The sea change marketing teams have undergone in the last two years is anything but virtual. The fact that marketers are working remotely via digital media is a very real reality that necessitates new workflow methodologies.
Here are four strategies to assist your team in adapting.
Enhance visibility and consolidate
To bring employees from different locations together, virtual meetings, chat apps, automated calendars, and workflow management software became vital. In many cases, these remote work technologies improved visibility of little or nuanced activities that would otherwise go unnoticed in a regular workplace.
The next stage is to ensure that all important stakeholders have access to the workflow.
Encourage effective teamwork.
Individual team members must be able to track their work and propel the project forward at each stage of its development.
Schneider stated, "There needs to be an easy way to collaborate on asset production, including proofing and approvals." "An easy approach to control asset versions is also required, as well as the ability to track who made the change."
An audit log that team members may sign, as well as the option to revert and go back after a project change, is a very significant tool for productive collaboration.
Leadership, in collaboration with IT or a dedicated martech team, is responsible for ensuring that members have appropriate workflow access and that the user experience is seamless.
"Marketers thrive when they can handle everything in one spot rather than switching between multiple tools," Schneider added. "On the back end, this implies that the martech tools and processes are connected in such a way that the user may seamlessly transition from one tool to another."
Eliminate bottlenecks
Meetings are particularly important in the typical office atmosphere, where everyone stops working and waits for the next cue. With a genuinely remote crew scattered over different locations and timezones, this creates bottlenecks.
"Work often doesn't get done in the same location or very much never does anymore, and it usually doesn't get done at the same time," Schneider explained. "People have to wait up to 12 hours to progress on a project collaboration with their global peers."
When team members are unable to communicate about their work, the project management technology should be able to assist them. Individuals will be able to see for themselves at what level the project is at, rather than learning about it indirectly from other team members through conversations or meetings.
Monitor and improve your results.
When marketing campaigns are centralized utilizing digital tools, the team can track the project's progress more easily.
"It's critical to be able to track the results of your marketing efforts and the influence that they have," Schneider said.
The marketing team may gain a better hold on ROI and streamline the workflow with fewer steps on future projects by comparing the impact of campaigns and projects with the various tasks that go into developing them.
"It's all linked because data provides you with the information you need to effectively enhance your content and marketing channels," Schneider explained.
"Because advertising has such diverse functional teams within one department," she continued, "companies must be very careful when selecting a work collaboration tool to ensure that it has the functionality to address the needs of the entire advertising workflow and enable marketers to complete the entire process — from content creation to publishing, including optimization — all in one place."
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