When a company purchases a marketing automation platform, there are so many exciting and sexy initiatives to tackle. System governance typically falls to the bottom of the list—if it makes it onto the list at all! I say this because it is exactly what happened to me.
At my previous company, our relatively small team had big, exciting goals to advance our marketing maturity. We dove head first into the world of lead scoring, personalization, A/B testing, and nurturing. Since our team was so lean and we all talked everyday, we didn’t think about the necessity of formalizing processes or creating rules around how to play in our system. Then the number of people with access quickly grew from 3 to 25 people worldwide. Everyone was excited to get their hands dirty and start building assets and campaigns. Needless to say, we had a huge mess very quickly.
Since there were no documented rules or processes, people did what they thought made sense, or in many cases, what was fastest and easiest. There was no consistency around things like naming conventions or organization of the 100 or so assets we had in our system. Much to my dismay, I realized that I needed to start over and formalize some processes around the following elements:
- Permissions: With so many people having access to the system, I was always worried that someone would accidentally send out a campaign or delete data from our database. I needed to figure out what I wanted people to be able to do and what I didn’t want them to be able to do, and then create permissions around that. Access is not one-size-fits-all!
- Naming conventions: This became important for several reasons including consistency, identifying assets, and reporting. I learned that there were certain pieces of information that I needed in the names of assets, segments, and campaigns, and each type didn’t necessarily require the same pieces of information.
- Folder structure: A lot of users meant a lot of assets were being created, and as time passed, the assets become outdated. I needed a way to organize everything in a logical manner. I needed it to be easy to understand so that people would not only follow the organizational system, but also be able to find assets.
- Checklists and playbooks: Since I was no longer the only one creating emails and campaigns and activating them, I needed to make sure that critical steps were not being forgotten. For example, everything needed to be thoroughly tested before launch. But to me, thorough meant something different from what it meant for my busy Field Marketing Managers. I couldn’t risk tarnishing our brand reputation with a poorly created email, or worse, putting us at legal risk because someone forgot to include an email footer with our privacy information.
Having to create processes and rules around all of these elements was a big enough project to tackle, but on top of that, I also had a major cleanup effort to complete.
Creating system governance policies in the beginning is much easier than having to backtrack and implement them after the fact. Trust me—it will be harder to get your users to adhere to system governance policies after months of being able to work in the system their way. Learn from my mistake and don’t let yourself or your organization get caught in a mess! Plan ahead and add system governance to the top of your to-do list (above all those fun, shiny new projects).
And while I know the task can seem daunting, don’t worry; you are not alone. Our marketing advisors team has lots of experience with system governance policies, and they can help guide you through all the different facets.
Request the System Governance Facilitated Discussion to get personalized advice.
