Alternatives to Marketing Ops Team: Web Developers

Marketing operations is a recently coined term, and because this grouping of functions is new, there are lots of alternatives to a formal marketing operations team. Today, we’re going to talk more about developers, specifically web developers, and their role as an alternative to a marketing operations team.

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Who Are Web Developers?

Web developers are incredible resources. They come up with fantastically innovative solutions. They can make your website perform valuable functions and solve big problems. They are wonderful assets to have on the team. However, they have a role, and in that role, they have specific problems they’re really good at solving. Those problems are implementing functionality, how to make things secure, and how to connect the dots with your website.

They’re not so good at change or considering what happens beyond the web project or big-picture thinking. The point of having a marketing operations team, as we previously discussed, is to have a pit crew for your marketing race team. The pit crew is more than just a mechanic. It’s people who are thinking strategically about the whole of the car, the driver and racetrack, and what needs to happen to have the relationship between those things be optimized for the race that we’re running.

How Web Developers Help Your Business

Web developers focus on the mechanics, or the engine of what’s happening, and excel at it. When given a specific problem, they can solve it in multiple ways. Working on a project with a web developer is incredible, as you see the possibilities and solutions they can create.

However, asking them questions like, “What other systems should we consider for this campaign?” might not yield great answers. This isn’t their zone of genius, and it could frustrate the developer. With a specific role in implementation and the right information, a web developer can be a valuable part of your marketing operations team. But if you ask them to join the CMO and CEO in solving big problems, identifying necessary platforms, or strategizing future revenue targets, they may not be the right resource.

Develop an Accountability Chart

So how to know if you are using your people in the right ways? If you don’t already have one, I highly recommend having an accountability chart. This concept comes from the book Traction and is part of the Entrepreneurial Operating System. It’s similar to an organizational chart but focuses on the accountabilities of roles rather than their titles. This approach helps you identify areas of responsibility within your marketing team that fall under marketing operations. You can then align these with the appropriate resources.

I recommend getting granular with accountabilities. Instead of grouping them into specific roles, list them individually to ensure nothing is left out or assumed. Assign resources’ names to these accountabilities rather than aggregating them into roles, as sometimes they don’t fit neatly together. This method matches the right resources with the right accountabilities, making it clear where the gaps and holes are in the team.

The Payoff

The payoff of not asking web developers to do business strategy thinking is that they get to continue to use their mechanical genius in the place that it is delivering the highest value for the organization, and we’re not stressing them out by burdening them with demands beyond their zones of genius.

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In the next episode, we will discuss using the IT department for marketing operations. Look for it here.