Why MOps must now shift focus

In our eagerness to leverage the technical part of martech, the operational part of MOps, and the automated part of marketing automation, MOps experts have failed to accomplish the most important part of the equation: marketing.

B2B marketing is facing an efficiency crisis after years of pursuing efficiency. You need to learn efficiency and always invest more than efficiency. Here's why:

Evolution of Martech: From Automation to AI

As marketing technologists, we've experienced more than a little of the explosion of technology.

• The rise of cloud-based software.
• The rise of marketing automation.
• The rise of smart mobile devices.
• And now, artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly popular in marketing.

In fact, marketers use AI to brainstorm ideas, write copy, generate content, better target audiences, build landing pages, analyze data, parse text and discover insights, and improve customer experience. We do things like intelligence.

But trying to leverage technology, operations, and automation leaves marketing underachieving. Senior management wants to do more with less (efficiency). But does that mean they don't care about us achieving the company's marketing goals (effectiveness)?

Technology is great at automation and efficiency. Much of the excitement around AI centers around the promise of increased productivity. But don't forget the principles.

Marketing is:

• Get into the conversation that is already happening in the audience's mind.
• Understand their pain, fears, frustrations, anxieties, worries, hopes, and aspirations.
• Establish your brand as a trusted advisor in your field of expertise.
• We build relationships before there is a clear need for our products.
• We demonstrate our capabilities in this field.
  • We're not just the cheapest, we're not just the company closest to their path.
  • We are good at solving urgent problems in this field.
• Creating a preference for our brand while striving to be the best.
• Facilitate the purchasing process as smoothly as possible for those interested.

When done right, marketing can be personal, creative, intimate, empathetic and intuitive. Listening rather than telling, showing rather than telling, and telling stories rather than preaching.

That's why we love good marketing, but we can't stand vulgar, lazy, or inconsiderate versions of it.

Dig deeper: How martech leaders need to leverage AI for customer-centric marketing

The art and science of marketing

We are all familiar with the five stages of product awareness.

• did not notice
• problem recognition
• solution conscious
• product recognition
• I am fully aware

If you've worked in or been involved in demand generation, you may have heard the terms “demand generation,” “demand capture,” and “demand transformation.”

• Creating demand: Creates demand for certain brands over others.
  (Note: Demand generation does not mean manufacturing demand from scratch in the prospect's organization; most of the manufacturer's demand is internal.)
• Capturing demand: Invite potential buyers looking for a solution into a conversation with your brand, usually through a lead generation form.
• Demand conversion: Guide prospective buyers through the sales process in a smooth and efficient manner, allowing them to quickly and comfortably decide whether to choose your brand or take the next step.

A lot of our martech focuses on the last two.

• Demand capture (lead gen forms, campaign tracking, attribution, etc.)
• Demand conversion (CRM, lead routing, sales stage conversion rates, etc.)

When potential buyers exist in our system, the game generally shifts to efficiency. We usually know the most direct process for persuading people and should stick to it. There's more science than art here.

But while they're actually there, which will likely be 95% or more of your target audience, the name of the game needs to be effective. We usually don't know the specific means to get people on a journey. So you need to try lots of small experiments and scale the ones that work. There's more art than science here.

AI will increasingly take over the automation part (efficiency), but it will take much longer to take over the marketing part (efficiency).

Understood. MOps teams struggle under the weight of:

• Business demands for increased efficiency.
• Marketers are asking us to integrate the latest freemium AI tools.

When cloud-based freemium software exploded a few years ago, the concept of “shadow IT” took hold. Countless, largely invisible apps are relied upon by members of the broader team, and we typically don't know about them until after the fact. With new free AI tools appearing every week, “Shadow AI” could become the new bane of his MOps. So what to do?

Do we try to include everything because we get a barrage of ad-hoc requests? Do we just say no to everything and only put a lid on top-down approved apps? Indicates a midpoint to help thread the thread.

Dig Deeper: Simplifying your Martech Stack: From Pipeline Efficiency to Brand Affinity

6 Questions to Ask Before “Just Marketing” for Marketing’s sake.

Incorporate the latest AI tools to meet all new demands from marketing, including questions such as:

• Who do we hope to serve with this initiative?
  • Entire addressable market?
  • Subscriber?
  • Qualified leads?
  • chance?
  • Or is it purely an internal audience (reports, etc.)?
• What are your business goals for this year?
• How do our marketing goals align with them?
• Why this particular marketing objective rather than others?
• What part of the cognitive cycle does this help with?
• What area of ​​marketing does this help with? Effectiveness or efficiency?

Asking due diligence questions like these can help you push back on demands from your broader marketing colleagues who are under pressure to do more with less.

In some cases, due diligence is not carried out until the upstream stage. We may need to reflect that on them rather than just accepting every request.

As marketers, we often get surprised by new solutions and overlook the underlying problems. The more a marketer becomes obsessed with the wants, needs, hopes, fears, and frustrations of their ideal buyer, the more focused their demands on MOps become.

And the more MOps stick to the company's true business and marketing goals, the more effective marketing will be first, and more efficient second.

We can do more than simply commercialize products.

MOps carriers focused solely on efficiency are already under threat from AI. More and more of what you do will be replaced by code. A cart trying to pull a horse. But is a MOps career all about marketing effectiveness first and efficiency second? Well, that's a rare breed.

We need to hold the broader marketing department accountable. We shouldn't be bombarded with every shiny new tool, AI or otherwise. This allows you to participate in strategic conversations about your marketing goals and how to find the best martech solution for the job.

Because the marketing part is why most of us actually started marketing.

Digging Deeper: From Efficiency to Effectiveness: The B2B Marketing Revolution of 2024