Vera, we have a fairly large Marketing team (100+) that supports a global organization (24 countries, 30,000 employees). Due to the overall complexity of Marketo and the limited seats that are included with each license, we decided that it's not feasible to train every field/country marketer to become Marketo experts - especially since they don't have the time (and skillset - for most of them) to use it regularly. We do have a handful of country marketers that use it regularly, but it's not the norm.
Therefore, we've adopted a "global demand center"/center of excellence approach. Within my "Digital Platforms and Channels" team, sits the Marketo Operations team. It's a very small, lean team of Marketo experts, assigned to specific areas of our organization: 1 for NA, 1 for Europe and 1 for APAC. I, personally, am the admin for our environment.
Each quarter, we fulfill about 200 individual requests - just for Marketo. To streamline this, we use a separate request/project management platform called Workfront (Project Management Software | Workfront ). It's a highly customized environment that supports not only Marketo requests, but also creative services, client evidence and our website. Here's an example of the types of Marketo requests the platform supports:
Each request type has a custom form to ensure all necessary elements are captured within the request. For example, here's a look at the eDM request form:
Other request forms - like those for events - are even more complex. Once the request has been assigned, the team member that's responsible for managing the request can then convert the request into a "project", where a set number of pre-defined tasks ensure that all steps to complete the request properly are highlighted (and even individual tasks can be assigned to other team members:
Once a request has been submitted, it is assigned to the appropriate Marketo Ops team member, who works directly with the person/team who made the request. We can add other team members to help support the request as well. What makes this so powerful is the fact that all project assets, communications, etc. are managed centrally (vs. via email - although, there is still email notifications when new discussions are added. Here are some additional screenshots of the environment:
Request/Project Documents:
Discussion Area:
Hope this helps!
I've also built a comprehensive PPT deck that I use to socialize our use of marketing technology within our organization (including our entire martech stack/ecosystem, along with the core platforms: Marketo, MS Dynamics CRM and Sitecore). This is necessary since many marketers (and non-marketers) view Marketo as yet another email platform.
I will add that our Marketo environment is very complex and highly customized. Don't underestimate the effort involved in setting this up properly. Initially this took us over 6 months until we were able to use it effectively to go-to-market in every country, across a variety of channels. I would highly recommend that you work with a consultant/expert if your situation is similar. Specifically for things like CRM integration, data management, lead lifecycle, revenue model, lead scoring, program/channel definition, reporting, integration with your website, etc.
One thing that I would highly recommend - in order to provide a scalable environment - is to pre-build a complete library of program templates that can easily be cloned and re-used for the appropriate marketing activity vs. setting everything up from scratch each time.
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