As an executive, a key responsibility is the org structure of your marketing team and ensuring you have the right skills in the right place at the right time. Yet, as Revenue Marketing™ is a new endeavor for many marketing leaders, there may be some knowledge gaps to be filled. That’s why I authored a white paper called – The Revenue Marketing Center of Excellence. The paper presents an organizational model, with detailed role descriptions, for the company that is serious about changing marketing from a cost center to a revenue center.

Quick Synopsis

A Revenue Marketing Center of Excellence is led by a VP of Revenue Marketing, with two main groups reporting to her – a Demand Generation Center and a Marketing Operations Center. The Demand Generation Center drives programs, campaigns, creative, QA, a lead concierge service, content and best practices. The Marketing Operations center is responsible for technology, data management, process improvement, reporting/analytics and liaison services to all field marketing. The entire structure works with the field and global marketing teams to provide the optimized mixture of shared services, best practices, and ultimately, a tangible revenue result.

As we move into 2015, one thing has become very clear – technology is playing a key role in the transformation of marketing into a revenue center. Savvy heads of marketing should be working both to understand the key role of technology, and to learn how to optimize this stack of technology.

Need More Proof?

  1. A recent report from Gartner tells us that marketing automation will be the fastest growing category in CRM over the next four years and that by 2017, chief marketing officers (CMOs) will have a bigger IT budget than chief information officers (CIOs) –http://www.crmsearch.com/marketing-automation-social-marketing.php. This article should be a real wake-up call for any B2B marketing group who has delayed jumping into the marketing automation and social marketing fray. The message is clear – if you want to remain competitive, you’ll need to master these technologies.
  2. A recent article at CMO.com discussed the proposition from Forrester that companies need to hire a Marketing Technology Officer to manage all customer facing technologies – http://www.cmo.com/management/forrester-sell-idea-marketing-technology-office-cios?cmpid=NIR166. I loved this article, as it works well within the Center of Excellence framework and really emphasizes the need to effectively use technology as a game-changer for marketing.

Five Recommendations

For today’s CMO, the question is “How do you begin to understand all the technologies you’ll need in order to survive and thrive?”

  1. Start with a high level review of the various technologies that are being used in companies that look like yours.
  2. Talk to other CMOs and heads of marketing about how they are addressing the optimization of technology.
  3. Get your team involved in the understanding and assessment of various technologies. You’ll probably find them more ready than you can imagine!
  4. Talk to the CIO and figure out how to work together – he/she knows technology and you know the customer and marketing – could be a match made in heaven.
  5. Finally, try something! You can pilot technology in a specific area of your business. This will help you with lessons learned while gaining alignment and excitement on the value of the technology.

As a marketing executive, what advice would you give to other executives about how they can become more in-tune with marketing technologies that are game-changers?