Why organization management is crucial for marketers

Previously, I listed six core competencies for marketers working with marketing, including: generalized system understanding, tool management, architecture vision, capability assessment and tool procurement.

This article covers the last core competency, organization management and what it means. 

Understanding organization management

Organization management in martech involves building and maintaining a team capable of supporting the current martech stack while continually evaluating how the organization should adapt over time. This competency is essential because martech organization structures vary greatly and must evolve alongside both the technology and the company using it.

For example, in a small company, martech might be managed by a single individual or a small centralized team. In contrast, larger organizations might require an entire department dedicated to martech. As businesses grow and their marketing processes become more complex, their martech organizations must scale accordingly.

Marketers don’t need to master all martech competencies at once to contribute effectively to resourcing martech teams. However, as they build their skills over time, marketers can play a pivotal role in helping companies establish and refine flexible and scalable martech structures, ensuring they grow in tandem with the business.

Dig deeper: 7 strategies for getting the most from your martech stack

Why is martech organization management important for marketers?

Martech organizations will include more than just marketers, but marketers must play a key role in:

• Deciding what the organization should look like (e.g., a single person, a pod, or an entire department) and whether it effectively supports the various marketing processes tied to the martech stack.
• Determining how the organization should evolve to better meet the company’s needs over time.
• Ensuring marketers are actively involved in the martech organization, particularly in decisions about how customer data is collected, used for activation and leveraged to create engagement.
• Assessing whether there is sufficient training on relevant martech platforms to support marketers’ day-to-day work, as well as access to deeper knowledge and best practices.

Marketers should always collaborate with the other teams and stakeholders, including IT, ops, sales and procurement, to help create and maintain this organization. 

The marketer’s role here is to represent the marketing processes and customer-facing communication activities supported by marketing technology while helping educate the other stakeholders.

Questions to help marketers get started:

• Can the organization support its current business goals through its martech stack? (Can it support customer engagement, lead management or conversion goals?)
• Is the organization ready to evolve along with the company? Can it grow or change to best accommodate changes in the technology itself or the business objectives behind the martech stack? If the business grows, can the stack grow with it?
• Is the organization staffed appropriately to support the martech stack best? Are there marketing platforms without owners or teams directly involved? 

Next steps for marketers 

Marketers should bring examples of processes and customer use cases that the martech should support when discussing the martech organization with other appropriate stakeholders and teams. 

Dig deeper: Role of a marketing technology manager: Best of the MarTechBot