Digital Di Consultants

Marketing Operations

Marketing vs. Marketing Operations Agencies: Uncovering the Key Differences

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Shiv Panchagiri
CEO and Co-Founder at Digital Di Consultants
Posted on August 11, 2023
marketing operations

Picture this: You’re the marketing director of a thriving B2B company with multiple business units, and your team needs additional support with day-to-day marketing operations activities, guidance with developing processes, managing data, and executing impeccable campaigns allowing marketing to drive leads over to sales at the perfect time.

You have two options:

  • Company A is a full-service marketing agency. It offers digital marketing, content marketing, sales enablement, lead generation, website design, and other services to help you improve results from your marketing and inbound sales efforts.
  • Company B is a Marketing Operations (MarTech) agency. It focuses on bringing the human element and technology together to drive the company’s business operations forward by bringing marketing, sales, customer service, and leadership team together. It focuses fully on continuous improvement by making data-driven decisions, building effective processes, and a focused approach toward the company’s bottom line – revenue.

Both sound appealing, but how do you choose which is right for your business?

It’s critical to understand the differences between these two types of agencies and how they can impact your business.

Mops Vs Marketing Agencies

The Growth of MOPs Agencies

A marketing operations agency is a marketing partner. It focuses on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing efforts through:

  • Data-driven insights – both for customizing audiences and messaging, alongside measuring campaign effectiveness
  • Streamlined processes
  • Cutting-edge technology
  • Performance optimization

The services are built around six key pillars:

  • Data: collection, management, and analysis
  • Process: effective workflows, automation, and integration
  • Technology: leveraging marketing technology for better results
  • Analytics: tracking performance and optimizing strategies
  • People: MarTech is only as good as the people behind it to make it effective.
  • Sales & Marketing Alignment: ensuring marketing efforts drive quality pipeline aligned with sales, customer service, and operations teams.

As the marketing landscape grows more intricate, the demand for specialized marketing services has significantly increased. Gartner’s research supports this claim, revealing that 49% of marketers now have a marketing operations leader in at least one team.

As we’ve laid the foundation for understanding marketing operations agencies, it’s time to explore its significance in marketing.

Why MOPs are important

Factors to Consider When Choosing a MarTech Agency

  1. Business goals and objectives
    Evaluate your short-term and long-term goals, and assess which agency type is better suited to help you achieve those targets. MOPs agency will assist you in effectively driving captured leads to sales, and which will eventually help towards a company’s common goal, revenue.
  2. Specific marketing challenges
    Identify your unique marketing pain points and determine if a specialized marketing operation or a generic marketing agency would more effectively address those issues.
  3. Available resources and budget
    Consider your financial constraints and resource availability. This way, you can ensure the chosen agency can deliver the desired results within your budget.
  4. Level of customization and personalization required
    Determine the degree of tailored solutions needed for your marketing efforts. Then, select the agency that can provide the appropriate level of customization and personalization.

Conclusion

As we’ve highlighted above, a MOPs agency ensures all the data, and processes are in place so that you can target your prospects and customers with the right message at the right time, and then report on what is working well to prove marketing-driven revenue. Marketing Operations also pushes the leads through to Sales at the right time, allowing for more targeted sales, and visibility of the prospect’s actions leading to more strategic, and informed sales calls. Marketing Operations allow the marketing team to really drive the start of the lead to cash process whether that is for net new, retention or advocacy.

If you’re ready to elevate your marketing strategy and optimize performance, consider partnering with a leading marketing operations agency like Digital Di Consultants or Sojourn Solutions. Agencies like these can help you and your company achieve their business goals. Get in touch today!

 

Author:

Shiv Panchagiri
CEO
Digital Di Consultants

Co-author:

Phil Boyden
Sales Consultant
Sojourn Solutions