Marketing operations is the future, minimizing the need for repetitive human intervention with boosted machine learning (ML) powered platforms. It is the new age for marketing departments - including those in real estate, an otherwise traditional industry previously weighed down by outdated systems and data silos, with little means for information sharing. But while today’s agents are tech-savvy, effective marketing operations is more than just playing with the latest technologies (and there are many of them), and more of a carefully planned-out business-wide strategy that encompasses a wide field of processes and supportive digital tech.
Marketing operations is no longer a mere supportive actor in the background but is now becoming a vital organ in brokerages, able to sustain a range of strategic capabilities, elevating agent skill sets and promoting digital management of processes, all through the powerful capabilities of AI-powered marketing technologies that are becoming more intuitive every day. It is a delicate balance but once set in motion, provides a number of important and game-changing benefits for the property sector and especially the real estate agents who operate within it. Here are a few reasons why.
Marketing operations empower agents to work smarter, not harder -
For many agents, the introduction of even entry-level artificial intelligence to their marketing processes spells out new opportunities for strategic planning, campaign decision making and customer profiling. Because such a large percentage of their everyday repetitive tasks can now be automated by tech, agents are also more freed up to exercise creative thought on campaigns, leading to increased efficiency, flexibility and deeper insights. Marketing operations enable agents to position themselves as the first step in the customer journey, getting ahead of the portals and establishing why their experienced take is a unique necessity to answering customer needs.
Marketing operations creates value out of data -
The way in which marketing operations processes tap into the true value of data means agents are able to apply a 360 degree agile approach to their overall marketing plan, implement smart messaging to their brand, and create meaningful bridges between sales and marketing elements within the business. The data that can be mined from all the different sources within an agent’s lead generation arsenal (prime examples being the website and CRM) can be put to even greater use when harvested by a solid marketing automation tool that aligns with the agent’s business goals. This has countless benefits, from spotting sales signals from tentative but inquisitive visitors, automatically sending out trigger re-engagement campaigns for leads before they’re cold, or enabling omnichannel communication across several platforms.
Marketing operations help agents boost CX and engagement -
Marketing automation within the marketing operations process allows agents to reach all customers across all platforms, creating more versatile avenues to attract high-intent customers.
The adoption of next-gen platforms is important, with emphasis on personalization that allows true engagement and conversation to occur between agents and their target audiences. For example, many brokerages have seen marked success using sophisticated AI tech to better identify interested buyers and sellers online, thus leading to more qualified lead generation and nurturing programs that increase customer lifetime value. Another example is the adoption of predictive algorithm-powered platforms that allow for smart analysis of patterns in data; these insights can help agents generate highly-targeted content for existing customer personas.
Marketing operations help brokerages scale business -
Since studies show that only 44% of marketing departments actually measure the revenue they influence, leaders are keen to leverage data-powered analytics to increase insights for better campaign and ROI. The reason why marketing operations strategy is so important is that it reinforces better strategy with infrastructure, metrics and overall best practices while streamlining and automating (and making scalable) so many vital processes, from content to demand generation. It highlights why Forrester’s 2021 report on accelerating revenue growth emphasizes customer enrichment and retention, and that the ‘new role of marketing and sales (in a post-COVID world) is to help buyers progress through their buying journey - not push leads through a funnel’.
Marketing operations give a competitive edge -
Marketing operations strategy sits on a goldmine of customer data, ready to be mined and analyzed to yield key customer insights that not only empower agents to make more effective sales, but also lead executive-level leaders to make more data-backed decisions. It increases budget visibility, because the metrics reveal what is truly working and what isn’t, removing the guesswork that had to take place in times prior. The digital capabilities that keep marketing operations running allows brokerages to demonstrate their uniqueness through the power of automation and will only continue to do so, whether that means natural language processing (NLP) and ML platforms to better predict marketing spend, or improve firm competitiveness and benchmarking by taking in the very latest data on industry market research.
