It's undeniable that if you want to reach international markets, the first step is to define your global branding strategy - long-term planning is key for your marketing success. But while a brilliant strategy is crucial to put you on the global market, you need solid execution to stay there. That’s when marketing operations come into play.
Marketing operations include the people, processes, and technology that make your marketing work. Basically, it’s everything that happens after your strategy has been built and your budget has been decided. And in a time when organizations worldwide face uncertainty and look for ways to stretch their marketing budgets, rethinking the way you see your marketing operations is more important than ever.
If your global marketing team is under pressure to drive growth, but you feel there's a gap between your marketing strategy and your results, here's how to close that gap and maximize your marketing operations. Check our 5 rules to scale your team and find out how to do more with less.
Don’t Break Down Silos, but Connect Them
Executing your global marketing strategy cannot be a responsibility of marketing alone. Cross-functional, cross-departmental communication is key for marketing success.
While silos of any type (data, content, knowledge, technology) are the biggest enemy of marketing operations, they’re also inevitable in today’s complex organizations to ensure each functional group performs. The real problem is not that they exist but the fact that they are disconnected, slowing down – or even obstructing - information workflows. The answer is to not try to eliminate silos, which are inevitable and often have important benefits, but to connect them effectively. Open lines of communication between teams are imperative, especially in global organizations.
Marketing needs to be in tight alignment with every department. For example, sales or customer service teams, who speak to customers every day and get feedback about their experience and needs. In a well-connected and collaborative environment, they can easily communicate this feedback to marketing, so they can work together on a more personalized strategy.
Even if silos seem disconnected within your organization, it’s never too late to turn things around. Ensure teams have adequate access to one another. Collaboration tools are a great way to connect your teams and take your organization to the next level.
Scale Your Team and Processes to Fit Your Operations
When talking about global marketing operations, there’s a tremendous pressure to perform. The marketing environment is constantly changing. And while expectations keep growing, budgets don’t.
If you are looking to scale, start with a thorough assessment of your current marketing organization, including processes, profiles, workload, and skills. Identify stronger and weaker areas within your globalization strategy.
Then think localization, think collaboration tools, think marketing automation, and think outsourcing and partnerships.
Bigger doesn’t always mean better, and if you want to succeed globally, your marketing team needs to stay flexible, dynamic, and highly skilled. Having the right tools and partners to support you is key to scale without slowing your team down with hindering collaboration and needless complexity.
It’s vital to have the right tools, the right processes, and the right people to ensure your marketing goals are being met. If your team can’t support a specific process, it’s okay to outsource that need.
