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Wrike in Action: How Wrike Professional Services Leveled Up Our Marketing Teams
Marketing 7 min read

Wrike in Action: How Wrike Professional Services Leveled Up Our Marketing Teams

Discover how Wrike’s professional services team upleveled our marketing operations, increasing productivity, boosting efficiency, and helping us do the best work of our lives.

Successful Sales Start from Pipeline Management: An Enterprise Strategy
Project Management 7 min read

Successful Sales Start from Pipeline Management: An Enterprise Strategy

In the world of sales, successful organizations understand the importance of pipeline management. It is a critical component of an enterprise strategy that drives revenue growth and ensures sales teams are operating at their full potential. By effectively managing the sales pipeline, businesses can identify and prioritize potential opportunities, track and nurture leads, forecast sales and revenue, and make data-driven decisions. In this article, we will explore the key elements of effective pipeline management, provide insights on how to implement it within an enterprise and discuss future trends in this ever-evolving field. Understanding the Importance of Pipeline Management in Sales Pipeline management can be defined as the process of overseeing and optimizing the sales pipeline, which refers to the series of steps and activities that potential customers go through from initial contact to final purchase. It involves managing leads, prospects, and opportunities through different stages of the sales cycle. It also encompasses lead generation, lead qualification, lead nurturing, deal tracking, and sales forecasting. The Role of Pipeline Management in Successful Sales Pipeline management plays a crucial role in successful sales by providing clarity, accountability, and a structured approach to the sales process. It helps sales teams prioritize activities, focus on high-potential opportunities, and ensure that resources are allocated optimally. It also enables organizations to identify potential bottlenecks or issues in the sales process. When it comes to lead generation, pipeline management ensures that organizations have a steady flow of potential customers entering the pipeline. This can be achieved through various marketing and advertising efforts, such as online campaigns, social media marketing, content creation, and networking events. By consistently generating leads, organizations can maintain a healthy pipeline and increase their chances of closing deals. Lead qualification is another crucial aspect of pipeline management. It involves assessing the quality and fit of each lead to determine whether they are viable prospects. This process typically includes evaluating factors such as the prospect's needs, budget, timeline, and decision-making authority. By qualifying leads effectively, sales teams can prioritize their efforts and focus on prospects with the highest potential for conversion. Once leads are qualified, lead nurturing becomes necessary. This requires building relationships with prospects, providing them with valuable information, addressing their concerns, and guiding them through the buying process. Effective lead nurturing can significantly increase the chances of converting leads into paying customers. Deal tracking is another critical component of pipeline management. It involves monitoring the progress of each opportunity through the pipeline, essentially verifying that it is advancing toward a successful sale. This includes tracking important metrics such as the number of touchpoints, the stage of the sales cycle, and the probability of closing. By closely monitoring deals, sales teams can identify potential roadblocks or delays and take appropriate actions to keep the pipeline flowing smoothly. Finally, sales forecasting plays a vital role in pipeline management. By analyzing historical data and trends, sales leaders can make informed predictions about future sales and revenue. This allows organizations to set realistic targets, allocate resources effectively, and make strategic business decisions. Accurate sales forecasting is crucial for long-term planning and ensuring the overall success of the sales team and the organization as a whole. Key Elements of Effective Pipeline Management Successful pipeline management relies on several key elements that contribute to its effectiveness.  Identifying Potential Opportunities To effectively manage the sales pipeline, organizations need to have a robust lead generation process in place. Identifying potential opportunities involves not only targeting the right audience but also ensuring that leads are qualified and aligned with the organization's ideal customer profile. Organizations can leverage various strategies to generate leads and ensure a healthy flow of potential opportunities in the pipeline. Content marketing, in the form of blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, and videos, serve as valuable and informative content that can attract potential customers who are actively seeking solutions to their problems. Search engine optimization (SEO), through optimizing websites and content with relevant keywords, can increase a company's visibility in search engine results and generate organic traffic. As for networking events, attending industry conferences, trade shows, and seminars allows sales teams to connect with potential customers face-to-face, build relationships, and identify new business opportunities. Tracking and Managing Leads Once leads are generated, it is crucial to track them through the various stages of the sales pipeline. This involves systematically collecting and organizing lead data, including contact information, demographics, interactions, and preferences. Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) system can greatly enhance lead tracking and management. CRM software enables sales teams to centralize lead information, automate follow-ups, and gain insights into each lead's journey. Its real-time visibility sheds light on the most promising opportunities, while automation of routine tasks such as sending follow-up emails or scheduling appointments will allow for time to interact with potential customers. Also, CRM systems give sales managers access to detailed dashboards and reports, which are useful for identifying bottlenecks in the pipeline, measuring sales team performance, and making data-driven decisions to optimize the sales process. Forecasting Sales and Revenue Pipeline management is not only about tracking leads; it also involves forecasting sales and revenue accurately. By analyzing historical data, current pipeline status, and market trends, organizations can make data-driven predictions and set realistic targets. Ultimately, the goal is to generate a steady flow of revenue, reach sustainable growth, and stay ahead of the competition.  For example, by analyzing historical data, organizations can identify patterns and trends in their sales performance. This can help them determine the best time to launch new products or promotions, as well as identify potential risks and challenges that may impact their revenue targets. Implementing Pipeline Management in an Enterprise Implementing pipeline management in an enterprise requires a thoughtful approach and a comprehensive strategy. Let's explore some key steps to effectively implement pipeline management: Choosing the Right Tools and Software Select the appropriate tools and software that align with the organization's specific needs and goals. A CRM system, for example, can streamline lead management, enhance collaboration, and provide valuable insights into the pipeline's status. You can also explore other supporting tools such as sales analytics platforms, project management software, and communication tools to further optimize the pipeline management process. Training Your Sales Team Train and equip your sales team with the necessary skills and knowledge, particularly of the sales pipeline's stages, processes, and key metrics. Training programs should focus on developing essential skills such as lead qualification, lead nurturing, effective communication, negotiation techniques, and using pipeline management tools effectively. Ongoing training and coaching should be provided to ensure continuous improvement and alignment with evolving sales strategies. Regular Review and Adjustment of the Sales Pipeline Consistently evaluate the pipeline's health to identify areas of improvement, address bottlenecks, and adapt their strategies accordingly. Regular reviews should include analyzing key performance indicators (KPIs), conversion rates, average deal size, and sales cycle length. These insights guide decision-making processes and enable organizations to proactively fine-tune their pipeline management practices. Future Trends in Pipeline Management The field of pipeline management is continuously evolving, driven by advancements in technology and changing customer expectations. Here are two future trends to keep an eye on: The Impact of AI and Machine Learning Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have the potential to revolutionize pipeline management. These technologies can automate repetitive tasks, analyze vast amounts of data, and provide valuable insights. AI-powered chatbots, for example, can engage with potential leads, qualify them, and move them efficiently through the pipeline. The Growing Importance of Data Analysis in Pipeline Management As organizations collect increasingly large amounts of data, the role of data analysis in pipeline management becomes even more crucial. Data analysis allows organizations to understand customer behaviors, identify trends, and make informed decisions. This enables them to refine their pipeline management strategies, uncover hidden opportunities, and drive continuous growth. Overall, successful sales start from effective pipeline management. By understanding the importance of pipeline management and learning how to properly implement it, organizations can optimize their sales processes, prioritize opportunities, and drive revenue growth. In this ever-evolving field, organizations need to embrace technology, harness data, and adapt their approaches to ensure long-term success in sales. Drive your sales success with effective pipeline management using Wrike. Sign up for a free trial and manage your sales like an enterprise, regardless of your business size. Note: This article was created with the assistance of an AI engine. It has been reviewed and revised by our team of experts to ensure accuracy and quality.

11 Resources to Help You Build a Marketing Team That Can Weather Any Storm
Marketing 7 min read

11 Resources to Help You Build a Marketing Team That Can Weather Any Storm

As we head into the next business cycle, uncertainty about what’s over the horizon is pushing businesses to tighten their belts. While marketing is vital to any company or client’s success, it is often viewed as one of the most flexible. When budgets need to be trimmed, companies often start with marketing.  While this may not necessarily happen in your organization in the coming months, CMOs and marketing leaders around the world are wise to take proactive steps to ensure their operations are running as tightly as possible. They’re building up business resilience frameworks that will help them weather market turbulence as it arises.  Building business resilience involves eliminating wasted time and resources costing businesses in the knowledge industry over $60M each year due to productivity challenges, canceled projects, and employee churn. As marketing teams are juggling employees spread across time zones with a host of competing tools, they’re particularly vulnerable in turbulent economies.  To build business resilience for a marketing team, marketers should be doing a few critical things. They should eliminate existing inefficiencies, allocate resources effectively, and maximize their team’s productivity. When CMOs can strengthen those areas, they will be able to better prove their team’s contribution to the organization’s key goals.  We recently published a groundbreaking study on the Dark Matter of Work, which is the work that takes place in synchronous apps and the gaps between systems and solutions that aren't integrated. The study outlined how workplace complexity is eating into companies' profits and harming employee engagement. In marketing departments, that might look like teams struggling with bottlenecks for reviews and approvals, total communication overload, and siloed marketing tools that make collaborating across teams and time zones impossible.  Our research shows that those everyday frustrations waste time, money, and your team’s energy — a single worker’s wasted time might cost a company as much as $16K every year. Eliminating even a fraction of the Dark Matter of Work your team faces will help you recoup that wasted profit by driving marketing ROI, optimizing resources, and improving productivity.  As experts in working effectively, we know that robust work management software helps marketing teams recapture the energy and resources currently being lost. Work management software pulls entire organizations into a single platform, strips out wasted time spent switching apps, and provides visibility into projects so that tasks don’t slip between the cracks.  To help you build better business resilience, we’ve rounded up 11 Wrike features, templates, and integrations that will help you power through uncertainty.  Key features for building business resilience in marketing  Automated approvals: Approvals can steal precious time from marketers. Wrike’s streamlined and automated workflows mean reviews and approvals occur seamlessly and result in clear, actionable decisions — so your team can improve productivity and focus on more impactful work. Critical insights: To fully understand your team’s productivity, you’ll need data. Wrike Insights is a first-of-its-kind performance aggregator that delivers insights on 50 tools, delivering real-time data across advertising, marketing, and social media via one simple interface. Workflow versatility: Wrike’s industry-leading Custom Item Types enable users to mirror their team’s business practices and daily task scenarios in their Wrike workspace. That means you can use your team’s preferred terminologies and behaviors, reducing wasted time further.  Built-in integrations for creative teams  Creative connections: Wrike integrates seamlessly with Adobe Creative Cloud. Teams can manage their assets from programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Adobe Premiere Pro. Digital asset management: Wrike’s MediaValet integration enables users to share and manage digital assets across both platforms. Teams can attach MediaValet files to tasks, search for assets, and upload assets from Wrike back into MediaValet. Resource management features for marketing agencies and departments  Accelerate resource planning: Quickly estimate project resource needs and request job role resources. With Wrike’s resource planning capabilities, you’ll be able to ensure the highest priority projects have ample coverage with visibility into resource allocation across your whole portfolio. Optimize workloads: Assigning and managing workloads has never been easier. Get an understanding of team members’ availability, capacity, and strengths at a glance, and drag and drop tasks to balance workloads more efficiently. Clear budgeting: Weathering upcoming uncertainty is going to put pressure on budgets, so Wrike’s budgeting tools will be critical in helping you accurately determine project budgets and margins. As team members track time spent on projects, you can monitor budget spend in real time to keep projects profitable.  Pre-built templates  At Wrike, we know that one of the biggest barriers to launching projects is getting processes in place. That’s why we’ve set up a wide range of templates to help jump-start your processes, streamline your workflows, and get your team working faster. You can try any of these templates with a free Wrike trial. Agile marketing template: If your team struggles with managing a constant stream of requests, using the Agile methodology for your marketing operation will create an effective structure to tackle that overload. Our Agile marketing template will help you get started, providing an effective way to maximize sprints and get more accomplished. Marketing operations management template: Having a handle on your entire marketing operation can be difficult. Wrike’s marketing operations management template sets you up for success, helping you manage every detail of your marketing operations with custom request forms, dashboards, and reports. Marketing calendar template: Keeping campaign tasks from falling through the cracks is critical to maximizing your marketing resources. Wrike’s marketing calendar template will ensure your entire team is on the same page so that deadlines are met and clients are satisfied.  Helpful tools on Wrike’s ROI   As you work to bolster resources and do more with less, learn more about the real ROI of Wrike. Try our Wrike savings calculator How Wrike customers save time, money, and increase productivity Learn four ways to measure the ROI of work management tools With this cache of resources, you’ll be ready to jump-start your business resilience framework and protect your organization from market uncertainty.  Start your Wrike free trial or request a free demo to see how Wrike can help you streamline, strengthen, and thrive. 

15 Suggestions to Improve Your Marketing Operations from Leaders
Marketing 7 min read

15 Suggestions to Improve Your Marketing Operations from Leaders

Learning about, and focusing on, improving marketing operations is becoming more critical for digital marketing teams trying to get ahead. Understanding your customers, implementing customer data properly, and measuring campaign performance are all key steps in building out your marketing ops. .In addition, marketing ops focuses on (1) managing the technologies that the marketing team purchases, and (2) measuring marketing effectiveness across the board. It’s not just your marketing techniques, but rather, it’s what goes on behind the scenes to make sure your campaigns reach their goals. . No one knows successful marketing operations better than the experienced marketers and business owners of today. Here are their secrets for improving your marketing ops:   1. Establish a cross-department workflow “The most important piece of improving your marketing operations is establishing a project workflow between marketing and the rest of the organization. The internal workings of individual teams can be heavily influenced by how other departments request projects and/or expect projects to be done. Once your workflow is established, using a tool to help task assignments, set deadlines, and follow up is critical.” —Daniel Bliley, Marketing Director, Passport 2. Work with your audience in mind “One issue with marketing, especially in digital, is the noise. There are so many companies saying the exact same thing, and companies don’t really do the proper research to figure out who they are, what their message is, who needs to hear that message, and how to get that message out.   Start from the top down. Take the time to explore your analytics and the data, interview your customers, pay attention to social media conversations & get involved, then create content that aligns your goals with your audience’s goals, speak to your audience in a unique way, and constantly review & tweak.” —Patrick Delehanty, Digital Marketing Strategist, Marcel Digital 3. Know your customers “The vast majority of the time, people make bad marketing decisions because they don’t have the right information about their target audience. To remedy that, I’ve worked hard to tie our CRM to our email marketing to our signups to our web traffic, so when we’re reaching out to someone, we have a complete understanding of them.” —D. Keith Casey, Jr., Director of Product, Clarify.io   4. Align all consumer insights "I think in an ideal state there is a dedicated consumer insights team, but a team that doesn’t work in its own little silo. A team that is interactive not only with the marketing team but also the product team, as well as with others who touch the customer technology. They have to understand the full circle of customers’ curiosities so they can put together a real, robust view for those who need it."  — Patrick Adams, CMO, PayPal 5. Establish your key marketing metrics “Establish 2 to 4 key metrics that will guide all your marketing efforts. Without establishing these benchmarks, your marketing team won’t have anything to shoot for individually or collectively. Unfortunately, many marketing departments don’t get creative with the metrics that serve as benchmarks for performance; their main metrics usually revolve around leads generated, sales, etc. However, there are usually more telling metrics for measuring your marketing effectiveness. For example, percentage of leads (free trials) vs. unique Website visitors; percentage of leads vs. conversions (paid customers); monthly recurring revenue.” —Jeff Kear, Owner, Planning Pod 6. Prioritize content development "We have a dedicated team that’s focused on content strategy and on creating what I call the content supply chain, mapping out where all the sources of content come from. Do we have the content already? How do we create new content? Who creates the content? It may be internal, it may be external. What format does that content take? Then, how do we work with the appropriate teams to get that content in the market?  — Rishi Dave, CMO, Dun & Bradstreet   7. Stay on brand "Ultimately [integrated planning] is a function that’s run through the marketing team. We establish the brand voice and try to create and implement consistency across all of our efforts, all of our communications channels, and all of our internal divisions/business units."  — Evan Greene, CMO, The Recording Academy (The GRAMMYs) 8. Focus on the ROI of your campaigns “Focus on ROI and user retention. By measuring the return of each campaign, we’re able to identify which ones are actually working and prioritize those. Our ROI has grown from 35% to 200%. Now, we have more money to invest in other projects to continue growing.” —Gabriel Stürmer, Chief Marketing Officer, Cupcake Sweet Entertainment 9. Implement Lean methodology to discover which campaigns work “Implement the Lean methodology (build, measure, learn). In essence, during planning sessions, we develop a list of hypotheses & prioritize based on expected impact. We then devise bare-bones methods to test these hypotheses. In this way, we get data-driven feedback quickly, allowing us to invest more heavily in winners and cut losers.” —Ryan O’Donnell, Director of Marketing, Avalara TrustFile 10. Use a Scrum board to focus weekly priorities “Enhance your weekly task delegation through the implementation of a Scrum board. Scrum is an Agile framework for handling tasks, originally developed for software development teams to easily delegate tasks. There is nothing worse than being inefficient when it comes to marketing, so a Scrum board helps us develop a weekly plan of attack, and lets everyone know what they should be working on.” —Jake Lane, Growth Analyst, LawnStarter, Inc. 11. Keep experimenting with new marketing techniques “Great marketing is about experimentation, testing, and measuring different approaches to find what works best. An issue many marketing departments face is that everyone has their discrete responsibilities, so it’s left to the marketing director or VP to initiate new programs. However, this should be everyone’s responsibility. Your team should meet regularly to brainstorm and come up with one new idea to apply and measure. It can be big or small, as long as you try something new — otherwise, you may never find that one golden opportunity that makes your revenue curve bend upward.” —Jeff Kear, Owner, Planning Pod 12. Build a long-term marketing plan “Set in stone a comprehensive 12-month marketing strategy and goals for the next five years. Developing a strategy with clear action items and setting both short-term and long-term goals pushes you to assign team members and actually implement the tasks.” —Beth Gard, lotus823 13. Hire a strategic analyst “The first hire in the marketing operations role should be a strategic analyst. This role is focused on developing ROI measurements for marketing. Once the tracking is in place, then everything else within marketing should be aligned.” —David T. Scott, CMO, Scott on Marketing   14. Continue to manage customer data "We’re building a centralized marketing profile that is at the customer level and becomes the common definition used by marketing teams across the organization to drive their campaigns. Getting the data house in order, making it real-time, and managing it at the attribute level is what’s important. As is making sure that the experts who are really close to the products have the ability to control what’s most important to them in that profile. This allows us to federate it out and take a much more efficient view across the organization, rather than be a big centralized behemoth that is too slow and ultimately doesn’t work." — Steve Ireland, SVP/MD, JPMorgan Chase   15. Remain accountable "In order to be effective, marketers need to have credibility. Because they have to do a lot of leading by influence, they have to do a lot of aligning and engaging and evangelizing, and that only works when people trust you. They only trust you if you deliver the goods and are accountable; you do what you say and you say what you mean. — Peter Horst, CMO, The Hershey Company     More marketing resources Marketing operations is a relatively new field, and there’s always more to learn. Here's a list of some of our resources for marketing leaders and teams (including our eBook, The Digital Marketer’s Guide: How To Drive Success at the Tactical Level) to help bring your next campaign to success. eBook: 7 Habits of High-Performance Marketing Teams Infographic: How to Choose Marketing Software eBook: The CMO’s Formula To 3x Your Digital Marketing Campaign Results Blog: The “We” in “Teamwork": How Marketers Can Drive Cross-Team Collaboration eBook: How to Avoid the Eight Pitfalls of Marketing Campaign Planning eBook: 5 Steps to Transforming Marketing Operations for Maximum Growth

The Guide to MarTech Today (Infographic)
Marketing 3 min read

The Guide to MarTech Today (Infographic)

What is MarTech? What is there to know about the industry? And why should you care? MarTech (short for marketing technology) refers to marketing initiatives that use new technologies to power their campaigns and efforts. It is a fast-growing industry, expected to hit a worldwide spend of $22.6 BILLION in 2015, with upward growth projected over the coming years. Marketers not paying attention to MarTech will soon find themselves behind the times. Because every new tool that arrives on the scene changes and influences the way marketers work with, and speak to, our customers. Learn more and explore the wild world of MarTech with us in the infographic below. It's full of the most recent stats and figures that are relevant for marketers across the globe discovering what is MarTech for the first time: Learned something new today? Share this infographic on social media, or repost it on your blog using this embed code: Infographic brought to you by Wrike What You Can Learn About MarTech Doesn't End Here If you're ready to dive further into the expanding world of MarTech, check out the list of upcoming MarTech conferences in 2015 and 2016. Share your knowledge about MarTech with our readers in the comments below, or drop links to more interesting MarTech stats you've read.

The History of Marketing Operations (Infographic)
Marketing 3 min read

The History of Marketing Operations (Infographic)

Marketing Operations is on the rise, with many companies turning to marketing ops teams to make their marketing efforts more efficient and effective. While Marketing Ops is still a relatively new field, its beginnings stretch back to the 1920s, and its evolution through different marketing disciplines provides insights into its importance, benefits, and increasing popularity. Keep reading to learn all about the hot new field that’s been identified as one of the fastest-growing professions in marketing. Share this infographic with fellow marketers on social media, or use this embed code to post it on your own site: Infographic brought to you by Wrike Current Marketing Ops Trends Learn more about marketing ops with this overview of popular strategies and common practices: State of Marketing Operations and MarTech in 2015

5 Marketing Operations Myths Debunked
Marketing 3 min read

5 Marketing Operations Myths Debunked

Marketing operations is a hot topic, especially for businesses looking to stretch their marketing dollars farther. And yet misunderstandings abound concerning what marketing ops teams do and how they do it. So, we're tackling 5 common misconceptions surrounding marketing operations to set the record straight.   First things first: what exactly do marketing operations teams do? They work to increase the efficiency and agility of the marketing department, aligning marketing efforts with both overarching business strategy and other departments (like sales and IT). Marketing ops manages strategic planning, budgeting, MRM marketing, process development, professional development, and marketing technology/data in order to measure and improve marketing performance and identify best practices. Myth 1: Marketing Ops' main goal is to justify marketing efforts. Fact: Marketing ops teams are objective. They don’t have quotas, so they can look at campaign results objectively to measure performance and attribute credit impartially. Their main goal isn’t to prove the ROI of marketing efforts, but rather to boost ROI through improved processes, analytics, etc. Myth 2: Marketing Operations is part of demand generation, and Marketing Operations managers come from traditional marketing roles. Fact: Marketing Operations teams are completely independent from other marketing departments, and marketers aren’t necessarily the ones filling marketing ops roles; they’re coming from finance, IT, sales ops, and other analytical, process-oriented positions. Myth 3: Marketing Ops is all about technology and data — automating processes, analyzing results, and crunching numbers. Fact: Gathering data isn’t enough, good marketing ops means interpreting it, understanding the business' objectives and how the marketing organization fits into the larger organization, and driving change within the organization. Marketing operations teams need to consider first and foremost the customer experience; only then can they determine how to tailor the marketing approach to improve that experience and boost engagement. Myth 4: Revenue generation is the realm of Sales Ops. Fact: Good Marketing Ops teams consider their marketing organization's process and strategy by considering this question: how does it contribute to revenue generation? At the Marketing Operations Executive Summit, they shared that "Marketing is now the strategy arm that is leading, and sales is following.” Marketing ops and Sales ops teams need to be closely aligned when it comes to revenue generation, not participate in hand-offs or operate independently. Myth 5: Your company needs a full-fledged Marketing Operations department in order to have effective marketing operations. Fact: You can improve your company's marketing operations right now, with the resources you already have. This article gives tips on identifying someone within your current marketing team who would be a good fit for taking on some marketing operations/marketing technologist responsibilities. And this article covers 6 ways your current marketing leaders can improve your marketing operations processes without hiring a marketing ops role (or spending any money at all). Learn About Marketing Operations Facts and Figures Find out which skills are most desired among marketing operations managers, the top challenge facing today's marketing departments, and how high-performing companies are boosting marketing revenue contribution by 69% in this overview of current marketing operations statistics. Sources: Marketo blog, Venturebeat, Wikipedia, Allocadia.com

A Guide To Creative Operations Management
Project Management 7 min read

A Guide To Creative Operations Management

Creative operations management isn’t an oxymoron. It can help you and your team deliver creative projects more efficiently. Here’s what you need to know.

5 Steps for Making Your Marketing Team More Efficient
Marketing 5 min read

5 Steps for Making Your Marketing Team More Efficient

From the mobile boom to the rise of social media, the realm of marketing has grown far beyond just promotional emails and consistent content. It's not a one size fits all solution, but here are five surefire ways to start building a more efficient and collaborative marketing team.

Top 20 Marketing Podcasts for 2021
Marketing 10 min read

Top 20 Marketing Podcasts for 2021

Marketing podcasts are the number one source of continuing education for marketing managers, directors, and executives. Keeping up with the latest industry trends and news can be challenging when you’re doing it alone. But when you tap into the community created by top marketing podcasts, you suddenly have everything you need at your fingertips. Take advantage of these amazing free resources for general marketing, social media marketing, and other related topics listed below.  Why listen to marketing podcasts? Marketing, in particular, is an industry that experiences many trends across a variety of channels. With this much depth and complexity to stay on top of, it’s no wonder why marketers rely on podcasts to keep up with it all.  In addition to trends, marketing podcasts allow professionals to learn from the experiences of others. Insightful data, anecdotal evidence, and expert predictions make it easier for marketers to navigate this ever-changing landscape.   Top digital marketing podcasts The top digital marketing podcasts selected below have all been largely acknowledged by key industry news outlets as leaders in the space. You’ll find a wide range of niche topics, formats, and episode lengths to fit your needs. Choose one or two that fit into your schedule, then get ready to take notes.  Marketing Over Coffee Hosts John Wall and Christopher Penn discuss topics ranging from social media marketing to search engine optimization to marketing project management. In addition to being pro marketers, they are also both local coffee shop owners. They even record each episode in a real coffee shop, so you know they mean business.  Marketing Over Coffee’s most popular episodes are where they interview Simon Sinek, Seth Godin, and Mike Volpe. You can expect a new 20-minute episode every Thursday. Be sure to submit your own questions ahead of time for them to answer on the show.  Behind The Numbers by eMarketer Behind The Numbers is a podcast that explores the impact of marketing on the business world. They use in-depth interviews and short segments to reveal how your marketing impacts both the industry and individuals. As you can probably tell, data analysis factors heavily into their discussions.  Behind the Numbers also paints a clear picture of what the modern state of digital media, commerce, and advertising now looks like. They recently celebrated their 500th episode and maintain one of the most consistent release schedules of all the top marketing podcasts on this list.  Online Marketing Made Easy Amy Porterfield's Online Marketing Made Simple was created to help small businesses get started with their online marketing strategies. It's full of actionable advice and step-by-step instructions that will help you overcome common beginner challenges. Advanced marketers can enjoy brushing up on the basics plus learning detailed insider information from Amy’s personal case studies.  Success Made Simple Create a winning mindset and develop a brand identity that will inspire your customers all at the same time with this top marketing podcast for 2021. Your host, Dr. Dave Martin, is a renowned speaker, motivator, and author. His episodes on positioning and teamwork are worth a virtual listening party for your whole marketing team. This podcast is also recommended for marketing leaders who want to grow in their personal and professional lives.  Call to Action This weekly podcast talks about the basics of digital marketing from experts at Unbounce. It's full of practical advice and tricks from industry experts. Episodes run about 15 to 30 minutes, and although they’re currently on hiatus, you can still gain a lot of practical knowledge from their archived episodes.  Reviewers call it “a breath of fresh air for marketers,” which may be the reason why they’ve achieved a 4.5 out of 5-star rating. One reviewer says, “Stephanie and Dan have really pulled together a fantastic show. I’m so thrilled to hear new content each week that actually helps me grow, and it’s the same old rhetoric over and over again. This is a must for any digital marketer.” Copyblogger FM Sonia Simone and her team keep you up-to-date on all the latest content marketing trends and techniques. Guests include expert marketers from tools you likely use every day. Some of their most popular episodes include the Copyblogger marketers themselves openly discussing lessons they’ve learned. This weekly podcast is on the shorter side, with episodes that are typically less than an hour long.  ConversionCast The ConversionCast podcast delves into the inner workings of Leadpages, revealing all the insider marketing secrets that will help startups succeed. Their episodes are archived on SoundCloud but offer plenty of timeless tips for modern marketers. Topics include boosting customer lifetime value, turning customers into evangelists, and positioning.  Interestingly, two years into the podcast, they restarted it at Season 1 to give their format and their audiences a total refresh. That demonstrates their commitment to maintaining high quality and ensuring that their episodes will stand the test of time.  Top social media marketing podcasts Social media has grown at a lightning-fast pace over the past few years, with new apps and updates becoming the norm for marketers to keep up with. That’s why it’s important to have a social media-specific podcast in your toolkit. Learn from the trial and error of top brands and stay up to date with the latest news in all things social media with these top marketing podcasts for 2021.  The Social Media Examiner Podcasts Michael Stelzner, the CEO of Social Media Examiner, will help you improve your brand’s social media profile. Social Media Examiner actually has two weekly podcasts: Social Media Marketing Podcast and Social Media Marketing Talk Show.  On the Podcast, Stelzner conducts 45-minute interviews with industry experts every week. Topics include creating a Clubhouse strategy, TikTok Ads, and Facebook retargeting tips. On the Talk Show, Stelzner broadcasts live every Friday night to discuss the latest social media news and trends to be aware of.  Perpetual Traffic This top marketing podcast discusses how to generate leads and sales through various social media platforms. Your hosts from DigitalMarketer.com and special guests will help you increase your social media presence and your revenue through real-life marketing campaign examples. Some topics you can expect to hear include Snapchat advertising, Smart Shopping on Google, and product launches.  The Science of Social Media The Science of Social Media is a great podcast for anyone interested in learning about the behind-the-scenes aspects of social media marketing. It’s hosted and produced by social media tool Buffer and often features questions from the audience. The podcast covers topics such as how to create a strategy, how to implement it successfully, how to measure it all. They currently have 25,000+ weekly listeners and a 4.7 out of 5-star rating on Apple.  Maximize Your Social Influence with Neal Schaffer Shaffer teaches marketers how to build, optimize, and monetize their social media. He also teaches business owners how to leverage social media and digital marketing. Episode topics include a step-by-step approach to creating a year’s worth of content, how to maximize impact with social media videos, and more. Episodes range anywhere from 19 minutes to an hour and sometimes feature guest experts.  Social Zoom Factor with Pam Moore Got some bad marketing habits, questions about customer research, or just need some worksheets for crafting your next quarter strategy? Your host Pam Moore, a top 10 Forbes social media influencer, has you covered. This top marketing podcast has received an impressive 4.9 out of 5-star rating, with audiences calling it “the best ever” in iTunes reviews.  Top free marketing podcasts While all of the podcasts mentioned above are also free, we’d like to highlight these additional top choices for your consideration. They all focus on broader topics and serve to help marketers become more well-rounded.  Marketing School In this top marketing podcast, Eric Siu and Neil Patel share their unconventional marketing strategies that will make you think twice about how you market yourself as an individual. Their goal is to help users get actionable marketing tips in just ten minutes. They are also really great about including real examples and data to support their advice in all of their content.  Mixergy Mixergy is a podcast hosted by Andrew Warner that focuses on interviewing successful entrepreneurs. Each episode has an interview with a different entrepreneur who talks about their journey so far and what they learned along the way. Their tagline “learn from proven entrepreneurs” says it all. Mixergy also offers courses and collections of themed interviews with topics such as Women Founders.  The Tropical MBA Dan and Ian are the hosts of The Tropical MBA, and they bring on great guests to share their stories of building successful businesses. Their focus is on location-independent professionals, which is great for contractors or remote employees who need a little extra advice on how to juggle both.  The In-Person Podcast Hosted and produced by Bizzabo, this innovative marketing podcast tells the stories behind some of the world’s most daring events. Topics range from creating inclusive brand experiences to producing hybrid events and everything in between. Guests include high-level executives and VPs of Marketing and Strategy from big names all over the world.  The Hustle & Flowchart Podcast Joe and Matt are the marketing duo who teach about audience building and driving traffic to your website. On their podcast, they introduce their guests and share their expertise with listeners. Their two main focuses include building and running marketing processes which are perfect for any marketer looking to standardize or automate their work. There are a lot of actionable tips for marketers at every level.  Seeking Wisdom The ConversionCast podcast, hosted by Drift’s David Cancel, reveals all the insider marketing secrets that will help startups succeed. Their tagline asks, “want to get better every day?” and perfectly encapsulates their podcast philosophy. Episodes are typically less than one hour, with many clocking in at just under 20 minutes.  The Animalz Content Podcast The team at Animalz talks about content marketing strategy and writing. Their creative episode topics include how to write faster based on military communication tactics and distribution-first content creation. Overall, you’ll learn how to take your content to the next level while supporting your entire marketing team.  HBR IdeaCast This top marketing podcast is hosted and produced by the Harvard Business Review and features many of their guest authors. According to their website, they primarily discuss business and management. However, marketers will find plenty of tips for both personal career development as well as information on the current state of global business practices, which will greatly inform their own campaigns.  Why marketing podcasts are right for you From real-life examples to expert how-tos from marketing tool creators, a great marketing podcast is critical for success in any campaign. They offer solutions and creative ideas you simply can’t find anywhere else for every stage of marketing project management. Listen for free through iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, the Google Podcast app, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.  Looking for even more great podcasts? Be sure to check out:  Our top choices for project management podcasts so you can seamlessly plan marketing campaigns and improve productivity.  Wrike’s own implementation and project management coach Errette Dunn as a guest on the PM for the Masses podcast discussing how customer personas can influence solutions.  And some tips on how fast-growing startups can leverage machine learning for customer segmentation with Wrike CEO Andrew Filev.

Managing Your Marketing Collateral from Start to Finish
Marketing 7 min read

Managing Your Marketing Collateral from Start to Finish

Effective marketing collateral helps communicate crucial details about brand goals and identity. Learn more about communication collateral and marketing collateral development.

5 Essentials of the Best Marketing Project Management Tools
Marketing 3 min read

5 Essentials of the Best Marketing Project Management Tools

The right marketing project management tool means better communication, easy collaboration, and an organized team. But there are thousands of tools designed to help marketing departments with their hectic workloads, and each looks promising on paper. So how do you choose?   Look for these 5 essential capabilities to quickly narrow the field and find the perfect tool for your team: 1. Easy Document CollaborationNo campaign is a one-person show. Between brainstorming, group writing and editing sessions, and several rounds of revisions, you need multiple team members to access and contribute to documents simultaneously with marketing collaboration software. 2. Convenient File Management & StorageMultiple copy revisions, design mockups, budget spreadsheets... marketers have a lot of documents to manage. Project management tools let you virtually paperclip related files together with the task they support, so you don’t need to search, resend emails, or verify that everything's up-to-date.  3. Free Mobile AppsCreativity doesn’t clock out at 6 PM. You need to be able to access your work whenever and wherever you want. Free mobile apps let you access your workspace from wherever you happen to be: at a client meeting, on the train, or over your leisurely Saturday morning coffee. 4. Visualizes Projects & PlansPlanning projects on calendars and whiteboards isn't ideal. A single change can lead to a domino effect of tasks that each need to be rescheduled, or may be completely forgotten until it's too late. Find a tool that lets you view multiple campaigns and projects at once, see how everything connects, and quickly make adjustments. 5. Real-Time UpdatesMeetings, presentations, reports, follow-ups — you barely have time to eat lunch let alone chase down teammates for status updates or to discuss changes to a task. You need instant access and visibility into exactly where your campaigns stand right now, so you can make sure your team is always focused on high-priority tasks. Marketing Collaboration Tools Buyers Guide For more help finding the perfect marketing project management tool for your team, download our free eBook:Collaboration Software for Marketing Teams: A Buyer’s Guide Free Checklist Download our checklist for evaluating project management software and find the perfect solution for your marketing team: Marketing Software Buyers Guide.xlsx

5 Rules for Scaling Your Marketing Operations Successfully
Marketing 7 min read

5 Rules for Scaling Your Marketing Operations Successfully

Marketing organizations are under tremendous pressure to perform. Budgets aren’t growing, but expectations are. How do you do more with less, without compromising on quality?  For marketing leaders at growing companies who are ready to expand their programs, scaling marketing operations is a top priority. But doing so comes with major challenges: coordinating different teams while managing priorities, resources, and metrics in a way that doesn’t slow you down is no easy task. But bigger doesn’t have to mean slower or less effective. By scaling your marketing operations, your growing marketing organization can stay lean and agile while continuing to deliver campaigns that impress customers and fuel business growth.  Wondering what is professional services marketing and how to excel at it? Follow these five rules to scale your marketing operations successfully.  Rule 1: Ensure Your Strategy & Processes are Scalable Bigger doesn’t always mean better. Scaling your marketing efforts can create needless complexity, hinder collaboration, and slow your team down. Smart planning is needed to avoid these growing pains and keep your marketing organization running smoothly.  So scale back before you scale up. Examine your current processes to see where you can streamline, determine which marketing efforts are generating a positive ROI, and cut back on what’s not working as well.  To help determine whether you're in a good position to scale, ask yourself these questions:  Do you know what distinguishes your brand from competitors in key vertical markets, or areas you've targeted for market expansion?  Can you clearly articulate that difference?  Being able to scale successfully means knowing what attracts and retains the customers you've already acquired, and leveraging that knowledge for growth that's sustainable. Rule 2: Make Sure Your Team is Ready Think about your team and its current workload and responsibilities. Are they equipped to handle a ramp up in projects without neglecting current customers, products, and services?  If your marketing coordinators are also supporting other departments, such as PR and customer service, analyzing performance data, and implementing new marketing tools, they’re doing too much. Go back to step one to streamline efforts and processes so your team has the bandwidth to scale. Or consider adding staff to balance your team's workload and responsibilities.  Next, ask yourself: does your team have the expertise needed to launch successful campaigns in the new regions or industries you're targeting? If not, should you hire new staff now, or contract out until you have a better idea of the kind of expertise your team needs? Evaluate your current team to identify each member's strengths and expertise, find out where your talent gaps lie, and hire for those roles.  Rule 3: Fail to Delegate, Fail to Scale According to a report done by CMO Council and Deloitte, 45% of CMOs say they spend most of their time reviewing and approving marketing plans, budgets and campaigns. 42% say most of their day is spent in meetings. 66% wish they could spend more time on business strategy with fellow company leaders, and 55% want more time to implement innovative new marketing approaches.  Making good decisions takes time — something few marketing leaders have enough of. So save your attention for the most important cases, and delegate whenever you can. Set your team up to be able to make good decisions on your current marketing initiatives, so you can focus on executing new strategies.  Because many marketing tasks are recurring, like setting up campaigns, planning and publishing content, or promoting events, so are many of the decisions your team has to make around these initiatives. For instance, which segments or channels should a new campaign target? Which metrics will you use to track success? Create templates for recurring tasks and projects, so processes are standardized and easy to follow. Set up reporting dashboards that make it easy to measure and share results. This visibility lets you quickly check in on campaigns without spending all your time in meetings, and it allows your team to stay aligned on priorities and know exactly what their colleagues are responsible for, and what goals they're driving towards.  Email and spreadsheets are about the least scalable solution there is, so find a work management tool that can grow with your team. This guide will help you evaluate your options and find the right fit for your needs.  Rule 4: Embrace Automation It’s the central puzzle of marketing: sending the right message to the right person at just the right time.  But as you ramp up your marketing machine, launching simultaneous, complex campaigns, it becomes more and more difficult to do so. In order to keep up with the complexity and volume of customer and campaign data, you need the right technologies to track, analyze, and optimize your marketing efforts.  So how do you scale without losing the personalization that's resonated with your customers and fueled your current successes?  Leveraging marketing automation tools allows you to send highly targeted messages to leads and shorten the marketing cycle. Automated lead nurturing helps you build relationships with customers through helpful emails, follow-ups, social media engagement, etc., to determine when they’re truly sales-ready. And by automating your creative workflows, you streamline repetitive tasks, cut down on errors, and execute faster.   Rule 5: What Can’t Be Measured Can’t Be Improved  A recent study by HubSpot found that only 23% of companies are exceeding their revenue goals — and of those not exceeding their goals, 74% don’t know the number of monthly visits, leads, MQLs, or sales opportunities they need.  How can you grow your customer base and revenue streams when you don’t now how leads are coming into or moving through your marketing funnel?  When you’re tracking the right things, growth becomes a much simpler task. Focus on metrics that make you a customer-centric organization, so you get actionable data and timely user feedback that pushes your company forward. Find out which marketing initiatives are creating value in order to improve results, boost ROI, and deliver mature leads to your sales team. Being able to properly attribute revenue across each of your marketing activities is key to knowing where to place your resources to fuel growth.  Basic metrics like lead volume and website traffic are important, but failing to dive deeper means you’re missing out on key insights into your marketing performance, and valuable opportunities for improvement. MQL to SQL ratio, unengaged subscribers, and other advanced marketing metrics will give you deeper insight into what's driving your success and where you should focus your attention. And don’t just measure campaign results; measure the effort that goes into them as well. Evaluate campaign performance based on two factors: did your efforts produce the desired outcomes? And did the outcome justify the resources required? Maximize Growth and Stay Lean  With the right foundation of marketing operations, you can grow your marketing organization into a responsive team that’s able to capitalize on customer needs and market trends.  Teams that embrace the Agile marketing framework stay lean while improving productivity and efficiency. In fact, 87% of CMOs have found their teams to be more productive after transitioning to Agile marketing. Get in-depth strategies for making your growing marketing team more Agile in this free guide, 7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team.  Sources: Oktopost.com, Blog.marketo.com, Inc.com, Blog.Hubspot.com

How to Manage Ad Hoc Requests Before They Derail Your Marketing Team
Marketing 7 min read

How to Manage Ad Hoc Requests Before They Derail Your Marketing Team

Your team is heads down and focused, working hard to get the job done before a campaign launch. They’re making good progress, and with a little luck, you might actually hit your deadlines. Then suddenly, it strikes... the ad hoc request. The cubicle drive-by, the quick email or chat message, the “Hey, I was going to ask you...” while grabbing a fresh cup of coffee in the kitchen. These requests pop up out of the blue, and while they’re typically quick-turnaround tasks, they can hit your team hard.  According to our Work Management Report, which surveyed 1,400 knowledge workers, the top productivity roadblock for 60% of respondents was “working on too many things at the same time,” followed by “unclear priorities” (31%) and “too many requests from others” (28%). Today’s marketers spend just 36% of their time on the work they were hired to do.  It’s no surprise that ad hoc requests are among the top workplace productivity killers. And yet, ad hoc requests are not only unavoidable, they’re necessary for keeping customers happy. Your marketing team must be responsive to changing client and customer needs, and doing so requires flexibility.  One of the biggest challenges for marketing managers is establishing a process that accommodates ad hoc requests in a way that minimizes disruption and distraction for your team. Use these strategies to incorporate unexpected tasks into your workflow and keep all those incoming requests manageable.  Plan For Ad Hoc Requests You know ad hoc requests are coming, so leave some wiggle room when you plan your team’s workload and sprints.  Enterprise Agile blogger Vin D'Amico suggests prioritizing items as A or B: A items are tasks the team commits to getting done in that sprint, and B items will be done if time allows, but can be subbed out for ad hoc requests if necessary. This ensures your team makes real progress on primary goals, while allowing for some flexibility.  Visualizing your team’s workload is another easy way to see who has the bandwidth to pick up an urgent request when one inevitably comes in, or shuffle tasks as necessary to keep one person from being overloaded with work.  [caption id="attachment_417149" align="aligncenter" width="820"] Wrike's Workload View[/caption] Embrace Agile to Be More Responsive Implementing an Agile methodology allows your marketing team to be more responsive, and makes your workflow much more flexible when it comes to incoming requests. 18% of marketers say adopting Agile has improved their quality of work, and 16% say their team is now better aligned on priorities.  It’s important to note: Agile is not the same as improvisation, and adopting Agile doesn’t mean abandoning structure and planning. Two key components of Agile are ruthless prioritization and constant team communication.  This means your team is better able to identify which ad hoc requests are priorities worth incorporating into your sprint, slot them into the current workload, and collaborate with each other to keep a deluge of incoming requests from bogging down a single team member or creating bottlenecks for the whole team.  Learn more about implementing Agile on your marketing team in this free download: 7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team Be Your Team’s Buffer As a marketing leader, you know that even the best laid plans can be derailed by a single curve ball. It’s your job to field those curve balls and act as a buffer so your team can stay focused.  Chances are, your marketing team is currently getting bombarded by requests in their inboxes, Slack, meetings, shared Google docs, and hallway conversations. Not only is it impossible to get an accurate picture of the amount of work you actually have coming in, it makes it very difficult to prioritize tasks and ensure your team has the resources they need.  All ad hoc requests must come through you, so you can collect all the necessary information and weed out unimportant tasks before they distract your team.  Appoint a Gunslinger Kirsten Minshall, founder of London-based web applications studio UVD, suggests defining a special role on your team— someone who can quickly “shoot from the hip” and clear out incoming requests.  Working closely with you as the buffer, the gunslinger fields ad hoc requests that are vetted and accepted as priorities. If none come in, they can always pick up tasks from your defined backlog to stay productive. But this enables the rest of your team to focus on executing and achieving your goals, while still accommodating urgent tasks.  You can always rotate the gunslinger role amongst your team members to keep any one person from feeling isolated or burnt out by a steady stream of incoming requests.  Formalize the Request Process You can’t manage what you can’t see. If you’ve ever sat down for a one-on-one with a team member only to hear they’re working on tasks you know nothing about, it’s time to institute a formal request process.  That means no more unofficial, drive-by requests: everything must come to your team via a formal request. No matter how small the task, or how big the title of the person who's asking for it.  Establishing a central location where you can direct all incoming requests, prioritize them, and find all the info you need to get the job done right is essential for you and your team to get a handle on the madness.    Instead of scattered through emails, sticky notes, or spreadsheets, use a Scrum board to quickly prioritize, assign, and track requests. You’ll know who’s responsible for each request and its status, and any duplicate requests can be easily identified and cleared from the queue. Learn how to set up your Scrum dashboard in Wrike to get started.  [caption id="attachment_414564" align="aligncenter" width="820"] Scrum Dashboard in Wrike[/caption] "Wrike actually changed and improved how we function as a team. I look at the new requests that have come in, evaluate who has time this week, and move these into the Design inbox, so the team knows the priorities." - Katelyn Good, Manager of Marketing Strategy & Implementation at Lightspeed POS Track Everything You Work On Since so many ad hoc tasks are invisible, “off the books” requests, it’s impossible to quantify how much work your team is actually doing — or determine how you should improve processes to help your team perform their best.  Many marketing leaders are turning to cloud-based project management solutions to help teams communicate and share information. But while there are thousands of tools to help marketers organize and collaborate on campaigns, there are only a few solutions like Wrike that are designed to help teams manage planned projects along with unexpected requests.  By tracking everything in a work management tool, you'll be able to: Get an accurate picture of your team’s current capacity, and see exactly how each person spends their time Allocate resources more efficiently, or make a convincing case for additional resources/staff Clear out urgent but unimportant requests and keep your team focused on high-priority business goals  Make work visible to executives and stakeholders so they can easily track the progress of their requests Say "no" (or "not today") to low-priority tasks—and easily justify why Keep Your Marketing Team Proactive, Not Reactive Defining a process for ad hoc requests enables your team to focus on the key strategic initiatives that move your business forward, while maintaining the flexibility to respond to client and customer needs.  The more you can make plans that reflect what's really happening with your team—by making invisible work visible, formalizing new requests, and blocking out time for ad hoc tasks—the more flexibility you'll have to not only make adjustments and course corrections along the way, but capitalize on significant opportunities. 

5 Workflow Mistakes That Plague A Fast-Paced Marketing Team
Marketing 7 min read

5 Workflow Mistakes That Plague A Fast-Paced Marketing Team

You're busy staying on top of the latest and greatest marketing technology, generating content, building out campaigns, identifying buyer personas, or being a resource for your team (the list goes on and on). All of this activity makes it difficult to worry about how work is getting done, as long as it gets done.

How Marketing Silos Damage Your Organization
Marketing 7 min read

How Marketing Silos Damage Your Organization

When marketing efforts are fragmented, and marketers are executing campaigns without unified goals or even tactics, there will be problems that will affect your organization as a whole.

Marketing Ops Tools and Software for Customer-Centric Organizations
Marketing 7 min read

Marketing Ops Tools and Software for Customer-Centric Organizations

Discover simple and powerful marketing operations tools that will help drive more sales and derive greater value for your organization.

10 Books for Marketing Operations Mastery
Marketing 7 min read

10 Books for Marketing Operations Mastery

If you're looking to learn more about marketing in general and marketing operations specifically, the following 10 books should give you a solid understanding of the field.

How to Achieve Operational Efficiency and Work From Home
Remote Working 7 min read

How to Achieve Operational Efficiency and Work From Home

Operational efficiency is essential to get the most possible ROI out of campaigns. Keep reading to get a deeper dive on what defines operational efficiency and how to achieve it, as well as how to identify and take action on low ROI campaigns.

What Is Digital Asset Management (DAM) & Why Should Marketers Care?
Marketing 7 min read

What Is Digital Asset Management (DAM) & Why Should Marketers Care?

Digital asset management helps teams organize virtual images and files crucial to production and project management. Find out how your teams can benefit from (DAM) digital asset management with Wrike.

7 Secrets of the Best Marketing Operations Teams
Marketing 5 min read

7 Secrets of the Best Marketing Operations Teams

By Lynn Hunsaker and Gary Katz, President/CEO and Chairman/Chief Strategy Officer, respectively, of Marketing Operations Partners Value creation is the ultimate measure of success in business: value to customers, shareholders, alliances, employees, and the community at-large. In the quest to be best, follow the money, or better yet, be the one that enables value (money, capability, opportunity) to be created. Marketing Operations is a role that can facilitate the whole marketing department responsibilities in value creation. Here are 7 secrets for success: 1. Know which side your bread is buttered on It’s a fact of life that you get ahead faster when you cater to whoever holds the purse strings. For Marketing, that’s first and foremost your customers. If your marketing is out of sync with content, timing, and methods that customers prefer, there’s not much point. Always start with WHO. This applies not only to messaging, but also to your strategic plans, tactical plans, process designs, people, tools, performance measurement – really, everything that Marketing does. This analysis and management of stakeholder needs is also known as ecosystem. 2. Set your CMO up for success Going hand-in-hand with the big picture of the ecosystem, the next layer in the bread-buttering hierarchy is enterprise objectives. Your CMO will be successful to the extent that the C-team perceives strong fit and contribution to their strategic goals. This is the WHY of the Marketing organization. You can align everything in Marketing with what the C-suite cares about by using a technique called cascading objectives. It’s the logical starting point for all marketing plans and performance monitoring. This orientation is the basis for your Marketing strategy. 3. Be a strategic enabler Someone needs to ensure the strategy comes to life, and that’s you. See yourself as a facilitator of Marketing’s success. Standards and oversight to help all marketers achieve enterprise goals are the WHAT of your role. It’s not about bureaucracy, but rather, connecting dots between strategy and execution, connecting people, connecting diverse data, and connecting interdependent processes. This is also known as governance or guidance. 4. Formalize the methods to your madness Process diagrams and procedures go a long way in accelerating necessities like onboarding, minimizing duplication of resources and effort across geographies and lines of business, and maintaining know-how when key persons depart. This is the HOW for your delivery of the why and the what for the who. Everyone’s work methods in Marketing comprise processes. 5. Remember: What gets measured gets done Help every Marketing sub-function select metrics that monitor early signals in their work. Typically, metrics are focused at the extremes of the spectrum: click-throughs (activity) and revenue (outcome). Don’t confuse outputs of a process to be early signals. These are junctures within a group’s work that signify potential re-work or scrap, or otherwise, potential successful outputs and outcomes. This is the SO WHAT? of everything Marketing does. By monitoring early signals before stakeholders can see outputs and outcomes, marketers are empowered to make adjustments that are efficient and effective. Measurement of progress is commonly known as metrics. 6. Prevent accelerators from becoming imploders Technology is intended to be an accelerator of everything. Select technology per who, why, how, what, and so what. When it’s selected in a vacuum, or without a firm understanding of the preceding, technology often derails strategy. Rushing to technology prematurely typically requires people and processes to bend in ways that aren’t sustainable. Conversations are taken over by what’s needed by the technology, instead of what’s needed for strategic opportunities. Make technology choices wisely to ensure Marketing’s strategic impact. 7. Ensure the horse is before the cart The combination of processes, metrics, and technology forms Marketing’s infrastructure: the vehicle to get from point A to point Z. This is the means for all the moving parts to function as intended. Remember that who, why, and how – ecosystem, strategy, and guidance – inform the necessary characteristics of infrastructure. The seven secrets of the best Marketing Operations teams fit together as shown in this framework.Notice the flow beginning with the ecosystem. Metrics, especially early signals, indicate what needs to be adjusted in every component of the framework. In our benchmark study, Journey to Marketing Operations Maturity, this framework represented the secrets of the best Marketing Operations teams, and is your path to value creation. It’s the lifeblood of your enterprise. In turn, it’s the ultimate measure of your success. These seven secrets can take root in your Marketing organization readily through our new Marketing Future Forum, which allows you to personalize these ideas to your business, access them on-demand in half-hour bites, and share them across your marketing organization. Join our Leap Day announcement webcast to learn how you can ready your Marketing organization for the future. Register now at http://ow.ly/YDCV1 Author Bios: Gary Katz, Chairman/Chief Strategy Officer and Lynn Hunsaker, President/CEO of Marketing Operations Partners, an organization that aims to transform marketing organizations as a value center via Accountability, Alignment, and Agility.

Marketing Operations: A Primer on the Fastest Growing Role in Business
Marketing 5 min read

Marketing Operations: A Primer on the Fastest Growing Role in Business

For businesses looking to stretch their marketing dollars, marketing operations is a hot topic. In order to keep up with the current speed of business, organizations need to leverage technology and gain insight into customer needs and business performance.  And while marketing operations has quickly become the fastest-growing role in business, there are still plenty of questions surrounding this relatively new field: What is marketing operations, and why bother with it? How does it fit into the broader marketing discipline? Is there a conflict between operations management vs marketing? And what strategies can businesses use to improve their marketing campaign results?  What is Marketing Operations? First things first: what is the role of marketing operations? A typical marketing operations director or coordinator has many responsibilities, including measuring and evaluating marketing performance, strategic planning, budgeting, developing and improving the overall marketing process, selecting and implementing marketing technologies, and providing professional development for the marketing team. So the operations and marketing relationship is really that of a partnership. Marketing ops focuses on behind-the-scenes activity to ensure processes are running smoothly and campaigns reach their goals.  Digital marketing operations may be a relatively new field, but its beginnings can be traced back to the 1920s. This infographic shows its evolution, and growing importance to various marketing disciplines: Popular Marketing Operations Tools As with any branch of the marketing world, there are a zillion options when it comes to marketing operations software. In fact, in his annual Marketing Technology Landscape super graphic, Scott Brinker of chiefmartec.com identified a whopping 3,874 marketing technology solutions.  If you want to zoom in for a better look at the landscape, you can view a hi-res version here: 2016 Marketing Technology Landscape Supergraphic (PDF) To save you some time looking through thousands of tools, we've rounded up some of the most popular software used by today's marketing operations managers: Kissmetrics: Build customer funnels and sort website visitors into groups based on common actions and triggers so you can understand how potential customers are engaging with your site.  Unbounce: Use A/B testing to discover which features, website elements, or marketing messages are most successful when it comes to eliciting a desired response from potential customers.  Hubspot: Analyze and improve landing pages and forms to collect the right information from potential customers and automatically plug them into the appropriate nurture tracks.  Clicktale: Heat maps track website visitors’ mouse movements, clicks, and scrolling to determine which parts of your site they’re paying the most attention to — and what’s being overlooked.  SEM Rush: See top organic keywords, keyword rank, and search volume for keywords that are driving organic traffic to your competitors’ websites, and discover opportunities for gaining ground.  Wrike: Give your teams a collaboration and work management tool for organizing incoming requests, delegating tasks, and tracking project progress and results.  Get 10 more must-have marketing operations tools, plus details on the metrics you should track, here: Marketing Ops Tech & Tools for a Customer-Centric Organization Marketing Operations Strategies Most bad marketing decisions come down to one simple mistake: not having the right information about your target audience. This is where marketing operations strategies become an essential ingredient to marketing (and business) success. A common myth about marketing operations is that it’s all about crunching numbers and automating processes. In fact, a good marketing operations analyst has the skills to interpret a mess of numbers and fill in those knowledge gaps. They use their data-driven insights to help the marketing team improve customer experience and boost engagement. Marketing operations also focuses on improving processes and cross-team collaboration. By coordinating the various arms of the marketing organizational structure and product management roles, marketing operations management can connect the dots between strategy and execution. They can ensure that inbound and outbound campaign messaging is aligned, content managers are on the same page as the Lead Gen team, and all efforts line up with the CMO’s priorities and business objectives.  Ultimately, marketing operations works to combine processes, metrics, and technology to support the entire marketing organization.  For more marketing ops strategies, both the CEO and the Chief Strategy Officer of Marketing Operations Partners give their best tips here: 7 Secrets of the Best Marketing Operations Teams The Future of Marketing Operations In an effort to make their marketing efforts more efficient and effective, more and more companies are turning to marketing operations. And in turn, marketing operations teams are focusing on a central goal: value creation — for customers, employees, and business owners alike. This focus will continue to make marketing operations a global discipline used by successful organizations worldwide.  The Road to Successful Marketing Operations By Diederik Martens from MarTech Conference Ready to Get Started with Marketing Operations? If you think your company needs a full-fledged marketing operations department in order to have effective marketing operations, think again. You can improve your marketing operations today, with resources you likely already have.  Radius provides advice on identifying someone within your current marketing team that would be a good fit for taking on some marketing operations responsibilities, Emmsphere explains how you can improve your current marketing operations processes without spending a dime, and industry leaders offer 10 suggestions for marketing operations success. 

7 Resolutions All Marketers Should Make for a Successful 2017
Marketing 3 min read

7 Resolutions All Marketers Should Make for a Successful 2017

Time moves fast—but the marketing industry moves even faster. Changing customer needs, new campaign management tools and technologies, and emerging trends make it difficult to keep up and continue serving up fresh campaigns.  Now that 2017 is here, it’s time for marketers everywhere to review their strategies and make some new resolutions. What should you focus your efforts and resources on in the coming year? What ineffective strategies or old habits should you leave behind? Which trends will have the greatest impact on your business? Find out in the infographic below:  [caption id="attachment_421020" align="aligncenter" width="626"] Infographic by MDG Advertising[/caption] Set Your Marketing Team Up for Success in 2017 Looking for a complete marketing solution to drive your marketing and creative teams? Check out Wrike for Marketers to enhance collaboration and streamline workflows. Further Reading Quiz: What's Your Team's Agile Marketing Score? The Creative Brief Template: Elements of an Effective Creative Brief 5 Steps for Making Your Marketing Team More Efficient 

State of Marketing Operations and MarTech in 2015
Marketing 3 min read

State of Marketing Operations and MarTech in 2015

The marketing technology and marketing operations landscapes are shifting rapidly, as marketing departments adapt to an increasingly digital world and tech-savvy consumers. Find out the current trends, strategies, and common practices for many marketing ops and martech professionals with this collection of current statistics, to help you build your martech stack. 1. Marketing Operations Statistics 64% of marketing operations teams have 10 or fewer members. (Source: Mo-cca.com) 83% of marketing ops teams report to the most senior marketing leader (CMO). (Source: Mo-cca.com) Most-Desirable Skills in Marketing Ops Professionals: -General marketing skills -Analytics skills -Project management skills -IT skills -Change management skills -Lead management experience(Source: Mo-cca.com) 91% of B2B marketers use content marketing, but only 36% believe they're effective at it. (Source: Webbiquity) 73% of B2B marketers use video in their content marketing. (Source: Business2Community) SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads have a 1.7% close rate. (Source: Hubspot) Search Engine Marketing will continue to get the largest share of resources, at 14% of total marketing budgets. 10% of the budget will go to online display advertising, like banner ads and re-marketing/re-targeting campaigns. (Source: Business2Community) 60% of B2B marketers measure success by web traffic rather than sales lead quality or social media sharing. (Source: Business2Community) Many marketing organizations say managing data is their biggest challenge: data storage (36%), data quality (23%), and making data actionable (15%). (Source: The Wise Marketer) 84% of top-performing companies are currently using or plan to start using marketing automation by 2015. (Source: Business2Community) Yet only 5% of all marketers are currently using a full-featured marketing automation solution. (Source: Hubspot) Of companies using marketing automation and ROI metrics, 69% report an increase in total marketing revenue contribution. (Source: CMO.com) 2. Marketing Technology Statistics Scott Brinker's 2015 marketing technology landscape includes 1,876 companies in 43 categories. The landscape has seen year-over-year growth of 170%. (Source: Radius.com) 65% of marketing executives plan to spend more money on marketing technology in the coming year, including 28% who plan to increase spending by more than 25%. (Source: Conductor) 51% of marketing execs say that their marketing technologies are only loosely integrated or not at all. (Source: Signal.co) 76% of marketers say that analyzing performance data has made either "more" or "much more" of an impact on their decision making. (Source: Chiefmartec.com) Only 7% of those in a martech role have "marketing technologist" in their title. Marketing, business, and technology titles dominate. (Source: Chiefmartec.com) 43% of marketing technologists come from a technical/programming background. 33% come from a marketing/communications background. (Source: Chiefmartec.com) Top 5 Skills for Future Marketing Success: 1. Marketing Strategy and Positioning 62% 2. Target Market Identification 44% 3. Web design (including responsive and adaptive) 43% 4. CRM systems and platforms 43% 5. Ability to persuade and negotiate 42%(Source: Chiefmartec.com) Want to Learn More About MarTech? Check out our guide to the top martech conferences and events in 2015 & 2016.