The MOPs Leader: New Podcast, Managing Tech Change, Leadership Lessons and More
In this edition:
The Big List of Things NOT TO DO in Marketing Operations
Managing a Martech Change
Top 10 Marketing Ops Leadership Lessons
Straight Talk: 7 Significant Lies You’re Told About Marketing
Episode 3 of Revenue Rhythms Podcast
For Paid Subscribers: Focusing on Outcomes Versus Projects
NOTE: LXA’s Essentials of Marketing Ops Course is back! Learn about this awesome marketing ops class here.
The Big List of Things NOT TO DO in Marketing Operations
Do not let everyone have access to your Martech, and be choosy about your admins.
Do not QA your own email campaign, always use a second set of eyes.
Do not import records without using an import template.
Do not fall into the trap of just looking for problems, look for solutions.
Do not become a servant to sales. Listen to sales, get feedback, and make good long-term decisions for the customer.
Do not build marketing campaigns from scratch. Use a center of excellence that you improve regularly.
Do not create assets, campaigns, programs etc. without using an organization system, including naming conventions.
Do not continue to email people in your database that haven't engaged in any way in over 6 months.
Do not take on large, adhoc projects without reviewing your business priorities and current roadmap first.
Do not create new email templates without testing them across all email clients and devices.
Do not run large database changes without testing a small sample first and/or testing in a sandbox.
Do not make it difficult for customers to unsubscribe.
Do not forget to deprecate old assets regularly (e.g. landing pages).
Do not get rid of efficiency tools just to save some money (I made this mistake before).
Do not forget to share the results and impact of your work broadly and frequently.
Do not be afraid to ask your community of experts for help.
Do not forget that your marketing needs to be culturally relevant by region.
Do not forget that if you are sending to Quebec your email needs to be bilingual (shoutout to those who know what I'm talking about!)
Do not run marketing ops dependent on a single person (if you can help it). If that person leaves, you are in deep trouble.
Do not believe everything Martech vendors tell you. Ask experts, check with your peers, review your own data and experience, and make your own decisions.
Managing a Martech Change
I wish I learned this earlier.
Whenever I've missed any of these steps in a Martech or marketing operations change, things haven't gone as smoothly as they could have.
The worst outcomes in this image are confusion and frustration, in my opinion.
Top 10 Marketing Ops Leadership Lessons
Wow, it’s been a hectic few months at work but I’ve been learning a lot.
Here are the top 10 marketing ops leadership lessons I’ve learned recently.
In every meeting, you should either debate, learn, or problem-solve. If you aren’t doing any of those three, cancel the meeting.
Effective business communication is being able to translate super complicated computer talk and finance talk into understanding and action.
For operations teams - we are inextricably linked to our partner teams, such as sales and marketing. If they fail, we fail. We do not exist without them.
When you encounter a problem at work, the root cause is usually not what you think. That’s why you have to ask a ton of questions.
Martech is important, but remember, the CMO doesn’t care about the names of the tools. She cares about positive business outcomes. (quote from Jess Kao)
Always approach issues like an external, objective consultant. Our bias clouds our judgment. Try to put it aside.
If you are struggling with another team, remember that people generally want to do good work that they are proud of. If you can help them do that, you have gained an ally.
One of the biggest time savers for ops teams (and all teams) is to look for every opportunity to eliminate the game of telephone.
People ask what it means to have high standards at work. Here is what it means: the document (report, deck, analysis, etc) is clear, well-considered, peer-reviewed, audience-appropriate, and completed early.
I would wager that 75% of problems at work are because people cannot get along. Therefore, effective leadership is largely about fostering harmony. And you don’t need to be a people manager to do that
Straight Talk: 7 Significant Lies You’re Told About Marketing
You don’t need as much “experience” as you think.
Early in your marketing career, you will doubt your instincts and tell yourself that you need more experience. After you gain marketing experience, you’ll realize - there were many times when you should have trusted your instincts and intuition.
Being overly data-driven can actually backfire.
While data should guide your decision-making, remember that marketing is all about people. People are very human, emotional, and irrational.
Marketing is largely about effective operations.
The tough part of marketing is bringing goals and strategy to life. An idea on paper is just an idea. Making ideas happen and consistently improving upon them is what we call “marketing operations.”
You don’t have to be “creative” in the traditional sense to be effective at marketing.
Marketing success is more about creatively solving customer problems than it is about traditional creativity. Don’t count yourself out because you aren’t artistic or don’t have “an eye for design.”
There is no perfect or finished marketing state.
Even the best companies and marketing teams don’t have it all figured out. Marketing evolves as our customers evolve. Think this way: what is the state of your team today? What top problems are you trying to solve for your customer? What culture must you build to work to solve those problems?
Best practices are seldom useful.
Blindly following best practices results in undifferentiated, boring marketing. Evaluate and optimize each channel, campaign, and content individually against your own thoughtful customer performance metrics.
Being smart and executing things on your own will only create modest success.
Individual brilliance is good. Collective brilliance is much better. Empowering your team to be smart will bring material success, both in business and in your career. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.
This post was inspired by Julian Shapiro @julian
Episode 3 of Revenue Rhythms Podcast
Check out the Revenue Rhythms podcast episode where Jeff and I deep dive into navigating marketing ops career and leadership
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Marketing Operations Leader to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.