Strengthening Your Marketing Operations Management

More than any other company executive, Chief Marketing Officers tend to have too much on their plates, especially if their company has a global focus. As a result, they spend plenty of time putting out daily brushfires and not enough time looking at the Big Picture.

For instance, do you sometimes feel that you could do a better job of executing, monitoring and measuring your marketing operations initiatives? Or, do you worry that your marketing team takes care of business on the fly too often, with too much emphasis on strategic thinking and creative tactics and not enough attention to planning and efficiency?

In the world of marketing operations management, the name of the game is efficiency. However, our day-to-day struggles often prevent us from improving overall marketing operations and marketing systems. This is further aggravated by the fact that we have ceded part of the marketing function to external partners such as advertising agencies, creative design studios, promotions specialists and the like.

Here are three guidelines to help you achieve day-to-day efficiency in marketing operations:

1. Keep marketing objectives clear to all
Are your marketing teams aligned? Or are some teams repeating marketing campaigns from previous years because of positive historical returns? If your business objectives have changed based on recent market trends and changes in the competitive landscape, then everyone should know about it. Otherwise, marketing execution will be misaligned.

2. Clearly define the marketing plan
Is everyone aware of the marketing plan and budget? Or is the plan buried under a mountain of documents and spreadsheets or compromised by last-minute, ad hoc changes that were poorly communicated? The best approach is to have a corporate-wide template on the Internet that is carefully structured, up to date and clear to all. This way, everyone can consider marketing strategy with regard to stated objectives, segments, products and channels.

3. Keep close tabs on the marketing budget
As a rule, marketing executives carefully track the budgets of their various activities. This financial information is processed at three levels: by the marketing manager, by the marketing controller and by the finance department. However, marketers are constrained in adjusting their budgets to respond quickly to new business realities and parameters. Ideally, there should be an online system that allows marketers to communicate directly with controllers and the finance department to allow immediate adjustments in budget and strategy.

Following these three basic guidelines is no easy trick; it requires discipline and consistency. Firms that put these guidelines into practice will be on the path to “optimizing their marketing machines” – the objective of marketing operations..