It's 2023 and robots have taken over the world. They’re in your burger joints, they’re in your images, and they’re even replacing your copywriters (beep boop).
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But we do have some cutting-edge tools that will make your marketing operations feel like a walk in the park. Remember parks? The things we used to enjoy before the robots made us addicted to writing prompts about writing prompts to ChatGPT.
But something else which is becoming even more future-focused is the world of marketing operations.
With marketing technology budgets set to grow further - 61% of agencies and marketers expect their own or client budgets to increase during 2022 - marketing operations professionals are set to be in greater demand than ever before. So, you’ll need to be prepared.
To help, we’ve got a list of the top 5 tools every marketing operations professional needs to have, or at least know, to get the best out of their day-to-day.
Looking for the down low from a download? Want to be overly-informed on Marketing Ops? Well, check out our Marketing Ops Best Practice Guide, here!
This might be operations, but it doesn’t have to be brain surgery. Let’s jump in.
Project management software
Project management software helps teams track progress, manage tasks, and collaborate on projects.
This can be helpful for marketing teams that are working on multiple projects at once, or that need to keep track of a lot of different moving parts. Project management software can help teams stay organised, avoid missed deadlines, and ensure that everyone is on the same page.
In summary:
- Helps teams track progress, manage tasks, and collaborate on projects.
- Task management: Teams can create tasks, assign them to team members, and track progress.
- Communication and collaboration: Teams can communicate with each other, share files, and discuss projects.
- Reporting: Teams can generate reports to track progress and identify areas for improvement.
- Cost: Free to $100+ per user per month
Marketing automation software
Marketing automation software aids automate tasks such as email marketing, lead nurturing, and social media promotion.
This can save marketing teams a lot of time and effort, and it can help them reach more customers more effectively. Marketing automation software can also help teams track the results of their marketing campaigns, so they can see what's working and what's not.
In summary:
- Helps automate tasks such as email marketing, lead nurturing, and social media promotion.
- Email marketing: Teams can create and send email campaigns, track open rates, and measure click-through rates.
- Lead nurturing: Teams can segment leads and send them targeted messages.
- Social media promotion: Teams can schedule social media posts, track engagement, and measure reach.
- Free to $1,000+ per month
Customer relationship management (CRM) software
Customer relationship management (CRM) software helps track customer interactions, manage leads, and close deals.
This can be good for marketing teams that want to build relationships with their customers, and that want to track the effectiveness of their marketing efforts. CRM software can help teams keep track of customer contact information, purchase history, and other important data. This information can then be used to personalise marketing messages, target specific customers with offers, and close more deals.
In summary:
- Helps track customer interactions, manage leads, and close deals.
- Contact management: Teams can keep track of customer contact information.
- Lead management: Teams can track leads and move them through the sales funnel.
- Opportunity management: Teams can track opportunities and close deals.
- Sales forecasting: Teams can forecast sales and identify potential growth areas.
- Free to $10,000+ per month
Data analytics software
Data analytics software means that teams can collect, analyse, and visualise data to gain insights into customer behaviour and marketing performance.
Marketing teams that want to make better decisions about their marketing campaigns can be given a leg up by this tool. Data analytics software can help teams track website traffic, social media engagement, and other important metrics. This data can then be used to identify trends, improve campaigns, and measure the results of marketing efforts.
In summary:
- Helps teams collect, analyse, and visualise data to gain insights into customer behaviour and marketing performance.
- Data collection: Teams can collect data from a variety of sources, such as website traffic, social media engagement, and sales data.
- Data analysis: Teams can analyse data to identify trends and patterns.
- Data visualisation: Teams can visualise data to create charts, graphs, and other reports.
- Free to $5,000+ per month
Content management systems (CMS)
A content management system (CMS) can create, manage, and publish content on websites and blogs. This can be helpful for marketing teams that want to create and publish high-quality content on a regular basis. A CMS can help teams keep track of all of their content, and it can make it easy to publish content on multiple channels.
In summary:
- Helps teams create, manage, and publish content on websites and blogs.
- Content creation: Teams can create content, such as blog posts, articles, and images.
- Content management: Teams can manage content, such as editing, deleting, and updating.
- Content publishing: Teams can publish content on websites and blogs.
- Content analytics: Teams can track the performance of content, such as views, shares, and clicks.
- Free to $100+ per month
How Do You Pick Marketing Operations Tools?
Right then. You've got the list of tools, but how do you choose? How do you pick? What's going on?
Well, here are some additional tips for choosing marketing operations tools:
- Consider the size and complexity of your organisation. If you have a small team, you may not need all of the features of a large, enterprise-level tool.
- Think about your specific marketing goals. What do you need to track? What kind of data do you need to collect? What kind of reports do you need to generate?
- Make sure the tools you choose are easy to use and can be integrated with other systems you use.
- Get feedback from your team. Ask them what features they need and what tools they've used in the past that they liked or didn't like.
By choosing the right marketing operations tools, you can help your team save time, improve efficiency, and achieve your marketing goals.
Not enough Marketing Ops for you? Want to see your marketing ability skyrocket with just one simple browse? Then check out our Marketing Ops Best Practice Guide, here!