A new article on
Martech.org says that, as part of this week's launch of MarTech, the company is exploring key trends and tactics related to its six main topics. In this instalment, Darrell Alfonso, Kelly Jo Horton, Steve Petersen and Justin Sharaf offer their perspectives regarding the burning question in marketing Operations.
MarTech's very own logo says that "martech is marketing," but would it also be right to say, "marketing operations is marketing"?
Justin Sharaf is VP Marketing at Jahia Solutions:
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"I would personally be comfortable because I have bounced back and forth between marketing and marketing ops in my career. I think most marketing ops professionals do see themselves as part of the larger marketing organization, which makes them marketers. I do see a lot of marketing ops professionals referring to themselves as technologists, though, in more mature organizations where marketing ops takes on more broad responsibilities."
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Kelly Jo Horton is Senior Client Partner at Etumos and also the founder of MOPs Talks:
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"Whether or not someone is comfortable being called a marketer would depend on their background. I have personally worked as a social media marketer, copywriter, and in other marketing disciplines, so I consider myself a marketer and a technology strategist and architect."
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Steve Petersen is Marketing Technology Manager at Western Governors University and a regular contributor to MarTech:
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"Yes and no. Yes, since that's an easy way of telling someone what I do. No, since I feel more comfortable and competent in regard to the technical side of my job than the marketing and analytical sides."
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Darrell Alfonso is Global marketing Operations Manager at AWS:
"A marketing ops leader should be passionate about marketing, but functional specialists within the team may not be. For example, it's common in enterprise organizations to build internal products that help marketers do their jobs more effectively. Are the product managers and engineers who build those things marketers?
Marketing and marketing operations are in the same organization or department, but not necessarily on the same team. The overall goals of branding and revenue-driving are the same, but the sub-goals are different. I came up with an analogy that describes ops well. Ops is like the pit crew, and sales and marketing are the race car drivers. We're replacing the wheels, tuning up the engine, refueling, keeping an eye on all the instrumentation, constantly talking to the driver to find out what he or she needs. An effective pit crew enables a driver to focus on winning the race, and not on things like if his or her car will fail during the race. The more planning, guardrails, and smart processes we have in place - the faster marketers can go."
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