This week at RECIPE we've had two clients ask what skills their team need to deliver on a Marketing Automation sprint (or programme). While your Marketing Automation programme will, undoubtedly, reflect your company size, budget, resources, & the goals you want to accomplish, the core competencies you need in a team are the same.
Evaluate your marketing team in the context of these core competencies to identify any gaps, areas for upskilling, and highlight any opportunities before you commence your Marketing Automation programme.
CORE COMPETENCY: Architect
The architect is responsible for creating smart, compelling marketing programs that support both strategic and tactical marketing and sales initiatives.
- They're a strong leader who deeply understands your buyers’ needs across the entire lifecycle: from awareness to purchase, onboarding to retention, and growth to advocacy.
- They have experience managing campaign execution across multiple channels and understand what message should be delivered on what channel to best effect.
- They're able to effectively prioritise the delivery of Marketing Automation campaigns based on the business' needs and priorities.
- A team player that can get the best out of each team member, the Architect works closely with design, content, and product teams to drive the highest possible impact and results.
- Your program manager will be creative, flexible, dedicated, and able to meet aggressive deadlines. He or she should understand marketing strategy and the use of analytics to measure and optimise performance.
CORE COMPETENCY: Nurturer
Nurtured leads can produce a +20% increase in sales opportunities (compared to non-nurtured leads).
- The Nurturer is a communicator and content creator able to map the right content to the right place in the buying cycle. They're the empathetic listener who says the right thing, at the right time, in the right way.
- The content the Nurturer generates will sit across blogs, emails, web pages and other key assets so they need experience writing across multiple mediums.
- The Nurturer clearly understands buyer personas, and can adjust their language so it mirrors that of your target persona.
CORE COMPETENCY: Builder
The builder is able to deliver on the vision of the architect, using the Nurturers words and the bricks and mortar of growth-driven design.
- The builder is supremely comfortable with the hardware of Marketing Automation and its application across Marketing Automation software, social media, Google properties and the web. They can build workflows, landing pages and emails, as well as A/B Tests. They're also able to build digital ads across channels.
- The ultimate problem-solver, they have a can-do attitude and take huge pleasure in finding new ways to do things.
- Ever curious, the Builder actively questions how each design element may impact the outcome of the campaign, and actively seeks out opportunities to test, improve and iterate.
- They have a healthy paranoia: they test, test, test before launch to make sure every asset looks fantastic.
CORE COMPETENCY: Analyst
The Analyst makes Marketing Automation meaningful and keeps the outcomes at the heart of review and further development.
- The Analyst is able to connect the dots: they can translate activity into relevant, meaningful outcomes and show ROI.
- The Analyst reviews data sets, tests hypotheses and drives optimisation through the use of A/B testing.
- This person should have a love of data and numbers.
While small teams can drive outstanding outcomes in Marketing Automation, your Marketing Automation team should be thought of as an investment as much as the software itself. If a core competency is missing, you can outsource what you need to an consultant or an agency: particularly if you want to drive outcomes quickly.