What are some strategies for marketing operations professionals to increase team efficiency?

In most companies, especially B2B, marketing's job is twofold: increase brand awareness and generate pipeline. You can and should measure those two things. As a marketing leader, it is your responsibility to define which metrics to use and how much you aim the needle to move in any particular time period. Putting these together, you will have your basic Key Performance Indicators. Make sure your team understands how their work contributes to those KPIs, and which levers at at their disposal to affect them.

Top-down goal-setting is key. Look at the company goals, and then create annual Marketing goals to align to them. From there, all Marketing programs & campaigns should tie back to the Marketing goals. Have each Marketing team set 3-5 goals each quarter before the quarter starts, make sure they align to the overall Marketing goals, and word them so they're Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timebound (SMART) or a similar framework, so you can easily decide if they were achieved at the end of each quarter. A spreadsheet is fine to start, and when you outgrow that, there are MarTech vendors like Uptempo that cater to this use case.

With the burst of marketing automation and more recently Generative AI tools, the marketing ops have tremendously evolved. Marketeers are in the midst of this new industrial revolution. Marketing automation tools made the leads management 10 times more efficient and quicker. In addition, Generative AI revolutionized several marketing tasks, making marketeers save tremendous amount of time in tasks related to text creation, pictures for social media and blog posts, voice and video material. Creating a social media post with a good picture, caption and hashtags should take 5 times less time then last year. The key element is to stay updated on industry trends and tools, keep your team curious and trained and adapt strategies accordingly.

Many Team Leads & Managers keep it their primary motive to align their team members' individual goals to their overall team targets, however, in very few instances do they actually consider and make sure whether or not the individual goals are being aligned with the organization's goals. While this is an issue at the macro level, the setting of unrealistic and unachievable KPIs is a prime issue at the individual-level. I have witnessed such cases in real time and it doesn't create a positive impact on the company from an employee's perspective.

Data management and integration is one of several strategies that can be employed to enhance team efficiency. Ensure proper data hygiene and integration across marketing systems. A centralized and clean database can significantly reduce errors and improve the accuracy of campaigns.

Streamlining and automating workflows is not only important for enhancing team efficiency but also for career growth. Do you want to be stuck doing the same tasks over and over? It gets boring and repetitive. By integrating your tech stack, you will eliminate redundancies, and create a focus on quality and consistency while freeing up valuable time for higher-value tasks.

Look at projects over their lifetime. 10 hr. per month =/= 40 hours to automate it once. I have dealt with dozens of projects where "We don't have the time/resources to automate" a project, but we can still assign someone to work on it 2-10 hr. a month... every month... for multiple years.

If you don't like a certain process, document it using Lucid or similar MarTech so you can see the craziness on paper, and explain the pain to others. Then, draw out how you WANT it to work, and force yourself to have as few teams, people, and steps as possible. Make sure there are no dead ends. Once you have that, you can easily find MarTech for this use case, and configure it to match your new streamlined process. Workfront, Asana, Wrike and Monday are common for this, and there are others like ClickUp that are interesting too. UiPath is also a great option to automate the repetitive manual tasks in the workflow.

Eliminating unnecessary or redundant steps is the secret to exceptional performance. Integrated tools are powerful allies, enabling centralized management of data, systems, and marketing channels.

Don't go nuts with workflow automation. We've found a lot of success using tools like Jira or Asana, where we can setup rules and triggers for common tasks. But... the dark side to this is decreased flexibility. Too many automations and multi-step flows can lead to more management of the tools than the work.

For maximum efficiency, your marketing ops team needs a knowledge base. This is a place where all shared knowledge can live and is easy to maintain. Without a knowledge base, information is easily lost, simple tasks take longer as individuals need to constantly retrace their steps or interrupt other people, and people can make damaging mistakes due to poorly understood systems or processes. I structure my docs in 5 main sections: - About Us (help other teams understand how MOPS works) - Process Docs (internal team processes) - Enablement Docs (how-tos / FAQs for client teams) - Tools & Systems (simple inventory of the tech stack) - System Docs (in-depth technical architecture)

One of the best things our team has done is to start holding weekly Marketing Ops Office Hours. Working with customer data and marketing technology can be daunting for marketers and product folks when it's not part of their core competency. Establishing a safe space where anyone can go to ask questions, work out a tracking plan, or get help structuring a business question for analysis goes a long way to building trust and confidence. The social capital built in those sessions translates to MOps being brought in as a strategic partner early on in project planning, as opposed to being called on to fix problems after they arise.

First, ensure your team knows their roles and responsibilities, aligning tasks with their skills and availability. Communication is key; share goals, plans, and progress regularly through suitable channels. Don't forget to seek feedback from internal and external stakeholders. Moreover, cultivate trust, respect, and transparency in your team culture, fostering innovation and continuous learning. This approach will help your team excel!

Transparency is the bedrock! Promote a culture of trust, respect, and openness. Encourage innovation and continuous learning within the team. By creating an environment that values diverse perspectives, you pave the way for growth and success.

I wrote it in another article and I repeat it here. You have to listen to all the people who are involved in the sales process, not so that the marketing strategy is public, but so that you can learn about the best way to optimize your time and your processes thanks to that feedback. Knowing what your customers want and what your sales team knows is a very powerful tool to avoid reprocessing and wasting time on experiments that will not provide you with valuable information.

With all of the technology we have available (often too much!), look for ways to streamline the tech stack, but also leverage the capabilities. How often have you bought a tool and end up using only 50% of the functionality? Yep. You are leaving money and capability on the table if you aren't utilizing the tech fully. If you aren't sure how, I would recommend starting with the vendor (your sales rep, your AM, your CSM, etc.) and ask them to share with you - (1) reminder of what did you buy and are paying for, (2) what are you actually using, (3) what features/functionality are you not using, (4) what their recommendations are for realizing the ROI from their offering. Because otherwise, maybe you will want to renegotiate or cancel!

If you are looking for a tech solution always speak to others in your organisation as they might already be using a tool that could match a lot of your requirements. This then enables you to onboard faster, learn from existing users and nto have to do so much paperwork. You can always do this as a temp solution so you can work on the exact requirements.

I’m a huge advocate of transparency and structure around projects/processes, so I highly recommend using productivity tools like Asana, Notion, Monday, etc. for managing personal and team projects. It doesn't matter if you're a solo marketer working with other business stakeholders, or a leader managing cross-functional teams—these tools are a gamechanger for a few reasons: ? It’s important to have a single source of truth—a place that promotes accountability, helps everyone stay focused on OKRs and keeps projects on track. ? It’s easier to highlight team wins, uncover learning opportunities and foster a culture of empowerment. ? It’s necessary to be flexible and provide open forums for performance, communication, feedback and iteration.

Using various tools and automation saves a lot of time and effort and also avoids manual errors. Along with that, investing in a communication tool like Slack, or Discord can boost team efficiency in operating asynchronously with less number of meetings.

Leverage your power users. Different parts of a marketing team may use the same platform in different ways, and some users may be more bought in on a platform than others. In some cases your power users can help you gain insights into ways of using a tool you may not have considered, and that cycle of feedback and optimization can be really powerful. They can also help amplify your efforts by increasing adoption, so nurture those relationships!

Try to get everything running in real-time, so that you don't have to wait for a campaign to end before you know the results. Centralize all of the data you care about in a data warehouse like Snowflake or Databricks to make it easier to create reports & dashboards using Tableau or a similar visualization tool. Dig deep into customer journeys with modern-day software like Adobe Customer Journey Analytics. Look for areas to optimize, at scale, using process mining software like UiPath.

Marketing operations teams learn and improve while navigating a multitude of responsibilities, from data management and analysis to technology implementation and optimization. Hence, effective resource allocation is essential. Collaborating with sales teams and account managers, who are deeply engaged with the market and customers, allows us to concentrate on the most crucial tasks such as daily system health checks, development backlog management, dashboard refinement, and audience segmentation. This approach not only streamlines work but also significantly contributes to both the organization's internal communication and its growth.

Training and Skill Development: Ensure that team members have the necessary skills and knowledge to perform their roles effectively. Provide training as needed.

This involves regular monitoring and feedback loops. In my experience, after the end of every project, we conducted a "post-mortem" where we discussed what went well and what didn't. These insights were documented and used to improve future projects, creating a culture of continuous improvement.

Marketing in particular is on the forefront on dealing with changes in consumers' lives, culture changes and technological progress. That is why it's important to be up to date with trends, but key is to constantly improve: test, try, experiment and gather learnings to be able to identify best practices to scale up quickly (and build it into the marketing process) as well as stop initiatives that are not working.

In my view, ensuring a sustainable B2B customer journey that benefits both sellers and buyers is crucial. B2B relationships often span longer periods, allowing for mutual growth. However, it can be challenging to acquire new customers in a competitive market with established relationships. To overcome this, staying updated with industry trends and actively engaging with customers as they explore new opportunities can help. Rapidly developing innovative solutions not only leads to success but also generates new leads by showcasing your ability to provide solutions. In summary, the key points include fostering awareness of new solutions, building strong and enduring partnerships, and proactively innovating to stay ahead.

many marketing departments today base the lead generation strategy on the tool (now always digital tools), forgetting that the sales force needs leads, regardless of how they arrive. It's right to go fishing with a harpoon but let's also go with a net, at the end of the day the important thing is to have dinner, no matter how you get it.

Building rapport is all about creating a genuine and positive connection. Never ever be overly strategic or manipulative. What people appreciates the most is sincerity, focus should always be on being authentic and respectful.

Technology Integration: Integrate various marketing tools and platforms to work together seamlessly, reducing manual data entry and errors. Project Prioritization: Establish a clear system for prioritizing marketing projects based on their impact on overall business goals. Documentation: Maintain clear and up-to-date documentation of processes and procedures to ensure consistency and reduce confusion. Quality Control: Implement quality control measures to ensure that all marketing materials and campaigns meet the desired standards.

Culture strikes me as the principal driver of success, even more important than strategy or operating ability. When colleagues feel trusted and that they have autonomy in their role, they feel free to share opinions that differ from what was originally proposed. Those different ideas can more efficiently uncover gaps - and the greater the range of perspectives that contribute to a solution, the more every customer can resonate with the output. Trust and autonomy also mean employees can more easily take ownership of their work. After all, they are the ones leading components of the product. Creating such a culture can create truly durable competitive advantage, but requires leaders who prioritize it, from the C-suite on down.