InsightIQ Blog

My New Year's Resolution - Improve Our Marketing Operations

View more Blog Posts

Dec 10 2009

Although 2009 is drawing to a close and most people are thinking about winding down for the holidays, I'm already well-ensconced in 2010 marketing plans, programs and campaign execution.  During the past few weeks, I've spent a lot of time addressing the "marketing operations" side of the business; and while I've never considered myself an ops expert, my role has always included a significant amount of work in this area. 

Interestingly, marketing operations is one of those amorphous areas, quite different in every organization.  Here at CSG's Quaero, the goal of marketing operations is to improve the efficiency of the marketing function through people (resources), process and infrastructure/tools.  Most recently we've:

  • Built a supporting marketing infrastructure using a marketing automation solution (Marketo, in our case) and other complementary applications (e.g., Leadlander, ZoomInfo.)
  • Addressed major data quality issues (large numbers of duplicates and inaccurate and missing data) with major improvements in all areas.
  • Rebuilt the Website to drive engagement and conversion and serve as the hub for all marketing activity.

But we're not done; there's always room for improvement.  Our latest operations challenges stem from outdated processes; a growing, distributed marketing team; and multiple business units with limited access to the plans and programs of other parts of the organization.  To solve for these challenges and prepare for a more effective 2010, we've purchased Unica's Marketing Operations On Demand solution (formerly Marketing Central). 

MaRS, as we've dubbed it (for Marketing Activity Resource System), is already proving useful despite having just introduced it this month: we've already input all of our marketing plans, programs and campaigns; now we just build, manage and track marketing projects against those plans.

Feature-Rich

One of the advantages of MaRS is the ability to collaborate on Projects with team members across the country or around the globe.  And through the use of permissions, we can share certain information with our agency partners, allowing them limited access to areas of the system.

The Events Calendar allows us to coordinate activities across the organization and Message Board functionality ensures we can communicate (and capture comments) without leaving the system.

The "wow" feature of the system, however, has to be the Mark-up Tool within the Project environment.  It helps to manage the creative process - from development through final approval.  You are probably familiar with our MarketIQ e-newsletter, but you definitely haven't seen it from this perspective:

MaRS

The mark-up tool allows us to communicate changes and manage the review process without having to worry about version control; it's all handled within the system.  Automated alerts notify all approvers and provide regular status updates.

MaRS will also help us to standardize schedules and budgets, eliminating the need for individual spreadsheets; and store all creative assets, reducing our dependence on email to send images and other material back and forth.

Having evaluated, purchased and even built a homegrown system to support Marketing Operations, I can tell you I think quite highly of these solutions and am thrilled to introduce this one here at CSG.

I'll keep you updated on our progress as we roll out MaRS to the rest of the organization. And if you have any questions or thoughts you'd like to share about Marketing Operations OnDemand, please include your thoughts in the comments below or email me directly.

This article is filed under:

View more Blog Posts

Leave a Comment

  • Your email won't be published on our site.

All Fields Required