Welcome to the art of marketing operations, a tailor podcast. Here you can
grow your knowledge about marketing operations, listen to ideas and strategies to help you
scale, grow and optimize your efficiency, drive your speed to market and enrich
your work life. Let's get to it. Welcome to the art of marketing
operations, a tailor podcast. I'm Glen Bodomly, and today my guest is
Brittany Young, marketing operations manager at mckssen, a global healthcare company in business
since one thousand eighteen thirty three, with seventy six thousand employees worldwide, offering
pharmaceutical distribution, supply chain solutions, healthcare services and medical supplies and equipment.
Thank you for joining me today, Brittany. Thank you well. Listen.
Before we get started, I always enjoy starting with a fun fact, and
one fun fact that I know about you is that you are an accomplished singer
and that you tried out for American idols several times. That is awesome.
Can you just tell us a little bit more about that? Yes, so
growing up I did singing a lot. I was in choirs and I used
to sing competitively, and when American idol came out. That became the dream
to be on the show. So I did audition at the La Auditions and
Pasadena at the Rose Bowl. My best friend went out with me at three
o'clock in the morning to sleep out all the pavement waiting for the gates to
open. I was determined. Some sing that's a me and the rest is
history. Yeah, that's that's excellent. That's wonderful. Well, thank you
for that little bit of story and history. That's that's fantastic. What let's
let's move on to marketing operations now. I know that you have said that
it is important for marketing operations executives to expand their mindset and just think bigger,
that your jobs are bigger, and it's not just the technology, it's
not just campaign. We just all got to be thinking bigger. Can you
share a little bit more about your point of view here and how did you
arrive at that? Yes, I think often times, when people think of
the very basics of marketing operations, email is one of the things that comes
to mind and while email is, I would say, one of the key
pieces that feed into a lot of what we do, it's more than just
the email. To me, when I say think bigger, I mean look
at the total customer experience from beginning to end, all of those interactions when
a person first gets to know you, whether it be through an email or
a social campaign or, you know, a phone call from sales. How
are we touching those customers and how could you use the technology to guide the
entire journey, not just the email portion? So when I say think bigger,
yeah, think about it from a prospect perspective, the onboarding perspective.
If, if that customer hasn't purchased in a while, what are those ways
we can reconnect with them beyond just email and, you know, sending out
blasts about our latest promotion? HMM. And then have you found that there
are challenges as you do that, either organizationally with your team, as you
work with the larger marketing sales organizations? Have you found that that journey to
think bigger, have there been challenges along the way, or is it be
just smooth, smooth, smooth sailing the whole time, no problems whatsoever?
I wish. But so I've definitely faced those challenges where, you know,
it is a change in mindset. It's not just being able to communicate that
but actually getting people to think differently. It's a big deal and I would
say it definitely helps to have leadership. At one company I was at,
that was one of the big changing factors for us, was the fact that
our leadership team was on board with changing that mindset and making our marketing operations
function bigger than just email. MMM MMM, yeah, and I think that
that's it's great advice that you give to our audience, which is, you
know, marketing operations isn't just email. It is that full entire journey for
your customer or consumer. That it is. It starts before they are they
even know your name, before they even have brand awareness, truly top of
funnel, all the way to building that relationship and how they have awareness,
you know, the campaign's, how you nurture that all the way to,
you know, lifetime relationship with that customer. Even to your point about the
customer. You've lost the customer and now you you're trying to bring them back.
So I love that sort of holistic view, truly sort of a disease
sort of view, the umbrella that you are establishing to make sure that you
know, you're truly looking at the customer and every step along the way.
I think that's really, really great. Yeah, now, Brittany, with
so much going on in your company right now, how do you ensure that
communication lines stay open and and help share both strategy and tactics throughout the entire
marketing operations team and the larger marketing function as a whole? Yeah, communication,
it is key to definitely, definitely when you have a big team and
a lot of moving parts. I know for me personally, having regular checkens
with the people on my team is very helpful. We I meet with each
of them at least once a week, just understanding what campaigns they're working on.
When it's bigger campaign initiatives with that involve a lot of the other teams,
I've found that having initial kickoff calls, that has been really helpful,
just to understand what is the goal, the objective of this campaign, who
all is involved, how are we tracking it? All of those things are
discussed in that kickoff call and I think a central piece to all of that
is also having some sort of project management tool. We definitely use our project
management tool for anything and everything. If anybody wants to talk to us,
they know they have to put in a request because it's the only way to
wrangle everything together and keep all of the pieces for a campaign in one place
so that no matter what team person, teammate is working on it, or
if there's multiple teams working on it, we all have one central location where
we can communicate and keep things in order. And then do you with that
project management platform that you're using? Are you sort of constantly going back and
sort of doing postmortems? You know, you run a campaign and everything is
centralized. Everybody is, you know, working from that central location you're now
executing out. Are you sort of regularly checking in, either on a daily
basis, weekly basis, even monthly basis, or do you like with a
common cadence like that, or do you do it where this is a cordly
evaluation? You know, how did everything go in the prior quarter? Talk
to us a little bit about how often you're sort of checking back in on
the communication process itself. Yeah, one thing we do is utilize surveys with
our stakeholders getting that real time feedback once either. Well, for us,
right when the project closes, that has been really helpful so that we can
keep a pulse on how we're doing. If we're communicating effectively or if there
were any issues, we can address them right away, and that's excellent.
And then the stakeholders that you're mentioning, I'm assuming are they? You're there
your marketing operations team? I'm assuming probably some in your marketing team, some
in sales, maybe revenue operations, etc. Are there others? Talk to
us a little bit about who you actually who are those steakhoorders or who do
you consider functionally as the stakeholders? Yeah, the definitely marketing managers, those
who it might also be creative folks if it was a particular project that just
involved that that team, but usually it's not necessarily, I would say,
the marketing operations folks. It's the people actually writing the content or coming with
the go to market strategy, all of those type of marketing managers. They're
the ones who we would survey to make sure that all of the communication is
clear and efficient and we're doing the best we can. Yeah, using that
as a feedback loop to then made. Essentially, what did we learn from
that? How do we now modify the next set of creative for the next
messaging? Excited? Correct. Yeah, excellent. No, Brittany, you
have said in the past that people are more willing to help if they feel
heard. So can you tell us a little bit more about that point of
view, how how you arrived at that, and then how do you sort
of foster that within your organization? Yeah, so I've experienced that, especially
being and the type of position I'man, you often rely on other people to
help you. You you can't do your job by yourself, especially folks and
teams like it, for example. And so what I've found is oftentimes when
you take the time to understand their job, their role, what's expected of
them and learn what what it's like a day in their life is like,
it makes it a lot easier when you're actually trying to communicate requests and stuff
like that. You actually learn, I think, a better approach at how
to even request things when you have that understanding. And I think it's a
matter of, I guess, mutual respect when you show that, you take
the time to show them that respect, that you don't see them as just,
you know, the it folks or some Dev folks, but actually respect
their job and what they do and you understand the pressures they're under. I've
found that a lot of times they are more receptive to help you, especially
when in a bind, if you need that favor, it's those who do
treat others with respect and and understanding their roles. They're the ones that are
more likely to help you, versus the one that's just trying to say,
Oh, do this, do that, and, you know, never taken
into account what that person's going through and what their job entails. Hmm Yeah,
essentially building relationships. Yes, a mentor of mine years ago, I've
mentioned on this podcast in the past that you know, someone taught me a
long time ago that business is just all about people. It's just all my
people, and you know, we sometimes complicate it with technology and Martech and
processes and all these different things, but at the core it comes down to
people. And you know, these organized you know organizations, logos, you
know buildings, you know, these are, you know, representations of companies
and organizations, but at the end of the day they're also just groups of
people. And so, you know, from a human perspective, humanity,
reach out, understand, build a relationship, build a friendship and and I
think to your point, it's good, counsel, to just say that you
know, you've found that when you do that good things happen. Yeah,
now, that's excellent, outstanding. Now, in the past, when you
and I chatted in the past, I know that you've come compared demand generation
to dating, which I thought that was great. It was a great analogy
to man generation is just like dating, where it's more important. Speaking of
relationships, it's more important to build relationships with prospects and customers. Then it
is just a simply sort of not, you know, yet another email campaign
with thousands of sens and measuring open rates and click through rates etc. So,
when it comes to building relationships with prospects and customers, what has been
the best way that you have found to do this? Yeah, there's there
was a previous company I worked at where I feel like we really got to
the bottom of that kit and and it took US phases like to get to
that understanding. But I would say what we saw is having that personal touch,
not just from email, but also having a sales rep call the person
personally, like it's matching, you know, the email, the name,
it's the same person calling you, and even incorporating some inhouse events. When
we combine the the three of those things and really made it personal to the
prospect based on keep things we knew, whether it be the pages they visited
or head in the past contacted us about particular product or service. We made
it super specific to them and we successfully solved that. The outcome in the
end we were actually able to convert a lot more leads versus. When we
initially started, I think we were doing a lot of the whole spray and
pray and just putting, putting whatever out there to see what sticked. And
it doesn't necessarily have to be the biggest, most complex form of personalization.
We noticed even small things like the name on the email. Instead of it
looking like it kind came from ABC company, you know, putting Hannah from
that company's something like that. Those small touches. Again to your point about
the human connection, it makes a difference and that's where I see the whole
dating aspect. It's very similar. If you're trying to get to know someone,
you want to get to know a person. You wouldn't want someone who's
very vague or who isn't sharing much about themselves to go on a date with
you and and especially if they're not showing any interest in what it is you're
interested in, especially if you've shown them what you're interested in. I think,
yeah, that's that's where the the whole personalization really plays a big part
of that. Yeah, there's a saying that I've I've used in the past.
You may have heard this, but when talking about relationships, that it
is better to be interested than to be interesting, M and and so in.
One of the things that I think is fascinating about that is is that,
you know, the one of the best ways to be interested is to
ask questions, ask questions of the other person. So to your point,
back to your dating analogy, is that if a person was being very vague,
they were only talking about themselves, they were not asking you any questions,
they had no interest in learning more about you, etc. That would
be a strange date. You know, back to do your analogy, that
be a strange experience. But but we feel sometimes, I think, that
when we're sending emails out, back to your spray and pray analogy, that
in a sense, that's what we're doing. Look how interesting we are,
look at all how interesting we are, look at us, look at us,
look how interesting. But in other words, you know, how can
we be more interested in them? And I like your your thought on instead
of having it, you know, the actual displaying name on the on the
email, for email marketing, for that tactic, have an individual's name as
opposed to that, you know, a company name or you know those,
like you say, those small little things that reinforced that, hey, we're
not just this huge, massive company, we're trying to get to know you
and we're trying to build this relationship here and have a value that we can
provide and be interested in you. So that I love that. It's good
advice. And have you found, Brittany, that where they're in this,
in this move to being more personal and to build more relationships? Did you
run into some pitfalls that may be along the way that would be valuable for
our audience to know? I there's one I was thinking of. Of course,
when you're trying to personalize things, data plays into that and having good
data is a key piece of that. I think I know where this is
going. One pitfall I do recall when we first started out on this sort
of personalization journey was things like the customer name. At the time, you
know, we thought it would be great to put first name in the beginning
of the email. So it's that you know high, so and so,
not realizing that a lot of the first name that we had in our crm
was. It was just a mess. It was really bad people. I've
one example that I vividly recall was, I think the person had passed away.
So the first name had said Lat high, deceased, you know,
so like that. So it's those are the things as you want to start,
you know, making things more personal and connecting, you do have to
also pay attention to those details. So that would be one pitfall is just
make sure your data is good. Ouch. I feel for you on that
one. That's that's that's good, good, good counsel for sure. Now
a Brittany today. In your current role, I know that you are responsible
for creating and managing monitoring and reporting on digital campaigns and and also marketing,
automation, Demand Jin, digital campaign strategy, etc. So what, in
all of that responsibility, have you found to be the biggest bottlenecks, you
know, and or friction that slows down your growth, and particularly right now,
and how are you sort of finding ways to overcome those bottlenecks? Yeah,
I would say the data silos. That's been a challenge as you work
with all these different tools and teams. There's a lot of data, but
actually wrangling all that data together and making it makes sense and being able to
report. I've seen that as a challenge at several organizations. We may have
have some data or not have access to other data we need or having the
right data. Those, I would say, those are probably the biggest challenges,
is just dealing with those silos and as well as being able to bring
it all together to make it makes sense for reporting. MMM. And in
that process, do you have you found that when you discover there's a gap
in the data that you need, do you modify campaigns? Do you like?
How do you how do you respond? You do you try to go
down the path like, well, can we get that data? How do
we get that data? Maybe the data is, you know, not as
accurate as we would want. Like how do you do or do you say,
you know, if we don't have that, we're just going to carve
that out, we're going to ignore that, we're going to go with the
data that we know. How do you sort of do that? I think
I've approached it and both well, maybe doing both at the same time,
like understanding that in order to do the campaigns and report on the things we
have today. Okay, let's let's work with what we have, but let's
also make a bigger goal and road map to get to the more complex data
sets and especially if it's a place where are missing data, I think it's
you know, it shouldn't just be oh well, we can't access that and
we never try. I believe in trying and even if this may turn into
a one to year project of trying to get there, let's make a plan
and figure out how we're going to get there. MMM, I like that,
where it's if you don't have the data, it's not that you're giving
up your acknowledging that gap and and then establishing a plan to figure out,
Hey, this, these data are important for us as we move forward.
We don't have those data right now, but we're going to get them,
we are going to establish a plan to get that those data, and and
then you work towards towards that plan. Good, good synopsis. Yeah,
so let's jump into another topic here now, Brittany, and in your career
I know that you have worked at both small and large businesses. So can
you talk a little bit about the differences in working in marketing operations between a
small in a large business, in any sort of advantages and disadvantages, because
I know that there are several in our audience who are maybe working for a
small company today, but maybe they're jumping into a marketing operations roll at a
larger company or vice versa. So what have you seem to be the the
differences and advantages and disadvantages between those? I would say one of the key
differences from small versus large is act sess, and that could be to everything.
A lot of times that a small organization you probably have access to all
the tools, all the people you need. I know at one of the
smaller companies I was at, I was close with our it folks. I
knew all the people who worked on all of our marketing projects. I would
just go down to their office and talk to say hey, you know,
I'm having this issue and that let's talk it out. How you know?
What do we need to do? And so I would say that's probably one
of the biggest differences. Is You do when you're in those smaller companies.
You know everybody, you're in all the tools, you know what's happening,
and at a larger company that may not be the same you. You likely
won't have that level of access to everything, whether it be the tools or
the people. Yeah, they advantages and disadvantages. I've I've seen, I
would say, add a smaller company. One of the disadvantages is you may
not have you may have access to everything, but you might not have all
the resources you need. I know I used to be a one woman show
at a couple of companies, doing everything from marketing, automation, social media,
Web, you know, managing our website, paid campaigns, you name
it. was just the one do it at all by myself. We might
have had an agency that helped, but at the end of the day it
was still me wearing ten hats. And at a larger organization the advantage would
be you actually have those resources it you likely won't be a one woman or
one man's show and you'll have people, whether it be different teams or different
tools, whatever it is you need, you're more likely to have that.
But the tradeoff that I experience too is getting used to the fact that you
no longer will have that access to everything. So some may find that difficult
or challenging. If you like to kind of have your hands and everything that
may be seen as a disadvantage at a large organization, because you just can't.
There's there's too many people and there's too many teams and everyone kind of
has their own job. So you have to let that part go. MMMMMM,
yeah, no, that's good description of the of the two. You
can you can tell you're speaking from experience there in both of those. So
it's great and and what I heard in your response, they're sort of hits
on people, process in technology. That that if I think about what you
were talking about there in terms of, you know, having resources, not
having resources, having established processes, not having established pussons, having lots of
technology, not having as much technology. So let's talk a little bit about
people, process and technology. Let's first start with with people. So what
is what have you found to be sort of the most important characteristic for a
successful marketing operations team member? Attention to detail. That's like top of the
list. It won't matter if you're at a large small company, you have
to be someone that pays attention to detail, because there is a lot of
details that go into what we do and it's very important that you're paying attention
because one, one little thing you miss and you know you could trigger a
million emails and you know, something like the night. So I would say
that's top of the list. And second characteristic, I would say, is
problem solving, just, you know, being kind of naturally curious about figuring
things out, because that that will be your life all the time. You're
always gonna be having to figure something out and kind of using that critical thinking,
problem solving skill set to figure it out. Yeah, excellent. So
let's shift to process then. So what are some of the processes that you've
put into place which enable your team to do their best? Well, like
I mentioned earlier, definitely a project management tool. If you don't have one,
get one, because that is going to be a key piece of your
process. It just having a central location where everyone knows to submit their requests,
where everyone on your team knows to work on projects and assigned tasks,
all of that. That's a key piece. I would say. Another part
of the process is making sure that you're updating over time, because that's one
thing. You could develop all these processes or templates, but making sure that
what worked maybe a year ago still works now. I think is important that
you take that time to go back through your templates or, you know,
whatever your if you have certain project templates in your tool under making sure that
all the tasks and things makes sense for your team, especially if you're not
the one doing the work. That's why I'm always asking my team like does
this make sense? Is there anything missing, you know, stuff I might
not see, and making sure that over time we're continuing to do that.
You can't just set it up once and then leave it that way, because
I'm sure in a year or two what you were doing it doesn't make sense
or things have changed. So it's important that you're continuing that process over time.
HMM. Yeah, and in modifying the process as the business shifts.
Yeah, excellent. And finally, let's talk about technology then. So what
criteria then, do you use to bring new technologies into your mar text AC
and maybe Converte? What criteria do you use to remove them? Yep,
I definitely look at what do we have now? That's a key piece understanding,
especially when you have a like if you won. One example I'm thinking
of is there was a particular serum that I had at this one company that
didn't play well with, I would say most of today's marketing technology, and
there was some some some things that did play well with but I don't think
maybe at the time that leadership understood the importance of making sure we're selecting tools
that fit well and play well together. Budget, of course, is a
piece of that, but I wouldn't spend so much on just, you know,
getting whatever tool is the cheapest or whatever, because that also backfires.
I've been in that where we got a tool because it was cheaper than the
other tool and six months later we realize it didn't work right with our currents,
that it gave us a munch of problems, and then there you are
starting all over again. So I think it's really important to understand the tools
you have and how they work and what plays well with them when evaluating what
else you're going to add to your stack and with removing from your stack.
Knowing I think a lot of times people don't think about that piece when signing
up for something. You know, what does it look like if we do
decide to leave this? And that was another situation I was in where,
yeah, we got a particular product, it was not a good fit,
it was a disaster, but the process to leave, and I believe that,
well, I left before they even left. From what I heard,
it took several years for them to actually switch to something else. So I
think you know when you are evaluating also understanding. Okay, if we left
today, what what will it take us to switch to something else? That's
an important piece that, yeah, you may not think about. Yeah,
it's switching cost and and even just the potential to do it. And what
does it take to unwind? You know that. So that's it's a great
point. It's a great point. So, Brittany, before we wrap up
today's episode, what is the main takeaway that you want to leave our audience
with in understanding the challenges facing marketing operations executives today? I would say,
back to what I mentioned earlier about thinking bigger. That's probably the biggest thing.
Is Not seeing the marketing operations function, as you know, just your
email team or whatever, but actually seeing them as a strategic partner to help
you do more advanced campaigns to better your customer journey. Just thinking outside of
the box and thinking about your customer as wellistically and seeing how marketing operations could
be that that partner to help you do that. Wonderful. Well, that
wraps up this episode of the art of marketing operations. Thank you so much
for joining us today, Brittany, and until next time, stay safe,
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