How to Create a Marketing Operations Strategy

Marketing operations or MOps is an overarching term for the marketing efforts an agency or team will execute. Marketing operations also refer to how companies streamline marketing efforts to maximize efficiency and conversion rates. A marketing operations strategy gives companies a specific system for creating campaigns, measuring metrics, and analyzing efforts so that stakeholders know what to expect from marketing initiatives.

Chief marketing officers (CMOs) and marketing operations managers will oversee a group of team members who execute the following duties:

1. 1. Content creation: Content can take many forms, from essays and videos to GIFs and new web pages. In a successful MOps system, members of the marketing team will create content. Often, a few people share this responsibility, taking on tasks like photography, video, writing, etc.
2. 2. Graphic branding: A graphic designer will create the visuals for social media, emails, and print materials. This designer will uphold the brand's integrity while also finding creative ways to represent the company visually.
3. 3. Email marketing: Email is a significant part of revenue generation, and so a marketing team should feature a team member for writing copy for emails. This key player will also curate content to boost open and click-through rates.
4. 4. Social media: A social media coordinator will oversee the scheduling and posting of content and engage with followers to maximize brand awareness.
5. 5. Analytics: Team members monitoring analytics will focus on lead generation and review performance metrics. These team members will present data to higher-ups to highlight what strategies are working and which should be revised or adapted.

If you are creating a new marketing operations strategy, follow these steps to map out campaigns based on scalability and efficiency:

1. 1. Set campaign goals. First, determine what your aims are. Be specific, naming key performance indicators (KPIs) and selecting which channels to employ to accomplish campaign goals.
2. 2. Identify steps. Use a project management system to list the team's efforts to realize the goals. Break down tasks into categories and assign deadlines alongside the tasks so that everyone involved with the project can see the functions and when to complete them.
3. 3. Assign team roles. Different employees will have unique skill sets to contribute. Identify the necessary jobs from which team members based on strengths. Some key roles in marketing campaigns include a copywriter, a social media coordinator, a graphic designer, and an analytics manager.
4. 4. Test your plan. Poke holes in your project to test it out. It’s possible some tasks will require more than one employee or that some deadlines are not realistic. Know why your campaign isn’t hitting the mark at a given point of the customer journey and reassess so you can move forward accordingly.
5. 5. Keep to a schedule. Your MOPS system will help you stay on track. A supervisor or manager will help keep your efforts apace and can communicate with the client about the current status of the campaign.
6. 6. Analyze the results. Data management systems can help you determine what content proves engaging and which posts are performing better than others. This will empower you to translate this data into future efforts as you take what you’ve learned from previous campaigns to grow the next ones.

Implementing marketing operations are essential for several reasons. See how it can benefit marketing organizations’ workflows below.

1. 1. Strategy focus: Marketing campaigns utilizing operational templates afford clear benchmarking and strategic planning. Successful marketing operations dictate deadlines, goals, and direction so marketing ops team members know their role and understand the timelines.
2. 2. Measurable KPIs: Metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) help measure the success of a marketing department’s campaigns. Identifying these markers in the marketing operations gives everyone a set value to meet or exceed.
3. 3. Specific budgeting: Marketing processes can encompass email marketing, digital marketing, print campaigns, and other efforts. A marketing operations department can help dictate where the most significant return on investment (ROI) is so that teams can build budgets to best benefit the campaign and client at hand.
4. 4. Streamlined technology: Teams may use various forms of marketing technology to keep track of customer data. Set marketing automation platforms and customer relationship management systems (CRMs) can help with performance measurement and integrations.

Get the MasterClass Annual Membership for exclusive access to video lessons taught by business luminaries, including Bob Iger, Chris Voss, Robin Roberts, Sara Blakely, Daniel Pink, Howard Schultz, Anna Wintour, and more.