So you’ve recently started a new job. Your boss asks you to take charge of the latest digital marketing campaign. No problem – you did that in your previous gig. Then she goes on holiday for two weeks. The afternoon before she leaves, she sends you an email with some instructions and contact numbers. You don’t have the chance to review it with her. The next day, you realise you don’t know your brand’s performance benchmarks, or whether anyone needs to approve the creative, and you’re missing a few log-ins.
You try the two contact numbers in the email. One is in his last day in the role before moving to a new job and he’s unresponsive; the other is at an off-site training session for two days.
You might try any of the above, or a combination. Eventually you’ll get the information you need and the campaign will be launched. But it’s far from the most efficient way of operating. And it’s no guarantee the campaign will be launched in accordance with acceptable standards at your new employer.
And while you’re expending time and effort just trying to get the information you need to launch your digital campaign as requested, your other work is falling by the wayside.
Sadly, the above scenario is not unusual in marketing. Undocumented, uncommunicated or broken processes create confusion and unnecessary delays in marketing teams all too frequently.
‘1 In 2 Marketers Do Not Track Their Marketing Processes’ Read The Study: Marketing Operations In The Age Of Intelligence
In worst-case scenarios, unapproved, out-of-date messaging goes to market, or the brand is forced into damage-control mode because legal did not approve the campaign, or the wrong disclaimers were attached. Marketing teams can often find themselves the victim of too much oversight as a result, which creates further delays and bottlenecks.
And all the chasing up that results — the “non-work” work many teams see as just one of the annoying costs of getting the job done — is a major cause of organisational drag and cultural fatigue. Clarity, agility, efficiency, innovation and personal accountability are all casualties when there’s an ad-hoc approach to process.
Contrast this with the seven cultural values the best-performing organisations display. According to Harvard Business Review, the best-performing organisations are:
To support a high-performing culture in your marketing team, ensure your marketing process makes it easy for people to get their work done in a timely fashion and get it right the first time, so the auditors don’t come knocking later. This creates clarity, confidence and accountability.
A marketing operations system can provide clarity and consistency around marketing processes, allowing your teams to streamline and document processes. It can ensure the required approvals are requested and received from the right people at the right time, including legal, risk and compliance, and automates those requests for approval so team members are freed from the “non-work” work of chasing up their colleagues. And it provides a central workplace and asset repository that makes collaboration easy. All of which means your team is unencumbered by organisational and cultural drag, and free to find their inner winner.
Download your free e-book: 5 Essential Workflows For Time-Poor Marketers
Simple’s Marketing Operations helps marketing teams to plan, review and optimise their marketing activity and manage workflows to create exceptional customer experiences across all channels. Book a Demo to see how it works.