The landscape of marketing operations consulting is ever-evolving. As businesses of all sizes adapt to new technologies, consumer behaviors, market demands, and marketing operations, the consultant you hire must stay ahead of the curve to remain relevant and deliver effective solutions.
Let's take a closer look at a few key trends shaping the future of marketing operations consulting and how these changes impact how clients are served.
1. Data-Driven Decision Making
The rise of big data and advanced analytics has revolutionized how businesses approach marketing. Marketing operations consultants increasingly leverage data to make informed decisions and develop targeted strategies.
By leveraging data derived from marketing campaigns and processes, business owners can:
- Better understand their target audience
- Identify new opportunities for growth
- Optimize their marketing efforts
- Scale their marketing strategy
In 2023 and beyond, it's no longer a best practice to track absolutely everything… It's now a critical component of every successful business. In turn, marketing analytics and reporting have become a much larger part of the duties entailed when servicing clients.
2. Artificial Intelligence and Automation
Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation play a significant role in the evolution of marketing operations. From chatbots to predictive analytics, AI-powered tools are streamlining workflows and enhancing marketing performance.
With the ever-rapid advancement of AI tools like Chat-GPT, automation of various aspects of the marketing process is becoming increasingly common. In fact, one could say that it's become necessary in today's market to automate as many processes as possible.
Process automation allows businesses to gain efficiencies and streamline their operations. A proper marketing consultant will help you do that by taking advantage of more diverse and sophisticated software solutions, allowing businesses to respond to customer requests quickly, target specific audiences more accurately, and better understand the data at hand.
Marketing operations consultants are now tasked with leveraging these technologies to help business owners streamline processes, improve marketing efficiency and maximize their returns. Resulting in AI and automation services have become an essential part of the marketing operations landscape.
3. Omni-channel Marketing Focus
As consumers interact with brands across various channels, businesses must develop cohesive marketing strategies that cater to these diverse touchpoints. While you may have gotten away with only being present on Facebook or Instagram in the past, businesses are now expected to be present on all significant socials.
These are today's most popular platforms to focus on:
- TikTok
Marketing operations consultants increasingly emphasize the importance of an omnichannel marketing approach, ensuring clients deliver a seamless and consistent experience across all platforms.
This holistic approach enables businesses to create a unified brand presence and increase customer engagement. One of the most popular strategies to accomplish this is known as content atomization.
Content Atomization
This is the process of repurposing and repackaging existing content into various formats and across multiple channels, a fast-emerging digital marketing trend. Marketing operations consultants are guiding clients on how to atomize their content effectively, maximizing its reach and increasing the return on investment (ROI) of their marketing efforts.
When having initial discussions with your marketing operations consultant, or virtual CMO, you want to ensure they have domain experience in the essential platforms.
Here is where marketing consultants come into play:
- • Experience in technology and software that supports marketing operations.
- • Knowledge of how to create an omnichannel customer journey.
- • Expertise in data analytics and reporting.
- • Proven track record of success in managing the complexity of multiple platforms
The importance of having someone else handle your marketing platforms becomes increasingly apparent as you start to adopt an omnichannel strategy on your own.
4. Personalization and Customer Experience
In an era of information overload, personalization and customer experience are crucial differentiators for businesses. Marketing operations consultants are helping clients create personalized marketing campaigns that resonate with their target audience.
On top of quality content, your customer experience heavily depends on your company's internal processes. Your operations consultant will help you review your processes to ensure they are up to speed. By using data and advanced analytics, marketing operations consultants can segment customers, tailor messaging, and deliver targeted content, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.
While automation is taking over the game in terms of optimization and efficiency – it's actually more important than ever to nurture relationships with customers through personalized interactions.
Your consultant can help you create a customer experience that is both efficient and human, giving your brand the edge it needs in today's competitive market.
5. Organic Social Media Growth & Audience Building
The days of creating filler content and spamming social media are long gone. Now, businesses must focus on creating high-quality content for organic audience growth and engagement. From long-form carousel posts to videos and podcasts, your customers want real value.
Marketing operations consultants leverage data-driven approaches to identify trends and create personalized content that resonates with their target audience.
Businesses can stay competitive and maximize their ROI by staying aware of the latest social media trends – as capitalizing on the right organic social trend can result in massive levels of reach and growth for little to no cost.
In a recent survey, 93% of companies have acquired new customers through social media videos. Just one small display of the power of video content marketing on socials.
Although the video is a popular format on Facebook and Instagram, it's nowhere near saturated. Video content only makes up approximately 15% of Facebook's content and 14% of Instagram's content.
This leaves room for businesses to create innovative content and experience massive growth – the only limits are creativity. Marketing operations consultants can help business owners craft effective video campaigns that drive organic growth and engagement.
Quick tip for video content creation:
When creating video content, it's crucial that you keep them short, sweet, and to the point. 58% of customers report watching a business's video from start to finish IF it is less than 60 seconds long.
6. Growing Importance of Privacy and Compliance
As data privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA continue to evolve, marketing operations consultants must ensure that their client's marketing practices comply with these laws.
This includes helping clients develop transparent data collection policies, implement data protection measures, and maintain customer trust while delivering personalized marketing experiences.
In many industries, simply getting your ads approved on Facebook and Google has been difficult due to the increasing regulations around what you can and can’t advertise – depending on each platform's detection system.
In addition, companies are now becoming more stringent with the data they share… Just look at the recent IOS update rattling Facebook's advertising arm.
7. The Rise of Remote Work and Virtual Collaboration
The global pandemic has accelerated the shift towards remote work and virtual collaboration.
Marketing operations consultants must adapt to this new reality by offering remote consulting services and utilizing digital tools to collaborate with clients effectively. Hence, positions like the vCMO or virtual Chief Marketing Officer rose.
With all of the digital tools at our disposal, you can benefit from having a consultant on-site from anywhere in the world. With video conferencing, screen-sharing software, and cloud-based document storage services – marketing operations consultants can help businesses meet all of their objectives remotely.
Should you hire a marketing operations consultant?
With all said and done, the future of marketing operations consulting is bright, with new technologies and trends reshaping the industry. Business owners continue to benefit from working with experienced professionals to help guide them through their business's difficulties and implement strategies that boost their bottom line.
Schedule a free consultation with us to learn about the benefits of marketing operations consulting for your business. We'd love to learn more about your business and chat.
In the meantime, learn more on how businesses are leveraging Fractional Marketing Strategies to grow.
