Data is the fuel that propels the revenue engine of every organization today. While low quality data can “gunk up” your revenue engine and leave you on the side of the road with the hood up, high-quality data can help you reach your destination faster (i.e., revenue growth through marketing efficiency). So if data is the fuel, then the lead-to-revenue process is the engine, which makes MOPS the mechanic who enables the fuel and keeps the revenue engine humming along.
As our 2021 Marketing Operations Report makes clear, marketing operations does double duty with data: MOPS enhances the quality of your data while also ensuring that an efficient infrastructure exists. Why? So high quality data flows smoothly throughout your organization in order to drive revenues, optimize customer experience, facilitate alignment (of marketing, sales, and beyond) and serve as the basis for ongoing improvement of marketing performance. This post will explain the connections between MOPS, data, and better marketing ROI.
MOPS delivers stronger processes around data
Organizations with a defined MOPS function are, by definition, going to (1) have their data management systems better set up and integrated and (2) are going to understand how to use their data and data infrastructure to drive revenue outcomes. A good data management infrastructure and a good data governance process create the systemic conditions to support higher quality, cleaner data as well as the capacity to drive better results from that data.
MOPS delivers a richer understanding of your customers, gives you visibility into the buying journey and enables you to drive better marketing based on tracking results and adapting engagement approaches. MOPS also supports stronger, data-enabled alignment among marketing, sales and the entire organization, and becomes the foundation for the credibility of marketing as a whole.
According to our 2021 Marketing Operations Report, organizations having a defined MOPS function “are over 2X more likely to strongly agree that their data management processes increase the value of data in their organization and help them achieve measurable results. MOPS not only helps organizations enhance data quality but also helps them utilize that data more effectively to drive revenues.”
MOPS is the foundation for analysis and reporting. “With a richer, data-driven understanding of your customer,” says Rebecca Le Grange, managing partner of Sojourn Solutions, “organizations can drive better marketing based on monitoring results and adapting their campaigns and engagement. With good data and analysis, marketers can understand how campaigns are impacting revenues. They can have marketing attribution and increased credibility too.”
Four data-related benefits MOPS provides
The following are 4 of the major benefits MOPS offers around data management and leveraging data to drive ROI:
1. Better data for understanding and engaging customers. MOPS enables you to integrate and update your data and systems so you gain higher quality data and full-funnel visibility into your customer/buying journey. With the capacity to access and share customer insights, you can drive more effective campaigns that better address the evolving needs of customers. These full funnel insights propel more targeted, effective campaigns and higher rates of conversion, boosting ROI.
2. Better alignment. When there’s high quality data and full funnel visibility, you enable better conversations among marketing, sales and the entire organization about strategy and tactics, improving the customer experience, driving conversion rates, and who does what and when. MOPS and the accessible, quality customer data MOPS provides is the fuel that drives ongoing funnel conversations.
3. Performance optimization. MOPS gives you a GPS so you have full visibility into where you’ve been and where you should be going next. MOPS allows you to course correct in real-time based on customer signals -- you can monitor campaign performance and customer behavior and adjust course accordingly. You can use data to build a continuous feedback loop that supports ongoing improvement.
4. Attribution and credibility. MOPS offers you the data to connect what you’re doing to revenues, and gives you the capacity to prove the value of marketing to the wider organization. Attribution doesn’t just enhance ongoing marketing performance, but also gives marketing a more credible voice when it comes to requesting more budget. Marketers can say, “if you invest $1 in marketing, here’s what you can expect as ROI.”
As our 2021 Marketing Operations Report explains, “companies with named MOPS functions are 2.5X more likely to have significant insight into attribution of how marketing actions relate to customer behavior.” That builds marketing’s credibility and reputation across the organization.
The takeaway is clear: you need high quality data coming in and also an infrastructure to effectively deploy that high quality data in order to create a revenue engine. MOPS enhances data quality, as the fuel that runs through that engine, and also maintains the engine itself. It’s easy to understand why organizations with a defined MOPS function drive significantly better results with data as compared to organizations lacking a MOPS function.
To learn even more about how MOPS improves your customer data and how you manage that data to drive improvement, download our 2021 Marketing Operations Report.
