Scaling Your Marketing Ops Team: A Stage-by-Stage Guide
Scaling a marketing operations (MOPs) team is essential for supporting business growth and managing increasing complexity. However, the approach to scaling MOPs is not uniform. It depends significantly on the company's stage of marketing maturity. Insights suggest how MOPs need to evolve as an organization matures, outlining characteristics, common challenges, and recommendations for the Early, Growth, and Mature stages.
Early Stage: Building the Foundation
In the early stages, which could apply to a startup or a small business, the focus is on fundamental marketing needs. These include basic inbound/outbound marketing, maintaining a website, tracking sales activities, and using an email tool. Decisions about which tools to acquire are often influenced by budget constraints or whether someone within the company already has experience using a particular platform, as someone must be able to set it up. At this point, individuals typically perform multiple roles, handling various tasks.
Common challenges at this stage often include the lack of budget to hire a dedicated MOPs professional. Companies frequently set up their technology systems themselves, often because someone feels they “know enough.” There can also be a belief that initial setup issues can be resolved later. However, implementing systems incorrectly from the start can create a series of escalating problems.
To establish a strong foundation for future success, a recommended approach is that if hiring a full-time employee (FTE) isn't feasible, consider engaging an experienced MOPs contractor or agency partner specifically for the initial system configuration. This ensures systems are correctly implemented following established best practices by someone knowledgeable about the platforms. Such an expert could also potentially offer ongoing support until an FTE can be brought on board. Utilizing a specialist, even for seemingly simple tools, can be beneficial if there are plans to transition to more complex platforms later.
Growth Stage: Navigating Increasing Complexity
The growth stage can be particularly challenging, potentially the most difficult. At this phase, relying on a single MOPs person is often insufficient to keep initiatives progressing smoothly. Growth brings a surge in new ideas, increased demands, more initiatives, a larger collection of tools, greater complexity, and an expanding database. The business strives to maintain momentum and achieve higher results, often relying heavily on the existing MOPs individual. Indicators that an organization has reached this stage include a growing task backlog with no visible end, a business roadmap projecting growth in sales and marketing teams, and increasing complexity in business processes to support various workflows. The overwhelming nature of these growing responsibilities can lead to burnout, potentially causing the MOPs professional to seek employment elsewhere.
Primary challenges in the growth stage often stem from resourcing issues and a limited understanding of technology management. Organizations commonly place excessive demands on the current MOPs person and delay hiring additional support until the situation becomes critical. It is a misconception that technology platforms can operate effectively without ongoing attention; they require consistent management and monitoring to remain successful. When additional staff are eventually hired, they may sometimes be too junior for this stage, unable to reduce the backlog significantly. This leaves the senior MOPs person overwhelmed with their own workload while also needing to train the less experienced hire.
To prevent these issues, it is advisable to understand the workload and needs of current MOPs employees. Review business functional roadmaps and realistically assess the time and expertise needed to achieve planned goals, including the ongoing maintenance required for “keeping the lights on.” To sustain growth momentum and avoid stagnation or failure, additional hires are frequently necessary. The required level of expertise for new hires depends on the complexity of sales and marketing needs, the degree of technology customization, and the career aspirations of existing MOPs staff. If budget constraints hinder hiring the necessary FTE expertise, flexible alternatives like MOPs contractors or agency partners can offer rapid assistance and reduce pressure on the current team.
Mature Stage: Specialization and Centralization
The mature stage is characterized less by company size or age and more by organizational structure and planning. Hallmarks of this stage include clearly defined marketing and sales objectives planned quarterly and annually, a roadmap for future initiatives, and typically, the MOPs or Revenue Operations (RevOps) function having its own budget. Tool acquisition tends to be more stable at this phase.
A common pitfall in the mature stage is assuming that being “mature” automatically translates to being "scalable". Growth may have occurred in an ad hoc manner, resulting in resources spread across silos and a lack of unified ownership for technology platforms. Unmanaged growth in technology can also lead to substantial “tech debt.”
Specialization is key to building a truly scalable organization at this stage. The recommended structure often involves establishing a MOPs or RevOps Center of Excellence. This functions as an internal service provider, supporting various internal stakeholders such as sales, marketing, brand teams, and executive leadership for reporting. It is crucial for MOPs leadership to participate in leadership-level decision-making. Placing MOPs professionals under a director within a separate department can limit their career progression and increase their likelihood of leaving. Within the Center of Excellence, specialized teams might be formed focusing on areas like data, paid media, or website management, depending on the organization's specific requirements. The organizational structure should evolve in parallel with the company's increasing maturity.
Key Considerations for Scaling MOPs
Several important points should be considered when scaling a marketing operations team:
As sales and marketing organizations expand, or as the technology stack grows, the need for MOPs support increases.
Adding complexity to marketing tactics, such as implementing dynamic content or personalization, necessitates hiring additional personnel.
It is best to hire MOPs staff before the existing team members feel overwhelmed or quit. Companies should watch for signs of increasing workload and potential burnout.
To retain skilled professionals, it is essential to listen to the needs and insights of MOPs employees or agency partners; they possess expertise and understand what is required.
Respect the expertise of the MOPs team. Their role involves managing complex systems with few clear boundaries, and is not limited to simple tasks like managing email.
Structure the organization in a way that provides a clear path for career advancement.
Ensure MOPs have representation at the leadership level and are included in strategic decisions.
Regarding Staffing Ratios
Does a specific ratio exist between the number of Marketing Ops employees and Sales Ops employees, or between Marketing Ops and Demand Marketing employees? There is no single, fixed formula for this; if there were, finding it would be highly valuable.
Instead of focusing on a precise ratio, the need for MOPs support is better indicated by factors such as the volume of incoming requests, the number of tools requiring management (each tool adding support time), the time MOPs staff spend in meetings, the size of their task or ticket backlog, and how much capacity they have for proactive roadmap projects. These indicators also apply to assessing the need for Sales Ops support, which can involve diverse functions like CRM administration or sales rep onboarding, depending on the specific company structure. If managing the CRM and related tools is part of the MOPs or Ops function, support is likely needed on both the sales and marketing sides.
Conclusion
Effectively scaling your marketing operations team is crucial for achieving sustainable growth and preventing employee burnout. By understanding the distinct characteristics and challenges associated with the Early, Growth, and Mature stages of organizational maturity and implementing appropriate strategies, companies can build robust, scalable MOPs functions that genuinely support and enable business objectives.