations using an operational
focus. Marketing Operations is an emerging discipline that increases
efficiency and drives consistent results in complex marketing organizations.
It builds a foundation for excellence by reinforcing marketing strategy
with processes, technology, metrics and best practices.
While Marketing Operations is uniquely suited to tackle marketing's
most challenging problems in Fortune 500 companies, you don't have
to be an Cisco or Adobe to benefit. Here are the seven deadliest
marketing sins that plague companies of all sizes and how Marketing
Operations addresses them:
Sin #1: Ill-defined metrics
Today's corporate marketing departments must justify their existence.
The need to measure results is inevitable. However, the instincts
and skills that make a corporate marketing professional great-a
bias toward action, verbal and written acuity and a talent for relationship-building-often
don't translate into an ability or willingness to scientifically
and objectively evaluate success.
Broken systems and the unwillingness of the organization to pay
for marketing measurement also conspire against the effort to define
meaningful success metrics.
Solution: Marketing Operations ensures that the right processes
are in place to establish meaningful metrics at the front-end of
marketing process, enabling success measurement processes at key
intervals and as each program concludes.
Sin #2: Slammed resources
The prevailing attitude of "doing more with less" can
leave key people discouraged and overwhelmed, near burnout - and,
eventually, circulating their resumes. The consequences for organizations
are costly mistakes, high turnover, collapsed programs when key
people leave, and missed opportunities to leverage important, but
ownerless, programs.
Solution: Marketing Operations addresses resource limitations by
ensuring workload is effectively allocated, roles are clearly defined,
interdependencies are understood, team members feel satisfied with
their jobs, and valued-added programs and associated resources-whether
through additional headcount or outsourcing-can be justified to
executive management.
Sin #3: Sketchy institutional memory
Successful marketing programs depend on accurate information, a
historical view into past successes and failures, and the ability
to recognize patterns that link seemingly unrelated data points.
Unfortunately, in many marketing organizations, this crucial knowledge
is scattered all over the company. It's in the heads of individual
workers, on shelves, on people's hard drives and in long-forgotten
filing systems. Often, when people leave, a big piece of organizational
knowledge goes with them. Information loss is a huge productivity
killer for marketing teams. Trying to regain this lost insight wastes
previous marketing investments.
Solution: Marketing Operations facilitates knowledge sharing, creates
an enduring repository of information and encourages decision-making
based on fact, rather than hunches or gut feelings.
Sin #4: Constrained creativity
The best creative solutions come from the collaboration of many
brains.. A consequence of the age of the "individual-contributor/director"
is constrained creativity. When the entire creative burden falls
mostly on one corporate marketer, the ability to think out of the
box can be severely impacted. Creative synergy results from many
minds thinking as one.
Solution: Marketing Operations enables the creative process to
benefit from the synergy of team.
Sin #5: Failed supplier relationships
Most successful companies can point to numerous strong, long-term
marketing supplier relationships they consider to be integral to
their success. Likewise, a pattern of failed supplier relationships
is often an indicator of marketing department failure, rather than
poor vendor performance.
Unfortunately, companies that have had consistently bad relationships
with outside vendors and suppliers often react by bringing everything
in house. While this strategy may provides the illusion of control,
it allows marketing managers to deflect the blame for failures,
rather than teaching them how to manage their outsourcing program
by taking responsibility for the results. In addition, this "band-aid"
strategy won't scale with the organization as it grows.
Solution: Marketing Operations helps set realistic expectations
and mutual accountability between suppliers and the organization,
increasing the effectiveness of outsource partners by empowering
them to act as an extension of the internal team.
Sin #6: Lost program budgets
Budgets are never set in stone. Often, it's a "use it or lose
it" situation. For some managers, it's "misuse it and
lose it anyway." Unfortunately, many corporate marketing departments
end up leaving program budget on the table or allocating it to the
wrong initiatives. This "Catch 22-marketing budget dilemma"
occurs because . . .
- It's very time consuming to manage the budget effectively, especially
in companies with broken financial systems
- Each marketing spend-decision creates more work for the one-person
or small-team marketing department in terms of project management,
measurement, supplier management, etc.
- Doubt persists about the ability to successfully justify the
expenditure to management
- Focus is instinctively on high-visibility marketing activities
and C-level executive requests over good fiscal management
- Most marketing types are inclined toward creativity rather than
finance
Solution: Marketing Operations facilitates implementing the system-support
infrastructure and financial-management discipline needed to protect
valuable marketing budgets.
Sin #7: Narrow marketing mix
Many companies align their fate with the success of too few marketing
programs - whether it's lead generation, public relations, trade
shows or advertising. Over-reliance on any one particular program
can derail a company, especially if a key program unexpectedly loses
momentum. In the meantime, programs that could have had strong leverage
never get a chance to prove their mettle and are forever relegated
to the "B" list. Classic examples include customer references,
lead nurturing and analyst research/consulting subscription ROI
management.
Solution: Marketing Operations puts the means in place to launch
potentially high-value marketing programs that would otherwise never
get out of the starting gate.
The Bottom Line
In a nutshell, Marketing Operations is your company's best bet
to . . .
- Ensure that success can be measured and replicated
- Leverage process, technology and metrics to enable consistently
excellent performance
- Run its marketing department like a fully-accountable business.
Implementing a Marketing Operations program takes buy-in from key
executives and the commitment of the entire marketing team. However,
considering the positive results and high return on investment experienced
by Fortune 500 companies and those that wish to emulate them, it
is well worth the effort.
Gary M. Katz is CEO of Marketing Operations Partners (www.mopartners.com)
and CommPros Group, Inc. (www.commprosgroup.com).
He is a 20-year marketing veteran with extensive experience directing
corporate marketing, strategic planning, change management, lead
generation, public relations, investor relations and employee communications
programs.
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