Research Services

Marketing Operations Strategies

Marketing operations is sometimes viewed as the “land of the misfit projects,” a catch-all of sorts for initiatives that have no other home. As this function evolves, its charter must become more finite in order to truly show marketing’s return on investment for the business.

The mission of Marketing Operations Strategies™ (MOS) enables marketing operations to accomplish three fundamental objectives for its function as well as the enterprise as a whole. MOS offers an objective, third-party perspective to validate decisions, innovate, benchmark and challenge your organization to create the most effective marketing operation possible. MOS is designed to provide senior marketing management with operational intelligence to support strategic and tactical decisions. This membership-driven program combines the benchmarking data, best-practice insights, analytic tools and thought leadership required to prove the value of marketing operations, and ensure its long-term viability.

Through continuous research and deliverables that allow easy access to marketing operational intelligence, MOS will stimulate ideas, provide a platform for discussion within your organization, allow you to network with peers at SiriusDecisions events, and give you on-demand intelligence for effective decision making.

OPERATIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Access benchmarking data from Fortune 500 and major SMB companies in order to put context around your most critical decisions
Understand the strategies, tactics and tools that best-practice organizations have successfully developed and implemented to optimize marketing, and to generate predictable revenue
Assess your overall marketing operation with models and frameworks that identify issues and accelerate problem resolution to improve operational efficiency and effectiveness
Obtain the latest insights from industry thought leaders who are also practitioners on the evolving organizational structure of the marketing function and its integration with sales processes and strategies

REPRESENTATIVE COVERAGE AREAS

Sales and Marketing Integration – Understand the alignment strategies best-practice organizations are using to systematically grow their businesses
Budget Analysis – Assess the effectiveness of your marketing budget against your peer group with access to planning, allocation and comparison data from our SiriusIndex™ of Fortune 500 and SMB companies
Marketing Operations – Understand the roles, responsibilities and priorities that are driving best-in-class marketing organizations
Measurement – Assess pipeline growth contribution with critical metrics and dashboards
Organizational Structure – Understand the pros and cons of centralized vs. decentralized marketing functions
Global Deployment and Management – Understand the role corporate marketing should play in the deployment and management of marketing initiatives across the worldwide enterprise

REPRESENTATIVE MODELS

Sales and Marketing Integration Model (SMI) – includes the processes, strategies and technologies required to achieve effective sales and marketing alignment
B-to-B Marketing Models – a comprehensive view of the marketing models used today
Marketing Dashboard Model – provides an overview of the key marketing metrics and KPIs used by organizations by revenue size
Marketing Operations Evolution Model – depicts the marketing operations function and its role as the company grows

DELIVERABLES

Incorporating MOS into your workflow is easy. Interact with SiriusDecisions research analysts in the manner that suits your needs. You may contact our analysts by phone, send an inquiry by e-mail or participate in interactive webcasts and in-person forums with analysts and peers. You will also have access to published research, presentations and rich media-based content on demand via the client portal.

Research:

Research Briefs: Monthly research notes that frame executive-level sales and marketing issues in a concise layout. Three to four briefs are delivered to you each month, and are archived on the research portal.
SiriusPerspectives: A monthly newsletter in a concise layout that provides a high-level overview of a sales and marketing topic dealing with demand creation, sales optimization or reputation development.
Vendor Profiles: Reviews of emerging suppliers who may be beneficial to your demand creation efforts. SiriusDecisions also plots suppliers on our vendor matrices, allowing you to analyze and narrow your choices.
Core Strategy Reports: Provides key observations and commentary on SiriusDecisions presentations introducing critical models, frameworks and strategies. Tackles more complex sales and marketing issues, and introduces new areas of research in a white paper format.
SiriusTools: Frameworks, models and issues spectrums that allow you to more easily visualize and communicate your challenges, and to determine the most appropriate courses of action.
Rich Media: Webcast archives in rich media format that can be replayed at your convenience, shared with team members or used for training purposes.

Analyst Inquiry: Unlimited analyst inquiry privileges are offered as part of MOS membership; you can schedule analyst time via phone or email. Discussions often focus on best practices, data, analytic tools or vendor reviews.

Budget and Planning Benchmark: Every year, SiriusDecisions analysts will benchmark your marketing budget against our SiriusIndex of business-to-business companies, and provide you with an independent perspective on the industry and your performance compared with companies like yours.

Events: Peer interaction is a valuable way to understand how others are solving similar issues, and to build your network. MOS membership includes bimonthly Webcasts and quarterly half-day research forums, as well as discounted pricing on all SiriusDecisions conferences.

Below, please find a partial list of recently published MOS research.

Brief
B-to-B Campaigns and the Budget Alignment Process

In this brief, we describe how the campaign implementation and budgeting processes work in tandem.

Brief
Measuring Partner Loyalty

In this brief, we provide a framework for tracking and measuring partner loyalty.

Brief
Demand Waterfall: When Multiple Views Are Better Than One

In this brief, we explain the benefits of creating multiple demand waterfall views, examples of these views and setup considerations for creating them.

Brief
Demand Creation: Understanding Contact Requirements

In this brief, we discuss how to estimate the number of active contacts needed to support marketing-led, outbound demand creation.

Brief
Account-Based Models: Is Sales Ready?

Moving to an account-based model may seem like a natural progression for a sales organization as its customer base matures. The change, however, requires a well-planned strategic transition. In this brief, we outline a decision process to help b-to-b sales organizations determine whether they are prepared for the transition to an account-based model.

Brief
Advanced Analytics Roles in B-to-B

Advanced analytics – the use of statistical and mathematical methods to understand and predict customer and prospect behavior – requires a specialized team. In this brief, we describe four roles that support an advanced analytics initiative.

Brief
Demand Waterfall Stage Velocity: Prerequisites

In order to accurately measure waterfall stage velocity – the speed with which leads progress through the various stages of the demand waterfall – several conditions must be met. In this brief, we discuss four prerequisites that affect waterfall stage velocity measurement efforts.

Brief
Dashboard Guidelines: Sales Operations

Within b-to-b organizations, sales operations is responsible for creating dashboards that measure the performance of sales, but the operations function itself should not be exempt from the same type of scrutiny. In this brief, we present a three-phase approach to creating a sales operations dashboard.

Brief
Marketing Influence: A Roadmap for Developing Metrics

In this brief, we share a process for transforming marketing interaction data into metrics that can be used to accurately track and effectively manage marketing’s influence.

Brief
Reversing the Rearchitected Waterfall

In this brief, we explain how to use rearchitected demand waterfall conversion rates to model demand performance and budget requirements over a 12-month period.

Brief
Marketing Analytics: Organizational Considerations

B-to-b marketing organizations of all sizes and levels of analytical sophistication are investing in new tools, personnel and technologies to extract more meaning from the vast amount of data now available. In this brief, we examine four organizational options for structuring an analytics team, including the advantages and challenges of each.

Brief
Demand Waterfall Velocity in B-to-B Channels

In this brief, we describe factors that affect channel waterfall stage velocity, and explain how accurate measurement of this velocity can help diagnose and correct problems that are delaying or preventing the conversion of leads into deals.

Brief
Best Practices for Contact Data Acquisition and Development

Although data is generally considered a shared responsibility, the division of labor required for execution is not always clear, so resources become misaligned and unable to achieve objectives. In this brief, we outline considerations for prioritizing and executing contact record development, including the necessary organizational factors.

Brief
The Sirius Indicator: Marketing Analytics Tool Vendors

In this brief, using the six dimensions of the Sirius Indicator, we discuss the major categories to consider when evaluating and scoring marketing analytics vendors.

Brief
More Demand Creation Metrics That Matter

Tracking performance metrics at each stage of the SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall can help an organization improve the efficiency of its demand creation process by isolating specific trouble spots. In this brief, we describe waterfall metrics that organizations should use.

Brief
Applying Marketing Influence Analysis Across Functions

In this brief, we outline the most impactful ways that product marketing, demand creation and sales functions can use marketing influence analysis to improve their performance.

Brief
A Marketer's Guide to Defining Lead Quality With Sales

In this brief, we examine the factors that must be considered in order for sales and marketing to agree on a definition of lead quality.

Brief
Business Intelligence and Analytics: Tools and Services Landscape

In this brief, we examine five types of business intelligence (BI) and analytics offerings that serve b-to-b marketing and sales operations functions.

Brief
Marketing Automation: Central Creation of Regional Programs

In this brief, we outline the four stages required to create and customize centrally developed marketing automation programs for regional use.

Core Strategy Report
The SiriusDecisions Campaign Implementation Process

In this SiriusDecisions Core Strategy Report, we identify the steps involved in developing and implementing integrated campaigns and highlight operational considerations for each step.