Not so long ago, marketing operations teams were the unsung heroes of the marketing tribe quietly making sure their company's martech stacks were well-oiled machines that kept campaigns running smoothly and on time. But current working conditions are putting marketing technologists under a considerable amount of stress, which is causing a spike in interest for campaign orchestration tools.

Our current environment has created a silent crisis for MOPs teams, said Perkuto and Jeto CEO Alexandre Pelletier, SLAs are lagging, teams just can't keep up with the sudden shift in volume and rapid pivoting that's happening. Campaign execution is one of those very manual, mundane and time-consuming tasks, so it makes sense to automate it.

Pelletier says Jeto, a campaign orchestration platform that runs off the Marketo API, experienced a 1,000% spike in demo requests last month. The tool, according to Pelletier, is designed for non-technical users and helps decentralize campaign execution.

Getting campaigns out the door while working in crisis-mode

The uptick in interest for Jeto has made it clear to Pelletier's team just how much stress the MOPs community is under right now and the uncertainty they are dealing with when it comes to running campaigns. Pelletier says sales conversations are often with MOPs professionals whose budgets have been cut, or they're experiencing a hiring freeze and need help with campaign execution.

Since in-person events are canceled, brands are shifting focus and budgets to digital initiatives, which means more webinars, emails, virtual events, said Pelletier, It's a lot of campaigns, and marketing operations is feeling the squeeze.

And it's not just marketing teams looking to use campaign orchestration tools one Jeto customer has their HR and engineering teams using the platform to solicit feedback from employees, as well as conduct customer surveys on new product designs.

TapClicks SVP of marketing Daryl McNutt reports his team is also seeing a sharp rise in interest for the company's orders and workflows solution for campaign orchestration from both potential and existing clients.

Before, campaign orchestration capabilities were a nice to have' but now, it's a must-have as part of the broader stack, said McNutt, You have this situation where, all of a sudden, teams have moved online en masse and need access to a consolidated stack with solutions that are easy to stand up and use quickly. It's never been more important to be able to access data from all the channels involved in your marketing stack so you can optimize campaigns accordingly.

The dire need for streamlining

Putting the right campaign orchestration tool in place not only creates efficiencies when it comes to campaign execution processes a solution that doesn't require highly technical skills to run can shorten the learning curve for marketing technologists whose primary focus may not be campaign execution.

As Pelletier points out, many companies have had to reduce staff resources and there are likely managers who normally wouldn't be involved in campaign creation now suddenly taking over new responsibilities.

You might think marketing has slowed down, said Pelletier, But for MOPs, it's not the case.

McNutt confirms his campaign orchestration platform, which is one of TapClicks' own tools, is playing a bigger role in TapClicks' martech strategy. The orders and workflow solution TapClicks uses for campaign orchestration creates efficiencies and helps make the work of our marketing team easier, said McNutt.

The new normal: Affordable, efficient solutions and redefined processes

McNutt says before the COVID-19 outbreak, he'd been having conversations with major customers about the need for solution consolidation.

The pandemic shifted the urgency of these conversations and now this is at the top of the priority list. Everyone in marketing right now is looking to save money on their technology spend and create ways to be as efficient and effective as possible, said McNutt.

McNutt's anecdotal findings with so many looking to reduce costs and create efficiencies highlight the current emphasis on campaign orchestration tools. A turnkey solution that can get a campaign up and running without the need for high-level technical skills-sets could very easily become the MVP of most any martech stack.

Pelletier believes that the outcome of the pandemic will result in organizations rethinking their existing workflows and redefining processes to free-up resources so that they can be more innovative.

When the world opens up and our economy begins to recover, it's the brands that have used this time wisely that will come out ahead, said Pelletier, More than ever, gaining efficiency and empowering marketers is essential leveraging your internal talent to do what they do best.

Article originally posted by Martech Today on April 16, 2020