MOps: Is you is or is you ain’t marketing?

Not long before I joined MarTech, I worked in the New York office of a well-known British publisher. There were marketers in the office, devising campaigns to promote not just our websites and print publications, but also our countless events and awards shows.

There was also this guy who was an ace at managing the email lists, determining which segments to hit with promotions and scheduling everything out. He didn’t plan the campaigns or create content; he executed them, which was crucial.

I can’t recall what his title was back then, but I just looked him up. He’s on the west coast now with a different organization and he’s director, marketing operations. That sounds about right.

One more story and you’ll see where I’m going with this. Last November, I was in Anaheim, California, for an event called MOps-Apalooza. I go to plenty of conferences for marketers, but this was for marketing operations professionals. Yes, they work with marketers, but they think differently, talk differently and — for the most part — talk about the marketing organization as if it’s a client.

The founder of the event, as well as MarketingOps.com and the MO Pros community, was Mike Rizzo (he’s doing it again later this year). The same Mike Rizzo just kicked off a debate on LinkedIn with this short post:

My thought is simply this: It depends what you mean. And not to wear my philosopher’s hat (which means that’s exactly what I’m doing) the key term in Mike’s post is neither “marketing ops” nor “marketing.” It’s that tricky little word (of earth-shattering importance) “is.” What does it mean for MOps to be — or not be — marketing.

The thread that followed (80 comments and counting) reflects confusion about this. Let me put it in a nutshell. There are many versions of this comment in the thread:

Good marketing operations professionals understand marketing and marketing strategy and make recommendation to the marketing team.

Which leads to back and forth exchanges between people who think this means that MOps is indeed part of marketing and those who think it means precisely the opposite. Because nobody has determined what “is” or “isn’t” means in this context.

For example, let’s say MOps is marketing if it fulfils at least two of these conditions:

It reports to the CMO.
It meets with the marketing organization regularly and routinely.
It makes strategic recommendations to the marketing organization rather than just following instructions.
It has team members with broader marketing experience than just operations.

That’s clear. Agree with those conditions or disagree, at least you can apply them. The outcome, of course, will be — this MOps team “is” marketing and this MOps team “isn’t.”

Because, of course, a moment’s reflection will tell you that not all MOps teams are the same, not all occupy the same organizational space and not all MOps professionals regard themselves as marketers — although some certainly do.

MarTech is marketing, we like to say here. Does that mean all marketing is reducible to technology? Of course not. It means that — today — marketing and technology are inextricably intertwined. Some people might like to say MOps is (or isn’t) marketing. Does that mean all marketing is reducible to marketing operations — or vice versa? Of course not. If you are going to vote for “is” or “isn’t,” what you need to do is not define marketing or MOps but decide what you mean by “is.”