DemandGen for DemandGen Professionals

Almost a year ago we blogged about the lack of Marketing Automation skills, which fit into a broader category of Marketing Operations.  Since then we’ve been helping companies go through the painful but necessary transformation to become network-centric organizations that capture “data-driven revenue™.”  The main challenge is that we have not come far enough in getting people with the right skills in positions where they can make a positive impact on the top line.  Fortunately, Marketo recognizing the skills gap, has come out with its own certification program that facilitates proof of mastery of its complex platform; Without this knowledge, to really understand such a platform, you may have to rely on their extensive but non-linear online resources or go through a grueling trial by failure routine.

But someone has done that, how do you find them?  What is their value to your organization?  We recently caught wind of yet another company’s attempt to find a Marketo knowledgeable person and they presented this job description:

Marketing Operations Manager

The marketing operations manager will support the success of this Company’s sales and marketing programs by providing the information needed to make management decisions and the technology infrastructure needed to execute these programs. The marketing operations manager will work closely with sales and marketing leads to maximize the effectiveness of marketing and sales automation to drive leads through the marketing and sales processes.

This important position will report directly to the Chief Strategy & Marketing officer and will have significant exposure to executive management. Success in this role requires Salesforce.com and Marketo administration experience, excellent analytical abilities, and discipline and diligence to do things right.

Principal Responsibilities

• Document lead conversion and sales cycle processes and identify inconsistencies, gaps and areas of improvement.
• Implement lead-to-revenue process improvements in Marketo and Salesforce.com including creation of fields, workflows, assignment rules, reports and views for daily use by sales and marketing.
• Assist in training sales and marketing users and enforce correct use of Salesforce.com.
• Continuously monitor and manage data quality and information accuracy of contacts, leads and opportunities data in Marketo and Salesforce.com.
• Upload marketing lists and leads with appropriate data controls and cleansing.
• Support campaign setup and list pulls in Marketo and Salesforce.com.
• Setup email, campaign and program templates in Marketo for use by marketing team.
• Lead the integration of marketing infrastructure – Marketo, Salesforce.com, Web properties, WebEx – to support integrated marketing programs and proper lead flow.
• Setup and manage lead scoring and lead nurturing programs in Marketo.
• Provide weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly lead-to-revenue metrics to sales management, marketing management and the executive team.
• Analyze customer data, marketing data and sales data to support key decisions.
• Lead the marketing budget development process working with the Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer and marketing directors.
• Track budget on a weekly basis and support the procurement process.

Requirements

• 2+ years of Salesforce.com administration experience
• 2+ years of Marketo administration experience.
• Clear understanding of the lead-to-revenue process in an enterprise software company
• Experience integrating salesforce.com with other marketing tools such as Marketo and websites.
• Fluent in using Microsoft Excel for creating sales and marketing analysis and charts for executive management.
• Experience creating and tracking marketing plans and budgets with Microsoft Excel.
• Extremely detail oriented, meticulous and analytical.
• Strong interpersonal skills; ability to work well with sales management and other teams.
• Good PowerPoint skills.
• BA/BS in Marketing or Business preferred

Not bad, so what do YOU think?  How much should a person who can fulfill those tasks and meets the minimum requirements earn? $50K?  $60K?  $70K?    More?  How are your going to “create the demand” for people with those skills to work for you? We’d love to hear what you think.

(By the way, if this job decription describes YOU, we also want to talk to you because we have projects which require your skills…)