What Is Marketing Operations? The Ultimate Guide

What is marketing operations?

Marketing operations is the strategic management of all marketing activities, including planning, executing, and measuring, to achieve business goals.

A marketing operations team is key to increased success for your business. Think of marketing operations — or MOps — as the behind-the-scenes experts working to ensure your next big marketing strategy goes smoothly and is as effective as possible.

MOps are like the camera crew in Hollywood. Much of the audience’s focus goes to the actors or the director. However, much of the movie’s magic comes from its cinematography. Movies wouldn’t be possible without brilliant camera crews.

Read this article to learn more about what marketing operations is, who is involved, and how it can help your business.

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What does a marketing operations team do?

When many people think about marketing, their minds immediately wander to the creative side of things — creating graphics, writing posts, and using social media. These marketing components are critical but should be paired with marketing operations for optimal success.

Marketing operations take care of the technical aspects of marketing. Essentially, it’s your company’s support in executing campaigns. Some tasks that are overseen by the marketing operations team could include:

• Training other marketing professionals
• Data tracking
• Handling technology needs for marketing efforts
• Implementing new marketing software for your tech stack
• Research on customers and competitors
• Monitoring performance

Marketing operations also familiarize themselves with various software platforms, helping you stay on top of the latest technology. You need creative ideas for marketing campaigns, but you also need the technical prowess to make them effective and achieve your goals.

Who is involved with marketing operations?

The roles dedicated to marketing operations depend on the organization, and sometimes people from different parts of an organization might be involved. However, some typical titles might include Marketing Operations Managers or Marketing Operations Specialists.

When integrating marketing operations, follow these steps:

• Consider your goals: A marketing operations team can help you meet your goals if you’re on the same page.
• Make a metric: Measuring your progress can help you see how marketing operations help your company.
• Keep a plan: A specific plan with achievable action points will help you reach your goals.
• Be specific: Specificity will help you better understand your goals so you can communicate them to the marketing operations team accurately.

How is marketing operations different from strategic marketing?

Marketing operations may seem very similar to marketing strategists, but there are differences between the two. You can remember the difference by looking at the names of each department:

• Strategic: Marketing strategists brainstorm marketing campaigns and do the creative work to make them happen.
• Operations: Marketing operations does the analytical work to carry out the marketing campaigns.

In short, strategic marketing focuses on the “what,” while marketing operations zeroes in on how to make the goal possible. Both are integral to a successful marketing plan!

Qualities of a good marketing operations team

To reap the benefits of marketing operations, you need a talented and successful group of people. An effective marketing operations team is:

• Collaborative: They’ll strike a balance between working with you on marketing efforts and making progress behind the scenes to help the campaign succeed.
• Communicative: The marketing ops team will keep you in the loop throughout the process and let you know how their progress is coming along.
• Strategic: One of the primary jobs of a marketing operations manager is to strategize how to make a marketing strategy effective. Therefore, the MOps team must be strategic and thorough.

How can marketing operations help my business?

You might understand the frustration of putting tons of work into a marketing campaign only to see it not perform as well as you hoped. If this sounds familiar, a marketing operations team might be part of the solution!

Effective marketing operations can offer several benefits, including:

• Reaching your targeted audience better.
• Keeping track of data more effectively.
• Creating more conversions to your website.
• Getting your marketing efforts more views.
• Enhanced customer experience.
• Driving sales of your product or services.
• Higher ROI on marketing efforts.

Although the work of a marketing operations team might go unnoticed, their importance to your company should not be understated. Businesses with a solid marketing operations team often see more success in their marketing efforts.

How does not using marketing operations affect my business?

If you don’t currently work with a marketing operations team, you might think you don’t need to start anytime soon. However, you could be missing out on opportunities for growth you didn’t even know existed.

Without marketing operations, your business runs the risk of:

• Missing marketing opportunities.
• Failing to learn from mistakes.
• Not finding the number of people you could be reaching.
• Staying stagnant instead of growing.

Do I need marketing operations?

Now that we’ve answered your questions about what marketing operations is — you’re probably wondering if you need a marketing ops team.

Marketing operations are beneficial for most businesses. You’ll want an effective marketing strategy no matter what product or service you’re selling to your customers.

Couple the creativity of strategic marketing with the action of marketing operations and find out just how much your business can benefit!

WebFX can help you get started with marketing operations

You can achieve your objectives with marketing operations services from WebFX. Our award-winning team has more than 28 years of experience creating marketing strategies that will help your business.

If you’re ready to take your marketing strategy to the next level, get in touch with WebFX today. You can call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist or contact us online!