How do you establish marketing governance?

One of the most important tasks in assessing the current governance state is with determining how marketing operations activities and governance (or lack of) are being conducted today and how this is aligned to your company's culture, goals, and strategy. Understand the "why" behind how the current governance is being executed.

FIrst things first, before assess the current state: Start by promoting the Marketing Governance value internally, educating the organization on how structured governance enhances efficiency, accountability, and alignment with business goals. Shift the marketing team toward a stakeholder-centric approach, encouraging engagement with all, and making their needs central to decision-making.

Establishing an overseas branch for our established company required a meticulous approach. Beyond conducting interviews and formulating a strategic plan, I recognized the necessity for a robust audit function. This was imperative to identify opportunities within the local markets and assess the suitability of our products. The challenge lay in refining our product offerings to align with the company's DNA while ensuring that the existing structure could effectively measure our performance, outreach, and overall success. Balancing adaptation with brand integrity became crucial in navigating the complexities of entering a new market.

Joining a directors' network's digital transformation committee, our first move was setting a SMART goal, pivotal for a diverse team of marketers. Specific, measurable goals provided clarity, fostering effective collaboration. Leveraging diverse strengths, we aligned focus areas strategically, optimizing resources. Measurability, achievability, relevance, and time-bound elements guided our transformative journey. This deliberate, strategic approach successfully reshaped the digital landscape of board responsibilities, ethics, and policies for directors and stakeholders.

It is critical to align the vision/goals of Marketing Operations governance with the culture and goals of your organization. Aligned governance will always aligned with aligned company goals, and the best place to assess "am I aligned?" is with a review of your leadership's OKRs.

To define visions and goals for marketing governance, start by aligning marketing activities with your company’s objectives and ensuring consistent, effective communication, like: 1. Increase marketing ROI by 15% in the next 6 months through data-driven optimization; 2. Improve brand consistency by reducing content inconsistencies by 80% within 6 months; 3. Enhance customer satisfaction by 15% within 6 months via personalized, targeted campaigns; 4. Minimize operational risks by streamlining approval processes, cutting delays by 30% in the next quarter This practical and structured approach ensures efficiency, accountability, and measurable success, empowering marketing teams to act with clarity and purpose

When designing a marketing governance framework, it’s crucial to tailor it to the specific dimensions of each marketing operations and available resources, ensuring it doesn’t constrain ongoing activities. The framework should clearly define roles and responsibilities to streamline decision-making, set practical policies and standards that align with business goals, and design workflows that balance governance with operational efficiency. Data and technology protocols must be scalable and realistic. Most importantly, the framework must be measurable and accountable, setting clear metrics for each component to ensure progress: provide a roadmap for the next steps.

Implementing a robust governance framework was pivotal for enhancing team performance and refining our service offerings. Externally, we emphasised documentation of all communications, enabling an evaluation process. Internally, a hierarchical chart was established to craft individual responsibilities and reporting metrics for each account. Also, we organised semi-annual workshops to reward performances, fostering a culture of excellence. These sessions served as platforms to fine-tune any standards lagging in our overall workflows, promoting continuous improvement. This multifaceted approach aimed at both internal structure and external communication significantly contributed to the overall efficiency and effectiveness of our operations.

You will need to align around your company's culture and your aligned objectives. As Peter Drucker famously said "Culture eats strategy for breakfast" so it is important that your model lines up with your culture. The aligned governance will generally fall into one of the following categories. 1. Centralized. Everything runs through a central MOPs team. 2. Decentralized. MOPs consults but does not govern . 3. Hybrid. Shared governance between the business (marketing) and Operations. Gain buy-in for this model and design your rules of engagement, SLAs and working cadences around the model you choose that best fits your organization.

The most successful implementations occur when the governance framework is embedded within every individual in the marketing team, from the marketing board to those in fieldwork roles. When everyone aligns their actions with the framework and sees it as an integral part of their daily responsibilities, it becomes second nature rather than an external obligation. Establishing clear feedback channels is another critical component, as it ensures the framework remains dynamic and responsive to evolving organizational needs. Stakeholders are more likely to engage when they see their input leading to meaningful improvements.

I’d establish continuous feedback loops: gathering insights from performance to capture both strategic gaps and operational blockers in production, approvals, or execution. I’d prioritize improvements based on marketing risks and impact, focusing on brand compliance and budget efficiency to protect reputation and resources. Leveraging tech and automation is key to streamline compliance, approvals, and data accuracy, making governance more efficient and scalable. Also, I’d track wins on how governance improvements drive better outcomes as a strategic enabler. Lastly, embedding a culture of ownership and accountability ensures governance becomes part of how we work, not just a checklist, and remains impactful as the landscape evolves

Documentation. It’s not just about what is flowing where but also why decisions were made and known/accepted risks. Typically we forget this when thinking about documenting our marketing. It should also be used to validate its effectiveness. Is it delivering what we expected it to?

Develop scalable ways to train and triage projects between your marketing team and your ops team. Ways to do this effectively is through in-app guidance, LMS/certification modules, and video-based tutorials, in addition to (of course) having robust documentation. Additionally, invest in your project intake and tracking technologies and clearly communicate SLAs. Develop, as part of your framework, an organizational use of these project tools so you can measure and report on team utilization and ensure that project SLAs are able to be tracked and met.