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March 24, 2010
Today our Marketing Analytics team lead, Creig Foster, dives into the sexy topic of predictive analytics (PA). Why are we so enamored with PA? One of my students, the Marketing Operations leader at fast-growing software company, captured the essence of why PA is compelling in a recent essay: “I have a better chance of my marketing department growing and my personal relevance moving up the food chain if I can predict the future – plain and simple.” So if that’s the case, why aren’t more marketing leaders actively applying PA in their marketing strategies (particularly in the B2B world)? Perhaps they just don’t yet understand the many PA applications that are available to run their Marketing Operations better. Creig’s aticle takes some of the mystery out of the magic of predictive analytics. Gary
Increasing the Value of Marketing Operations with Predictive Analytics
by Creig Foster
A recent blog post by James Kobielus of Forrester Research advances the idea that business success depends on your company’s capability to see likely future outcomes and take appropriate steps now to realize them. He goes on to say that predicting future scenarios successfully, laying plans and deploying the needed resources is critical in seizing opportunities, minimizing threats and mitigating risks. I fully support this view and believe that for a company to be successful these days it must use predictive analytics to its fullest extent.
So what is Predictive Analytics? From the all knowing source, Wikipedia, “Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of techniques from statistics, data mining, and game theory that analyze current and historical facts to make predictions about future events.” You might ask yourself what is the big deal; humans do this sort of thing all the time. Yes, but predictive analytics takes in huge amounts of data, analyzes complex interrelationships, and discerns patterns in the data that the human mind could not possibly see. Besides, the models can do their processing 24/7 without making a mistake.
Kobielus goes on to state that the “grand promise of predictive analytics – still largely unrealized in most companies – is that it will become ubiquitous, guiding all decisions, transactions, and applications.” For a company (large or small) to become a truly predictive enterprise, I believe it will take more than an investment in the technology and people to accomplish this transition. It also takes a change in how a company thinks about its business.
Instead of a reactive response to challenges and opportunities as they are presented, I believe that a proactive and investigative approach to building the business is enabled by predictive analytics. Yes, I know we all plan with the best intentions of positive outcomes. What I am suggesting is using predictive analytics in making decisions about future directions and strategy. In other words, the use of predictive analytics should become part of the way a company thinks about its business and a cornerstone of the overall business strategy.
Read the complete article here.
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March 12, 2010
Whether in a new business process, in conversation with current client executives or via a daily supply of Tweets from Social Media experts and wannabees alike, the subject of ROI has become a mantra for those either advocating or trying to embrace Social Media.
If I hear one more marcom director ask me what kind of ROI they can expect from an investment in Social Media, I might just throw a bucket of water on him or her (<:}.
Or perhaps, more appropriately, his or her boss.
It seems people have forgotten that the purpose of Social Media:
- To build quality two-way relationships with customers, partners and other stakeholders.
- To mutually exchange information, insight and thought leadership.
- To naturally attract the right people with whom to do business when they are willing and ready to do business with you
Social Media is not a replacement for a company or product brand, but it certainly can help reinforce brand (it can wonderfully augment public relations and customer service, for example).
It is not a lead generator, though over time a company will organically receive leads through Social Media efforts (a strong Social Media presence is a powerful support system for new product launches and gaining critical insight from customer and developer communities, for example, to hone the innovation process).
Social Media is not a vehicle for aggressive, “won’t take no for an answer” salespeople or spin-doctor marketers to apply their old-school sales and marketing tactics to manipulate customers to buy. (in face, the use of such invasive and overly-persuasive approaches is actually a barrier to the wholehearted embracement of Social Media).
So what about ROI?
Well first, let’s remember this a brand new channel so when your company decides to enter the Social Media world, do so with an investment mentality. The payout is highly unlikely to be in a few months. It might be a few years.
Second, defining what ROI is for Social Media is not straightforward. What do you measure and track? How does that measurable outcome link back to your enterprise strategic objectives? How does Social Media fit into your overall Marketing strategy in contributing to the success of the enterprise?
Remember, Social Media is an unchartered and mostly standard-less world. Even if your company has established what it is going to measure and track, it probably doesn’t have enough history with Social Media to be able to project specific desired outcomes with a high degree of confidence. Examples of success in Social Media are still the exception, not the norm. Few companies can state with absolute certainty that a success triggered through a Social Media effort wouldn’t have happened anyway through some other marketing or sales approach.
So, Social Media ROI??? Good to think about. Good to begin to define. Good to track. But, ROI? Forgetaboutit! At least until you have a seriously well-established SM program, anyway.
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Speaking of Social Media, as you may recall, Marketing Operations Partners is a sponsor of NewCommForum 2010.
Today is the final day to register and take advantage of Early Bird discounts for NewComm Forum 2010.
If you want to take advantage of a significant price break, register today at http://www.facebook.com/l/18c3d;www.newcommforum.com
Use the Marketing Operations Partners discount code, NCF2010MOP, to save an additional $100.
NewComm Forum will feature:
* 5 in-depth workshops with experts Geoff Livingston, Kami Huyse, Katie Paine, Shel Holtz, Paul Gillin, Susan Getgood, Chuck Hester, and Nancy Duarte for only $195 each for a 1/2-day or $295 for a full-day workshop if you register today!
* 40 sessions in five tracks covering everything from social CRM to social media program development, management and measurement, from online communities to online video and podcasting.
* 5 keynote presentations by online marketing expert and author Jackie Huba; Tim Westergren, founder of Pandora; Scott Monty of Ford; Jack Holt of the DoD; and social media and communications expert Neville Hobson.
Hope to see you San Mateo, CA next month!
Gary
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February 28, 2010
As a tough economy and demanding CEOs call for more disciplined, streamlined, accountable marketing, what impact does this new reality have on how marketing professionals are valued and treated by their organizations?
Is Marketing Operations a protector of individual marketers, helping them optimize and mobilize their talents toward achieving enterprise strategic objectives. Or is it a sinister means to shift responsibility from the system to individuals, making them even more vulnerable and disposable in the name of efficiency and profitability?
It all depends, really, on an organization’s fundamental view of its people. Are your people truly valued or easily replaceable?
A Marketing Operations mindset, and related aspirations such as a culture of measurement and accountability, can be used for good or evil. They can empower marketers or enslave them.
Empowered Marketers
- Have a clear sense of what is expected of them and wholeheartedly buy into the vision
- Are able to focus on what is important, not just urgent
- Continually earn the trust of their management through their willingness to stay accountable, challenge their own mental models (discussed in my ”Building Upon the 5Ts of Marketing Operations post), and act with clarity and courage
- Understand and are able to demonstrate how their efforts contribute to the success of the organization
Enslaved Marketers
- Blindly do what they’re told, what’s always been done, refusing to rock the boat (even when it is sinking)
- Focus on firefighting, pleasing the boss, pointing fingers and playing politics
- Live in constant fear of ”Big Brother”; of being exposed, losing their power (if they have any) and, ultimately, their jobs
- Spend much more time justifying their existence than creating real value
What type of marketer are you, empowered or enslaved?
If your organization empowers you, you have an incredible opportunity to really experience the best of Marketing Operations — to be part of the transformation, the shift in Modus Operandi (MO).
If you’re inside an organization that enslaves you, Marketing Operations is yet another vehicle to maintain the status quo — to keep a sick system sick. Is this the future you envisioned for yourself when you first entered the workplace?
You have a choice.
For more on the relationship of Marketing Operations to the stature of Marketing and Marketing professionals, check out my article, “Integrated? Strategic? Why Marketing Needs a New MO”
Gary
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February 15, 2010
January 11, 2010
In conjunction with his new book, Bernie Borges recently interviewed me about Marketing Operations 2.0. We’ve received a lot of great feedback about the value of the conversation. Check out the podcast.
I thought it also would be instructive to share what Bernie wrote in his blog in introducing me and the podcast. I’m sure you’ll appreciate his interpretation of the work I (and fellow Marketing Operations practitioners) perform every day to help change the MO of Marketing. Gary
Gary Katz is CEO of Marketing Operations Partners, located in Silicon Valley. Gary has a background in PR. He developed a concept which intrigued me because it fits well with the mindset shift in my book.
Gary authored a chapter in my book, Marketing 2.0, appropriately named Marketing Operations 2.0. Here is the definition of Marketing Operations (MO) from that chapter.
“Marketing Operations is a relatively new discipline that can be defined as a comprehensive, end-to-end operational discipline that leverages processes, technology, guidance, and metrics to run the marketing function as a profit/value center, growth driver, change catalyst and fully accountable business. MO reinforces marketing strategy and execution with a scalable and sustainable infrastructure. MO seeks to nurture a collaborative, well-aligned ecosystem, both within and outside the marketing department, to drive achievement of strategic objectives.”
MO Delivers the Operating Plan for the Marketing Department
When I asked Gary to translate that explanation into plain English, he used an analogy which I believe does the job. Gary says that the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of a business is like the driver of a car. The purpose of getting into a car is to drive to a destination. The driver is responsible for the outcome, but there are many other factors that must be in place to get there. The car’s engine must be operating well. The tires must have enough air. The wheels must be aligned to drive safely. The roadways must offer an efficient pathway. And, the driver must have knowledge of the roadways or have a navigation system for guidance. And, the car needs periodic maintenance to stay prepared for ongoing use.
MO builds a high performance car and makes sure there is a plan to get to the destination. Gary points out that MO is essentially like an operating plan for the CMO. He refers to his company, Marketing Operations Partners as a COO for the CMO. This explanation makes sense to me because the CMO needs an operational plan to manage all the marketing activities which include a myriad of marketing campaigns comprised of advertising, email, SEO, SEM, social media marketing, media relations, etc.
Gary says that MO places a lot of emphasis on alignment of messaging with the rest of the company. MO helps deal with change management for the marketing function acting as a chief of staff for the CMO to guide in effective execution of all marketing activities. In other words, the CMO is like the CEO of their business. MO is the COO to the CMO.
Accelerating the Sales Process
In my book, Gary addresses how MO can accelerate the sales process. Here are two key points on this popular topic.
1) Lead Flow: Nurtuing prospects who are not ready to buy today into prospects of tomorrow. A Sirius Decisions study indicates only 20% of leads get followed up by sales, 70% of which are disqualified. Shockingly, 80% of those leads buy from someone within 24 months. The issue for any CMO is the pressure to show ROI in the face of so much waste.
MO offers a lead process supported by a technology solution. Many companies put in place the technology (CRM systems, tracking systems, etc.) before creating the lead development and nurturing process. Can you say “cart in front of the horse?”
2) Alignment of Sales Process with Buying Process: Since social media is meant to be a platform where conversations occur and relationships are built, new processes must be defined. Remember MO is also a mindset. Gary was inspired from the book Think Like your Customer. He encourages marketers to ask: “How attractive are we to our prospective buyers?”
Thinking Differently
Businesses need to think differently in an environment where economic pressures ask you to close deals this quarter. Sellers have big pressures. But, buyers don’t want to be engaged in a sales pressure situation. Sellers need to get the buyer to “like you.” MO provides the roadmap for a CMO to implement marketing strategies with process and discipline. Organize marketing activities around the customer. Break down the silos that exist in your business. Examine how the functions in your business align with marketing such as customer service, P.R. sales, manufacturing/distribution, etc. They are all part of the marketing function. If they are not aligned, those who touch the customer directly will reflect a different message or attitude than your marketing message.
Demonstrating Measurable Returns on Marketing
Using MO to measure results always comes back to the business goals. Social media is a new channel. You can measure details such as RSS subscriptions, website traffic from new keywords used in social media, names of employees producing great content, etc. The challenge for many companies is that using social media is still new. There is no history or benchmark. The analytics usually provides indicators but not results. Executives ask the CMO how these metrics impact revenue today? In most cases they will affect revenue in the future, not the immediate present. So, it’s imperative the CMO has strategic alignment with the CEO and all other key stakeholders in the business for short term survival and long term success.
MO Take Away
Regardless of the size of your company here’s the take-away on marketing operations…How do you execute a marketing strategy regardless of individuals? How can you build a marketing organization that sets the right processes and can scale effectively as the company grows? The more you grow, the more marketing programs you run and the more challenges you will face in measuring, managing and staffing.
Companies are wise to think with an MO mindset before you get into trouble. You can’t defend your marketing budget, your people or your programs without processes. You’ll get marketing programs (or people) cut when things go wrong without MO processes in place. Often senior management doesn’t understand the value of what was cut in the absence of MO processes until after it’s been cut. Reduce your risk and maximize your long term success with an MO mindset.
If this topic interests you, you can learn more from Gary Katz and his company Marketing Operations Partners at his website, his MO blog, his LinkedIn groups, and his MO presentations on Slideshare. You can also follow Gary on Twitter.
So, what’s your take away from this MO discussion?
Bernie Borges
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October 18, 2009
In our previous post, Jon Miller did a great job discussing the science side of Marketing Operations. His blog also include a link to another insightful blog post from Andy Hasselwander of MarketBridge on the subject. There’s no denying that the science or left-brained side of MO is very sexy to data-driven executives running technology and other types of companies. But there’s a lot more to MO than numbers, bits and bytes.
Fundamentally, MO is both a COO and change management process within the marketing department. Technology, process and metrics are vitally important. But so is raising the stature and influence of marketing to a more strategic role, aligning with stakeholders both in and outside marketing, and winning buy-in for marketing initiatives (which should be funded in support of enterprise straegic objectives).
Just like there are a only handful of CEOs that can effectively balance technological depth with vision, business savvy and leadership, there are very few technologists who can successfully lead an MO function. If you find one, more power to you. But let’s not forget that there are plenty of effective MO pros who can lead technologists that aren’t technologist themselves. They might come with deep experience in one or a combination of the following disciplines: lead management, sales enablement, channel marketing, change management, knowledge management, organization development, customer experience management, strategic planning, research, project management, process design, campaign management, measurement, analytics, product management, and, of course, corporate marketing. This list is certainly not exhaustive.
The sexy stuff like technology specification, dashboard development and metrics definition is certainly not easy. Infrastructure never is. But the real challenge is building an ecosystem of support so you deploy the right technology for the organization, make better decisions that are backed by stakeholder buy-in and resources, and continously learn as a team from your experience so the MO of marketing in your organization is constantly adapting to capitalize on the opportunities in the market (while never losing the unique and genuine essence of that which makes your enterprise different.)
Gary
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I’m in amazing company. Some of the other thought leaders Linda has interviewed for her podcast series include: Gary
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by Adrian Carol Ott
CMOs of global companies are confronted with unparalleled challenges and opportunities. These include:
- Marketing Accountability: It is no secret that CEOs are demanding greater ROI on their marketing investments. Consequently many CMOs are driving initiatives to make the marketing function more accountable and measurable.
- Globalization: Serving global markets necessitates that marketing coordinate campaigns across continents to leverage cost and synchronize messaging, however campaigns must also meet local needs and norms.
- Complex Consumer Expectations: Consumers have become increasingly vigilant about SPAM, junk mail and privacy concerns. Regulatory compliance with each country and state is a mandate.
- Mergers and Acquisition (M&A) Integration: Frequent M&A places constant demands to rapidly integrate messaging, web, and collateral of newly acquired companies into the corporate brand. Inadequate marketing budgets frequently associated with acquisitions place additional stress on existing budget priorities.
- New Marketing Technology: The advent of new internet technology has enabled unprecedented interactive dialogs with customers. This presents a huge opportunity for forward-thinking companies to target and reach customers in personalized ways. However, new technologies must be implemented and integrated across the world with regional marketing teams that execute campaigns locally.
- Stakeholder Agreement: Coordination with regional marketing groups, product business units and sales constitutes a major task. Processes are needed to prioritize and support new product introductions and demand generation within marketing budget constraints. Terms, such as “What constitutes a qualified lead?” need to be standardized worldwide. If not addressed, roll-up, visibility and accountability into an actionable. CMO and campaign dashboards becomes nearly impossible.
Marketing Operations Emerges As A Discipline
Faced by these demands many CMOs have commissioned a Marketing Operations organization to tackle these challenges. Originally designated to create metrics and dashboards for accountability, leading companies are increasingly treating marketing operations as a key foundation to the marketing function.1
Marketing Operations is the only function, (other than the busy CMO), that manages marketing from an end-to-end perspective. Marketing functions such as PR, product marketing and regional marketing only see a portion of the big picture.
“Marketing Operations ensures marketing is run as a business,” states a VP of Marketing Operations at a major Silicon Valleyfirm, “We strive to enable the marketing organization to be streamlined in day-to-day processes so they have time to think, focus on the customer and to innovate.”2
The 5Ts of Marketing Operations
What constitutes Marketing Operations? Based on our work with clients, and in our research, we have found that Marketing Operations is an emerging dimension to the marketing mix. Enabled by new processes and technology, it goes beyond the 4Ps (i.e. Product, Price, Place, Promotion), and 3Cs (i.e. Customers, Competitors, Corporation3), to fully round out the marketing mix. The 5Ts of Marketing Operations are:
- T otal Strategy
- T echniques & Processes
- T racking & Predictive Modeling
- T echnology
- T alent
By approaching Marketing Operations across these dimensions, CMOs have an integrated approach to enable marketing worldwide. Let’s describe the 5Ts in more detail:
Total Strategy: This area involves strategy development in the product portfolio. It is not uncommon for large companies to have seventy-five or more products in their portfolios some have hundreds. Managing investments and priorities across the portfolio is paramount.
- What constitutes effective strategy development for each product?
- What are the key elements needed in each plan to win in the market-place and to roll this out worldwide?
- Where do we “double-down” our investment? How do we gain market-share with our resources? Where do we reduce investment?
- Does the organization reflect how our business should optimally interact with customers? Are there new ways we can improve our dialog and reach?
- Chief of staff for the CMO: Based on our work with clients and research, the head of marketing operations in a number of companies takes on this role – driving the organizational agenda, identifying “white spaces”, and ensuring measurement results are discussed at review meetings.
Techniques & Processes: How should information flow most effectively across the marketing organization worldwide? How do we make decisions? What are our governance processes? What is our roadmap for marketing processes next year? in 3 years?
- Fiscal planning processes and reviews.
- How should budgets be allocated?
- How should we optimally interact with our customers? What are the touch points?
- How should information flow within marketing and with other stakeholders such as sales and business units?
- Standards and criteria for evaluating new initiatives and campaigns.
- What are product launch categories (e.g. Criteria for “A”, “B”, or “C” launches)
- Can we apply six-sigma to our processes?
Tracking and Predictive Modeling: How do we make marketing more accountable? How do we measure campaigns and ensure better predictability of outcomes?
- How are we doing today? Metrics and dashboards
- Forecasting – What are leading indicators of the future? How can we better target and predict? e.g. data mining customer databases.
Technology: How do we implement technology across the globe to enable effective customer dialog, demand generation and measurement? What are the business requirements for IT? How does technology support the marketing and sales process roadmap for the next 3 years? How do we integrate with sales technology?
- Internet/Web/e-commerce
- Consolidating/Rationalizing Customer Databases
- Online Customer Forums
- Marketing Resource Management Software
- Analytics/Decision making software
- Marketing Research Databases etc.
Talent: How do we ensure our marketing personnel are trained and able to work with new marketing technologies and processes? How can we enable them to make the right decisions based on analytics and campaign scorecards?
- What are the roles and responsibilities of each talent community?
- How do these communities interact? Where are the hand-offs?
- Training strategy with a marketing skills curriculum across the marketing function
- Ensuring balancing between the art and science of marketing
The 5Ts Transform the Future of Marketing
Although foundational the 5Ts have a deep and significant impact on customer relationships. For example, by implementing integrated technology for demand generation and customer database access, regional marketing personnel can now build innovative campaigns on top of a marketing operations infrastructure. By tracking the success of a campaign, companies will realize better customer targeting and ROI; they learn from prior successes and failures.
Although it can be a multi-year process for large organizations to implement all of the 5Ts,a holistic, integrated approach to Marketing Operations gains CMOs greater accountability and ROI for their organizations worldwide. It enables them to “run marketing as a business.”
The 5Ts add a critical foundation to the marketing funtion enabling Marketing Operations to support CMOs in tackling contemporary challenges and opportunities. It is dramatically transforming the marketng function and is changing how marketing will be conducted in the future.
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BusinessWeek columnist, Marshall Goldsmith, is author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller “Succession: Are You Ready?” and the New York Times and WSJ bestseller, “What You Got Here Won’t Get You There.” He also pens a column for BusinessWeek called Marshall & Friends. This week, Goldsmith wrote about “Marketing in the Age of Turbulence,” in which he interviewed well-known marketing guru and author Philip Kotler. Goldsmith did a great job setting up the interview and Kotler delivered great wisdom, but a real opportunity was missed. Neither gave credit to the emerging discipline of Marketing Operations as a way to navigate through the waves of change. That inspired me to post of comment on the BW site. I hope MO wins a few more evangelists as a result. But it woudl have been so much more powerful if the likes of Goldsmith and Kotler would have used their pulpit to give MO some love.
Here’s the comment I posted: Adding some left-brain people to the marketing department addresses just part of the problem. What about short CMO tenure? And what about a lack of operational focus? Interesting that early on in his article Marshall casually uses the term “marketing operations” to describe marketing departments, yet fails to mention the emerging discipline of Marketing Operations (MO), a key enabler to delivering the strategic and accountable marketing he envisions. We need CMOs and CEOs with the vision to invest in dedicated MO functions that effectively operate as the CMO’s Chief of Staff. Especially in complex organizations, MO is integral to bridging strategy to execution, and aligning marketing with the C-suite and other stakeholders throughout the enterprise (such as sales, finance, IT, customer experience). Most organizations are missing the opportunity to change the MO of marketing by fully embracing MO. This is a shame because MO done right can hugely impact an enterprise’s business intelligence, sales enablement, pipeline velocity, scalability, brand governance, customer experience, ability to demonstrate marketing ROI, and agility to navigate the winds of change.
Come on Marshall and Philip, start treating Marketing Operations as a beloved brother or sister of marketing, not an ugly stepsister or neglected orphan, locked in the parlor doing the chores no one else wants to touch. If you play your cards right, your Cinderella-in-waiting could evolve into your CMO’s indispensable Chief of Staff.
Gary
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