A marketing system is the one platform that everyone in the organization uses for their individual contributions. Here’s what that looks like for the 3 primary levels in the marketing organizational structure:
- Creators use a marketing system to execute their tactics
- Managers assign tasks and set goals, while managing the work and the workflow
- Executives set big-picture strategies – and occasionally check in on tactics
First and foremost, a marketing system proves essential by giving each layer specific tools and features required to do their daily work. In addition to the individual benefit, having a record of work and decision-making centralized in a single platform helps maintain alignment for the organization.
Opal is Marketing’s New Source of Truth – a marketing system purpose-built for what marketers need. We’re digging into what a marketing system needs to achieve in general – and highlighting the specific features that Opal provides for each person in the organization.
Value for Every Marketer: Top-to-Bottom
In order for a marketing system to function as a source of truth, it must deliver relevant value for every individual, top-to-bottom. This means the platform must possess a wide spectrum of capabilities and features purpose-built for what these individuals require.
We’re breaking down the primary requirements of each group:
- Creators
- Managers
- Executives
In addition, we’re listing the in-platform Opal features that fulfill these challenges.
Creators
Also called individual contributors, these are the marketers who execute on the tactics – often by creating content. Involving this layer in your marketing system is crucial. Without them building their on-the-ground work in the platform, there is nothing for the managers to manage and no way for executives to have insight into how tactics connect to strategy.
To entice creators to use the platform, it must offer them ways to create better content, while making them more efficient. This is often achieved by features that enable them to create more-impactful content. In addition, the value for creators often comes from the ability to use tools to replace tedious parts of their job with more of the creative work they enjoy. To truly earn widespread adoption, a marketing planning system should be something the creators LOVE – rather than a mandate given to them by leadership.
What They Need:
- Better content creation experience & AI efficiency
- Features to cut busywork
- Seamless connections to top external platforms – through integrations
Opal Features:
- True-to-life content creation environment
- AI brainstorming, writing, editing & translation features
- Campaign templates & automatic workflows
Managers
Managers in marketing organizations often manage both a team of people – as well as the tactics that their team works on. Since this organizational persona has a dual focus of team and tactical management, they need a marketing planning system that gives them access to both of these priorities. Of course, this necessitates a platform that provides visibility into the status of the individual team members. However, managers also need to be able to see the specific work – and coordinate how those messages go to market.
Marketing managers are often asked to coordinate their teams in general project management tools. However, these general purpose tools are missing the critical visibility that enables them to understand the experiential elements of marketing work. That’s why marketing project management platforms have emerged as a growing niche.
What They Need:
- Visibility & control over GTM marketing tactics
- Seamless management of teams & tactics
- Effectively managing up to the executive layer
Opal Features:
- Views to check the status of work & who is doing the work
- Visual go-to-market calendar
- Approval features where feedback is made on true-to-life content
See how upgraded approvals empowered this Opal customer to work 50% faster.
Executives
In a marketing system, executives need both a space to do their own work as well as the ability to understand what the entire organization is doing. In marketing organizations, executives set the strategic goals that influence business outcomes. Critical work, to say the least. To empower this, executives need a space to brainstorm ideas, collaborate with others, and ultimately disseminate these plans to the managers who will make them a reality.
However, a space to plan their own strategies is only half of what the executive layer does. Executives also need to be able to easily see how marketing tactics achieves these goals. This can look like exploring the 50,000-foot overview of a campaign, or looking at the specific wording of an important piece of content. Ultimately, executives need alignment into how their strategies are coming to life. In fact, this is a top challenge of marketing leaders – as 89% say alignment is critical, yet only 1% have it.
What They Need:
- Visible connection between strategic planning and execution
- Peace-of-mind that the org is aligned on strategy
- Ability to self-serve answers to pressing questions about GTM tactics & content
Opal Features:
- Planning view that enables collaboration on strategy
- Visual calendar that shows real-time GTM tactics
- True-to-life content to see real messaging
What Happens When Marketing Comes Together?
Implementing a marketing planning system certainly delivers value to every level of the organization. However, the benefits go far beyond what each layer experiences in isolation. When coming together in a marketing system, the entire organization gets better.
That is because the entire organization is aligned around a source of truth. These are some of most-cited benefits of an aligned marketing organization:
- Content that directly contributes to crucial objectives
- Easier cross-team or cross-channel collaboration
- Go-to-market tactics and content available for everyone to see
- Fewer instances of content gaps or content collisions in the market
- Status of teams and work clear at a glance
- The brand feels like it’s telling one cohesive story across different channels
- Executives able to see how their strategies are coming to life in real-time
Discover Opal, the Purpose-Built Marketing System
Opal is the purpose-built marketing system trusted by Target, Starbucks, GM, and countless other legendary brands. From the beginning, Opal was built to solve the challenges that matter to marketers – at every level of the organization.
This focus is the key reason that Opal offers a wide variety of exclusive features – like the ability to automatically turn content into professional decks, and true-to-life content views.
The best way to learn about Opal and to discover the value it brings to the entire organization is to see it in action. Discover the platform in just 2 minutes…
If you want to dive in even deeper, request a demo to tour the platform with a product expert.