Putting a Marketing Ops Maturity Model into Action

Check out this maturity model, see where you stand, and then what you can do about it.

In this edition:

1. How to put a marketing ops maturity model into action

2. For Paid Subscribers: Martech traps and how to avoid them

7 Steps to Creating a Marketing Planning Blueprint for Your Business: Join this week’s webinar to learn how to simplify enterprise marketing planning and come out on top. Register here.

Let’s discuss growing your career: Thao Ngo and I are hosting a part 2 of Marketing Ops Town Hall, all about sharpening your career skills in marketing ops. Join us on June 26.

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How to use a marketing ops maturity model for yourself

I love maturity models. The main benefit? Learning what you need to do to get to the next level.

This Marketing Ops Maturity Model helps teams assess their current capabilities, develop a strategic roadmap, and ensure alignment across all marketing efforts.

Let's examine this model's four levels and explore how you can implement it for your team or business.

Level 1: Execution

At the foundational level, marketing operations focus on building to spec and actioning all requests. Processes are ad hoc and undocumented, leading to frequent firefighting and last-minute rushes. To move beyond this stage:

• Create and Socialize Team Charter - Be clear on what your team will do and what they WON’T do. Be sure to have good reasons behind your charter (i.e. we don’t do X because we need to focus on Y).

• Document Processes: Writing down your current processes and listing all the steps can help bring predictability to your work weeks.

• Basic Tools and Automation: Implement basic tools and automation to handle repetitive tasks efficiently.

Level 2: Proactive

In this stage, marketing ops prioritize better and advise on best practices. However, many processes are still ad hoc and reactive. Steps to advance from here include:

• Develop Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs): Create SOPs to streamline operations. This could include Service Level Agreements (SLA’s).

• Training and Development: Invest in training for your team to improve their skill sets and anticipate needs better. A low-cost investment is the book The Marketing Operations Handbook by Michael Mckinnon.

Level 3: Strategic

Marketing ops at this level has a clear roadmap that is well communicated with stakeholders. The team is involved in goal setting and budget management, with established feedback loops. To enhance this stage:

• Strategic Planning: Develop and socialize a clear strategic plan with all stakeholders.

• Cross-Pollination: Start learning from other industries, other disciplines, and especially other companies. Start thinking about what best practices you can borrow from product management and software engineering that can improve your operations. Learn from finance on how to quantify the ROI of your efforts. Learn from design on how you can visually communicate your team’s value and your plans.

• Integrated Analytics: Implement integrated analytics to provide insights and guide decision-making.

Level 4: Innovation

At the pinnacle, marketing ops drive go-to-market (GTM) improvements and act as key strategic advisors. They lead multi-year planning and foster operational excellence, creating a flywheel effect that scales globally. To maintain and build on this stage:

• Foster Innovation: Encourage a culture of innovation and continuous improvement.

• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Strengthen cross-functional collaboration to drive comprehensive strategic initiatives.

Other Ideas:

• Sit down with your team and review this maturity model. What are some areas where the team performs on the higher end of the model? How about the lower end? Why?

• List out some external factors that could be blocking your team’s effectiveness (other teams, lack of resources, unreasonable goals) and brainstorm how you can share your needs and requests with leadership.

• Customize this maturity model to make it your own. Include this in a QBR or other forum where you can share your vision with leadership and key stakeholders.