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For years now, companies have relied on marketing operations teams to do the impossible, be the impossible, and know the impossible. The reality is that it takes a village. No marketing operations team alone can affect real lasting change in an organization. Rather, it takes all departments, organizational willingness, and a solid change management strategy. Moreover, it truly takes a leader to champion the change.
What is change management strategy? What do we mean by that? Change management is a process leaders implement to manage shifts and changes within a company. And in recent years, with remote work on the rise, adapting to change is critical to a company’s success.
And here’s the thing, there is no one size fits all when it comes to change management driving marketing strategy. It really depends on what it is that you want to change, the changes you’re willing to make, and what success looks like at the end of it all. But hey, you’re not alone here. We have identified three best practices you can start implementing to manage the change you want and need to see.
3 Best Practices to Apply Change Management to Drive Marketing Strategy
Let’s explore some best practices you can adopt with chanage management to be able to drive your marketing strategy.
1. It Takes a Village
Remember, you are only as good as the people in your organization who support and help you drive your initiatives. This is why as a marketing operations professional, it is essential that you win friends and influence people as Dale Carnegie recommended years ago in finance, product marketing, operations, procurement, sales, customer success, and executive leadership at a minimum. Having allies in each of these departments that can help your cause will ease the change management pains and improve your team’s success.
It can also help to secure buy-in from your employees but that can only happen if you’re up front with why you need the change you want to implement. So, tell them what’s going on. Explain the trends, the costs, the whatever. And like we said above, involve your employees! After all, they’re likely the ones who will be implementing the changes.
2. Be a Leader
Know that true leadership comes from a clear vision and knowing the goals of the organization. Being in alignment with executive leadership is akin to attending the right church for the religion which you believe.
In order to affect change, a great leader reviews the top-level objectives and aligns them to those in their strategy, creativity, and operations goals. By creating a clear path to success, the leader is enabled to affect change that matters to all involved.
3. Understand the Push Back
When embarking on marketing operations strategies that will change business processes for other departments such as sales, remember that push back is good and necessary. This means people care. What the marketing operations leaders’ job is to help them understand why the change is necessary and what is in it for them.
MarTech Today states, “Change agents communicate compelling reasons for change, continually explore new ideas and take ownership with transparency.” This means, own it all the way through. If it fails, own it. If it succeeds, own it. If you need to train teams in different departments on the new proposed process, own it. When you get push back, help them understand, and, own it.
The Bottom Line on Delivering Change Management to Your Marketing Strategy
Being a marketing operations professional is often the role of the hot seat. Rather than take it in the shorts, be proactive and make change happen and it is very possible to have a direct impact on the rutter of the ship. The upside is huge.