Marketing Operations as the Agent of Change
I’ve always viewed Marketing as a core driver of
strategy in any business. No matter how great your offering, if it’s not being
communicated, it going to hit flat pretty fast. In the same way, marketing (and
its related capabilities) are a great driver for change. This notion is
beautifully summed up in Debbie Qaqish’s article below. Have a read and let us
know what you think!
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Change agents
communicate compelling reasons for change, continually explore new ideas and
take ownership with transparency.
One of my key takeaways from attending Martech West was that change
management is no longer a dirty word. In addition, I see marketing operations
in the unique position to lead explosive change that affects the fundamental
role of marketing and the perception of marketing’s value to the firm. Key to
this type of change is for marketing operations leadership to step up as the
agent of change.
There are many characteristics of a change agent. I’d like to
highlight three that best describe successful marketing operations leadership.
They include:
·
Communicating
compelling reasons for change
·
Diversified
knowledge
·
Ownership
and accountability
Communicating Compelling Reasons for Change
Change-oriented marketing ops leaders are excellent communicators. The
mere presence of a marketing operations team represents a change in how
marketing functions. Leveraging this as a platform, effective change agents
hone compelling reasons for change within marketing and with outside key
stakeholders. The reasons for change are tailored to each audience and
succinctly present why and how the change benefits each stakeholder.
For the marketing ops change agent, their compelling reasons for change
are especially powerful as they are backed up and further influenced by data
and on-going data analysis. This is a big change from the more traditional
marketing decision-making processes based largely on gut instinct. It is very
difficult to argue with data-informed changes.
An example of using data to inform and communicate change recently
occurred with one of my customers. Before the arrival of a marketing ops
leader, sales and marketing had constructed a lead scoring model based on gut
feeling and intuition. You’ve seen this before. Sales and marketing get
together and guess how many points to assign to certain kinds of digital
behavior.
With the arrival of a new ops leader, one of her first goals was to make
data-driven decisions, including lead scoring. After deep data analysis, she
re-worked lead scoring and presented the new model at the next sales meeting.
Disagreement quickly broke out but she was able to win them over once she
showed data supporting the new model.
Diversified Knowledge
Successful change agents bring and are continually exploring knowledge,
best practices and new ideas from other areas. This certainly describes an effective
marketing ops change agent who needs to have expertise in technology, data,
marketing, operations, business, consulting, process mapping and the list goes
on. This requirement of diversified knowledge is why we frequently refer to
unicorns in describing what we need in marketing.
However, for the change-oriented marketing ops leader, having
diversified knowledge is not enough. They must know how to weave together their
diversified experience to create an outcome that is greater than the sum of the
parts. After working with, talking to and interviewing hundreds of marketing
ops leaders, it is their consulting skill that is essential to effectively
using their diversified knowledge to effect change.
A few years ago I was working with an organization with a fairly new
marketing ops function and leader. This marketing ops leader had a diverse
background, including a stint in consulting. While having experience in tech,
marketing and operations was important, he claimed his expertise in consulting
affected the most change.
Why? Let’s look at the key characteristics of an effective consultant
and see how that maps to being a change agent. First, this ops leader asked
lots of questions and then shut up and listened to what people had to say. This
behavior achieved two important elements of change. First, asking questions
helped him gather critical information that informed what needed to change.
Second, listening and interacting with all key stakeholders helped build
relationships and advocacy for change.
Another key characteristic of an effective consultant is using
diversified knowledge to create innovative solutions. One marketing ops manager
I worked with used her diversified knowledge to create best practice services
function for program and campaign managers and field managers. First, she baked
into email and campaign templates best practices. As a marketer completed the
template, they were driven to incorporate best practices. In addition, her team
consulted with marketing peers on campaign performance improvement. In both
cases, the diversified knowledge of marketing ops was a key input to changing
campaign processes.
Ownership and Accountability
A huge element of change management success is taking ownership and
being accountable for change in the most transparent way possible. In other
words, change agents are highly visible in what they are doing, how they are
doing it and the results they are achieving. Being in this position can be
scary and lonesome and may invite extra scrutiny and conflict. In situations
with conflict, the ops leader must be able to demonstrate what they are doing
is in the best interest of the business.
Change-oriented marketing ops leaders will look at all the changes that
need to be made and then prioritize which changes will have the biggest impact
on the business (this behavior represents change as well). Quite often, that
change will be in the lead management process. Lead management is where the
rubber meets the road for marketing. After all, the increasing martech investments
are geared to create more qualified leads, that convert at a higher rate and
that visibly demonstrate marketing’s contribution in financial terms. Taking
visible ownership of this process and assuming accountability for an improved
outcome is the hallmark of a change agent.
I was recently working with a global marketing team limping along in
their MQL production and revenue results. They had a turn-over in marketing ops
leadership and the new leader had both a tech and sales background. The first
area she wanted to address was the very sticky issue of MQLs. Sales and
marketing members were at odds with one another and her first approach to
re-engineering the current lead management process soundly rebuffed. This
marketing ops leader engaged sales leadership in a dialog around what she would
do differently and how it would help sales. She also agreed to take ownership
and accountability on her proposed process including having part of her
variable compensation tied to the success of the new process. It was this
attitude and action to accountability that won over the VP of sales so that the
new process could be implemented.
Conclusion
Today’s marketing ops leadership has a choice. They can be reactive
leaders that respond to business requests or they can be change agents that
lead with new ideas, new innovations and new business models. We live in a
digital world and digital transformation is all around us. This is why today’s
marketing ops leaders have such an opportunity to lead and inform change, not
just in marketing, but also in other parts of the organization.
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