Revenue operations (RevOps) is quickly becoming a driving force for companies that want to catapult revenue. However, if you think RevOps is just about aligning your customer experience teams, you might be missing out. There’s a massive shift that’s rumbling beneath the RevOps framework, and it’s spilling into the way marketers and their agencies are operating.

Wondering where RevOps stands now and where it’s going?

In this article, I map out how marketing and technology converge to spark a new RevOps strategy—and I pin down what your marketers need to do to brace for impact.

What is RevOps traditionally?

Traditionally, leaders have viewed RevOps as a focus on maximizing revenue by connecting your marketing, sales, and customer success operations. Essentially, the goal has been to align these three departments through the processes you put in place, the culture you develop, and the platforms you use.

It’s a great start, but this traditional role of RevOps only scratches the surface when it comes to maximizing revenue in the future. With technology advancing at breakneck speed and marketing becoming increasingly complex, successful RevOps is changing—and so are the needs and expectations of your customers.

How is RevOps changing?

Make no mistake, RevOps is still about unifying your marketing, sales, and customer service teams. However, RevOps now hinges on mastering that intersection between demand generation and operations, as well as implementing the right solutions architecture across all three customer experience realms.

Why? For a few of the following reasons:

Marketing is getting more complicated.

First, marketing is more complicated than ever, and it’s positioned to become even more demanding in the near future. As Janet Hull, IPA’s marketing director, notes in an interview with The Drum, “Our collective predictions are that by 2025 at the latest, the interface between marketers and consumers will be ubiquitous, mobile, multimedia and multi-sensory, personalized, intelligent, and predictive.”

This increasingly complex marketing environment is putting more pressure on your marketers and your agencies to become versatile, more tech-savvy, and better problem-solvers at every moment of the Buyer’s Journey.

Technology is fusing together.

That vision of a fully connected marketing strategy is converging with trends in technology. Across the board, technology is becoming more connected and is blurring the line between online and offline activities. That shift is clear through more connected marketing CRMs, but it is also shining through in everything from wearables, smart homes, and other Internet of Things (IoT) technology to geofencing and similar location-aware tools.

In this evolving environment, successful RevOps morphs into something more than just creating a plan to connect your teams. The new RevOps goal depends on perfecting demand generation and operations, as well as knowing how to deliver solutions with technology.

What RevOps problems stand in your way?

Even if it’s not obvious, the ground is moving beneath your feet when it comes to revenue needs and solutions. As your business identifies your own RevOps needs, you may be discovering a wall of problems that stands between your vision and more revenue.

Here are the most immediate issues you’re likely to run into as you try to execute your RevOps strategy:

Tech stacks are overwhelming.

Chances are, your teams aren’t embracing technology for the first time. Unfortunately, as new technology becomes more connected, those legacy programs your enterprise has picked up to this point probably didn’t drive connectivity “out of the box.” A lot of business leaders are left dealing with a heap of tangled, but disconnected, systems.

Resources are scarce.

If you’re a revenue leader or marketing director, you may already have the technology to weave together a sound strategy and connect every aspect of your customer experience teams. However, you may not know how to use it. Even if you realize you need to add an integration here or tweak a feature there, you probably don’t have the time or resources to complete your vision as-is.

Most marketers are a “one-trick pony.”

In general, marketers have gotten really good at their jobs. However, that hyper-focused marketing approach is leaving enterprises and anyone serious about revenue solutions hanging out to dry. In most cases, marketers are either excellent at lead generation, or stellar operators that can handle technology architecture. Few are both. That leaves you with no choice but to work with multiple partners, risking driving a wedge between your RevOps strategy.

What does this shift mean for your marketing department?

So, how can your marketers solve the business’ problems and deliver RevOps solutions that inspire full results? Basically, they need to up their game and broaden their skills. To survive in this shifting environment, marketers need to tie together solutions architecture and lead generation (or strategy) to drive deeper connections.

Of course, it means you need a marketing platform that can handle every aspect of the Buyer’s Journey, but it also means much more if you want to keep your business ahead of the curve. Ultimately, you’ll need your marketing department to completely weave together strategy, operations, and production for customers.

At the current moment, most marketers are strategy experts. Many can map out the blueprints for a marketing cathedral that reaches leads, captures them, and uses closed-loop attribution reporting to tie it all together. Far fewer marketers know how to install the electrical wiring or plumbing for that cathedral.

In short, to meet the needs of your business in the future, your marketers will need to learn how to integrate technology, bridge gaps in your tech stack, and unify systems to reach into the entire operation—all while propelling your marketing strategies forward.

Contribute to the RevOps conversation.

It’s important to note that RevOps is still evolving, and I want to know how your organization is handling RevOps and marketing technology. You can share your vision with the world in a matter of minutes. Join the conversation by completing this quick RevOps survey now.

About the Author

Jen Spencer leads SmartBug’s sales, marketing, and client services teams. Over her career, Jen has built several demand generation and sales enablement programs from the ground up and has experience working within tech startups, publicly traded companies, mid-market organizations, and the not-for-profit space. Jen subscribes to the notion that “we’re all in this together,” and great communication leads to great partnership. She loves animals, technology, the arts, and really good Scotch. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.

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