6 Core Capabilities for Marketing Ops

In preparing for a Martech meeting, we decided to reflect on the role of Marketing Operations (Ops) and how it has evolved. Not that long ago, the scope of Marketing Ops was typically marketing project management and/or marketing governance. With the pressure increasing on Marketing to measure its value and contribution, Marketing Performance Management (MPM) continues to be front and center. To support this work associated with performance management, the role of Marketing Ops continues to expand.

Today, the Marketing Ops function encompasses the development and implementation of processes, systems, tools and skills necessary for Marketing to drive business results, to manage and measure performance, and to facilitate the usage of data to make strategic decisions related to customers, the market and products, program direction and investments. In many organizations, Marketing Operations is the function responsible for Marketing Performance Measurement (MPM), strategic planning and budgeting, process development, professional development, and marketing systems and data.

The Various Roles of Marketing Operations

Since 2001, we’ve been exploring the role of marketing ops in our annual MPM study. Our research reveals that the role of Marketing Ops now includes the following (in no particular order):

• Performance measurement and reporting
• Campaign analysis and reporting
• Technology & automation & pipeline management
• Budgeting and planning; financial governance and reporting
• Data management
• Workflow process development and documentation
• Project management
• Strategic planning
• Organization benchmarking & assessments
• Customer, market, competitive intelligence, research, and insights
• Analytics and predictive modeling
• Talent and skills development

From this list we can see that the role of Marketing Ops expands beyond budgeting, planning and market research. When we delve further into the results we can learn what Best-In-Class (BIC) Marketing organizations (those that earned an 90 or better score from their leadership for their ability to prove their value and contribution) are doing in the realm of Marketing Ops. Of note is how committed the BIC group is to using data to make market, customer, and product/service decisions that create value for customers and shareholders.

Incorporate These Six Roles into Your Marketing Operations

Six roles surfaced for the Marketing Ops function among the BIC emerged (in priority order):

1. Customer, market, competitive intelligence, research, and insights
2. Analytics and predictive modeling
3. Data management
4. Campaign analysis and reporting
5. Budgeting and planning; financial governance and reporting
6. Organization benchmarking & assessments

If you aspire to remain or join the ranks of the Best-in-Class marketers, it is essential that you integrate these six capabilities into your Marketing Ops function. Learn more about marketing operations.