How can you use governance and standards to boost marketing innovation and collaboration?

1 What are governance and standards in marketing operations?

Governance and standards are the rules, processes, and best practices that guide and align your marketing operations. They cover aspects such as data quality, campaign management, content creation, reporting, and compliance. Governance and standards help you ensure consistency, efficiency, and effectiveness in your marketing activities. They also help you avoid errors, duplication, and waste.

2 Why do governance and standards matter for marketing innovation and collaboration?

Governance and standards are not meant to stifle creativity or limit options, but to foster a more innovative and collaborative environment. Benefits of having clear and relevant governance and standards in marketing operations include providing a common framework and language for the marketing team and stakeholders to communicate, enabling measurement and optimization of marketing performance, reducing friction and confusion in workflows and processes, empowering experimentation and learning from failures and successes, as well as supporting compliance with legal and ethical requirements while protecting brand reputation.

3 How to establish governance and standards for your marketing operations?

Establishing governance and standards for your marketing operations is an ongoing process that requires regular review and adaptation. To set up and maintain your governance and standards, you should define your marketing goals and objectives in line with your business strategy and customer needs. Additionally, it's important to identify your key marketing processes and activities, document your current state, develop and implement your governance and standards based on best practices, data, and feedback, communicate and train your team on the benefits of the standards, and monitor and evaluate them to make adjustments as needed.

4 How to use governance and standards to boost marketing innovation and collaboration?

Having governance and standards in place is not enough to boost marketing innovation and collaboration. Involve your marketing team and stakeholders in the creation and review of these, and provide them with the tools and resources to share their ideas, insights, and challenges. Create a culture of learning and experimentation by setting clear expectations, rewarding innovation, and celebrating failures as opportunities to grow. Leverage your governance and standards to identify and prioritize marketing initiatives and projects, allocate resources accordingly, track outcomes, report on impact, and share learnings and best practices.

5 How to overcome common challenges with governance and standards in marketing operations?

Implementing and using governance and standards in your marketing operations can be challenging, such as resistance, complexity, or change fatigue. To overcome these issues, communicate the value and purpose of your governance and standards and how they support your marketing goals. Additionally, simplify and streamline your governance and standards to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy. Be flexible and adjust your governance and standards as needed, while providing ongoing support and guidance to your marketing team. Celebrate and recognize your marketing team for their contributions and achievements to further motivate them.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?