Overview

A successful intake process has everything you need right out of the gate. As you probably know though, this isn’t always the case – unfortunately. We’ve all been there when a marketing campaign request is submitted, but it’s missing key information that blocks you from beginning campaign production. When Minimum Valuable Production (MVP) requirements are not provided upfront, it delays the build process which can subsequently impact the entire campaign timeline. Not ideal, right?

In this blog, we will break down what MVP requirements are, why your team needs them, and how they can help create a more efficient campaign production process.

What are Minimum Valuable Production Requirements?

No, we’re not discussing sports here in this blog (sorry to disappoint). In the marketing operations world, MVP may not be referring to top athletes like Lebron James or Tom Brady – but we’d argue that MVP requirements are just as important. MVP requirements are details required to begin work on a campaign request. This ensures a meaningful amount of work can be completed once a ticket is assigned and allows for the effective use of campaign operations resources.

MVP requirements will vary depending on the type of campaign, but some examples include the following:

• Campaign Name
• Completed Campaign Brief including:
  • Email Send Date & Time
  • Target Audience Criteria
  • Email Copy (finalized and approved)
  • From Name, From Address, Reply-To Address
  • Subject Line
  • Preheader Text
  • Banner Image URL
  • Headline
  • Sub Headline
  • Body Copy
  • CTA Text, CTA URL, UTM

Why should companies have MVP requirements?

Companies should have established MVP requirements that need to be provided upfront to avoid slowing down the production process. It also eliminates unnecessary back and forth with the requestor. Missing information will delay the completion of a build and may result in the requested launch date of the campaign being delayed.

For example, let’s say you receive a newsletter request on Monday with an expected SLA of 5 business days. The copy is not finalized yet and is still being reviewed by legal. The campaign operations team is now blocked from building the newsletter. Copy is not finalized until Thursday and the requestor still thinks it can get completed this week because MVP requirements were not communicated.

This is why your company needs MVP requirements as it ensures expectations are aligned and eliminates friction among team members.

When should a company enforce MVP requirements?

Intake is the first, and often the most overlooked stage in the production process. This is ideally when MVP requirements should be enforced. If you’re using an intake form, set the required fields so it is clear what information is needed to complete a request. Oftentimes, this acts as a gatekeeper for requests that may not be fully fleshed out yet.

When a request is submitted with missing requirements, it is important to communicate how this will impact the production process. For example:

Hi [Name],
Thanks for this request! It looks like we are missing [the following elements] which are required in order for our team to begin processing the request.

We noticed this request’s due date is also [Month, Day], [X] days out from the slated send date. Following the SLA for [the request type], we’ll need at least [XX days] to process the request once these missing elements are provided. While the team works to source those items, we are going to move this request’s due date up to [Month, Day] to help ensure all teams have sufficient time to complete proper testing, Q/A, and review processes.

How should a company establish MVP requirements?

An essential step in establishing MVP requirements is communication and alignment across the entire marketing team. Feedback from campaign operations members is important too as they are the ones building the campaigns. The team should highlight what information is absolutely essential to submit a campaign request and where blockers have come up previously in the production process.

Once that has been communicated, teams can leverage their PM tools to help further establish MVP requirements. A detailed intake form is more likely to capture all the requirements needed to begin production. Task statuses are also an effective way to further communicate when a request is blocked due to missing requirements.

If at any point during the production process, the campaign build specialist becomes blocked due to missing assets or information, the status of the task would be updated to ‘Blocked’ and moved to this section of the Asana project.

Who should be responsible for MVP requirements?

Project managers play a pivotal role in creating a more efficient marketing operations team. As previously mentioned, the intake form should set those requirements upfront to avoid requests being submitted with missing information. PMs can help to optimize the intake process and communicate to the overall team how requests should be handled. When issues arise or a request with missing information does slip through the cracks, it is a good opportunity for PMs to step in to reinforce the importance of MVP requirements.

Campaign managers are responsible for ensuring all requirements are included prior to submitting the request. Campaign operations team members are therefore responsible for fully reviewing a request to ensure they have all of the required elements to begin the build. This will help avoid unnecessary revisions during the process and will help to optimize build times and better meet stakeholder expectations.

Conclusion

Back to the sports analogy … how does it impact a team when they don’t have their MVPs available to play? The team would be less likely to win and probably won’t be able to play to the best of their abilities or expectations. The same can be said for MVP requirements in marketing operations. Without MVP requirements provided upfront, your campaign operations team is not able to execute to the best of their ability without the information they need to build. It is important to set your team up for success and streamline the production process by establishing clear MVP requirements out of the gate.