What do you do if problem-solving is not driving innovation in Marketing Operations?

This is an ongoing challenge for every business... we sometimes can't see the woods for the trees ?????? that is often diagnosed as 'being too close' to the problem that you can't see it. What seemingly is a problem-found is not necessarily the biggest problem that will drive value. As consultants we typically brind a series of problems into a project. This way we can get executive buy in and a clear prioritisation. As Marketing Operations experts our goals are quality, timeliness, and scalability, but these must be viewed through the lense of the business objectives... i.e. grow new business revenue by 30% if it doesn't line up, it's not necessarily an urgent problem.

In agile and modern business problem-finding is key to success and leading the way for innovation. Problem-finding can on the other hand be seen as unnecessary worrying if it's communicated poorly. It's a fine line between finding problems and at the same time delivering suggested solutions that bring value (or propose to spend time and resources toward a solutions) rather than simply outlining problems that may occur in the future.

Design thinking or user-centered design takes it's stand against the classic internal thinking. Creating a process or flow only based on how you as a matter expert think may yield advanced features or great tools. But are they easily understood by users? Start with asking your users or stakeholders how they see things and outline how certain solutions would impact them and their behavior, and ultimately if it assists them to reaching their goal.

Clearly define innovation goals and objectives aligned with the organization's strategic priorities. Establish metrics to measure progress and success in driving innovation within Marketing Operations.

Identify the growth drivers for your business. Outline how you can leverage these drivers at an optimal level and what it takes to get there. Usually you would be looking at the utilization of automated solutions to rapidly grow awareness or market share. Most growth hacking tactics rely in data collection and data driven decisions, usually in real time. This makes data analysis and data quality key to growth hacking success.

Growth hacking demands speed, but data bottlenecks can hinder Marketing Operations. A streamlined solution using tools like Funnel.io or Fivetran with BigQuery and Looker Studio offers a quick way to centralize data and build visualizations. These platforms minimise (but don't altogether eliminate) the need for extensive engineering resources, allowing teams to centralize data quickly and build accessible visualizations. This unlocks insights into the key drivers across campaigns and channels. MOps teams can then experiment, analyze, and iterate with greater efficiency. This approach fuels data-driven growth initiatives, scaling both impact and efficiency within MOps – essential for the growth-minded marketer.

Consider next level problem-solving experimentation. Write hypothesis and put them to the test. This will not only find solutions to current problems but also identify new ones that you can solve proactively.