The Ultimate Guide to Hiring a Marketing Operations Agency
In a fast-paced and heavily saturated digital landscape, marketers are under more pressure than ever to deliver measurable ROI. In order to exceed their own performance benchmarks and drive the marketing organization forward, marketers need to invest in a strategic marketing operations partner. A marketing operations agency will help you integrate processes across your entire organization while also identifying opportunities for improvement within each individual department. They’ll streamline your content production workflow, simplify campaign tracking, help you implement systems that collect data faster and more efficiently — essentially, they’ll take an overgrown, disorganized mess of a marketing department and make it streamlined and organized so that everyone can easily see where their efforts are best spent. These 5 tips will help guide you through the process of choosing the right marketer ops partner for your brand.
Define your expectations and requirements
Before you even begin the search process, you need to make sure you have an accurate idea of the ideal partner for your business. While marketing operations agencies can help you with a broad range of marketing challenges, you should be aware that they’re not a one-stop shop for solving all of your problems. If you’re looking for a marketing operations partner to handle your entire marketing department, or to take on a full-time role, you’re going to be disappointed. Instead, you should look for a service provider who specializes in marketing operations and can provide you with a multidisciplinary strategy for improving your marketing department’s performance. You should also make sure to define your expectations and requirements for the solution you’re looking for. You don’t want to hire an agency that’s overqualified for the job, nor do you want to hire an agency that’s underqualified.
Hiring a Marketing Operations Agency is not a quick process
Marketing operations is a big topic — so big, in fact, that there’s an entire book dedicated to it. If you’re looking to hire an agency to handle the process of finding the right partner for your business, you’ll likely need to spend a significant amount of time investigating vendors. After you’ve narrowed the list down to three or four vendors, you’ll want to schedule interviews with each of them. Depending on the size of your business and the vendor, this process might take a few weeks. If you’re looking for a marketing operations partner who can help you in a shorter time frame, you might have a harder time finding the right vendor. While it’s possible to find a vendor who can help you fix some of your inefficiencies, it might take a little longer for you to find the right fit.
Look for cultural fit and alignment with your brand vision
After you’ve narrowed your vendor list down to three or four vendors, you’ll want to start looking for cultural fit and alignment with your brand vision. While the marketing operations partner will most likely be integrated into your existing marketing team, it’s important to remember that they’re different from your existing marketing team. While the goals of the two teams need to be in alignment, the strategies you employ will also need to be different. This is where you’ll want to look for cultural fit and alignment with your brand vision. By comparing notes with your current team members, you can compare your brand vision with their brand vision and see if there are any areas where your teams are out of alignment. While the marketing operations partner will likely be a different team than the one currently working on your marketing strategy, they should be culturally similar enough that they can quickly assimilate into the team environment.
Network and do your research
When it comes to hiring a marketing operations partner, it’s important to remember that you don’t have to take the first vendor who approaches you. Instead, it’s likely that a few vendors will reach out to you before you receive a single inquiry from any of them. It’s important to network with your current team members and referrals before you start receiving inquiries from potential vendors. You don’t want to just blindly start interviewing potential vendors, instead, you should use those conversations as a way of networking and honing in on the vendors who are the most suitable for your business. Before you have a sit-down with a potential vendor, make sure you’ve done your research and have a comprehensive understanding of what they’re offering. While it’s possible to find a marketing operations partner who is “too good to be true,” it’s much easier to find a partner who is a good fit for your company.
Be transparent with vendors and don’t be afraid to walk away
No matter who you hire as a marketing operations partner, they’re not going to be able to solve all of your problems. Instead, they’re going to be able to identify the challenges you face, help you improve your strategies, and even help you find solutions to some of your thorniest challenges. No matter which vendor you hire, it’s important to remember that they’re not your savior and they’re not going to come in and save your business. Instead, they’re going to be able to help you identify your biggest challenges, help you find solutions to your challenges, and even help you find ways of reallocating your investments. It’s important to remember that the purpose of hiring a marketing operations partner is to help you identify your challenges and reallocate your resources. It’s important to remember that you don’t want to hire a marketing operations partner who has a “solution to everything” mentality.
Does the marketing operations agency know your technology stack?
Most marketing operations agencies specialize in specific stacks of marketing technology platforms. Take the time to make sure they are familiar with the technologies you are using for sales and marketing. If you are looking for a company that specializes in Salesforce CRM or Hubsport CRM make sure they know how to integrate all of your reporting and lead gen tools into your platforms. Some companies prefer to use addition tools like Hubspot email marketing Marketo and Pardot. Selecting a company that has experience synchronizing and debugging platforms will go a long way when automating and reporting on your lead gen campaigns.
Conclusion
Marketing operations is a challenging field, and it can be difficult to find the right partner to help you get through it. In order to find the right partner, you’ll want to make sure you define your expectations and requirements, hire a vendor who has cultural fit and alignment with your brand vision, network and do your research, walk away if you don’t like the vibe, and lastly, make sure the vendor knows your technology stack.
