Written By: Jasmine Williams
Remote working is not a fad that will soon fade away. Instead, it is a realistic and beneficial option that has advantages for employers and employees alike. Marketing teams are increasingly working remotely because of the ease with each their many responsibilities can be tackled from a remote work environment.
Businesses may find it more cost-effective to manage a remote marketing team, and marketers may produce higher quality work in some cases. Regardless of how large or small your current remote marketing team is, you can scale your efforts appropriately while incorporating these beneficial tips to your efforts.
Be the Leader Your Team Members Will Emulate
One of the best ways to manage a team is to lead by example. From exhibiting a positive, can-do attitude to communicating effectively and more, your team will respond to your actions.
Create Good Company Culture
You may think that creating a positive corporate environment would not be possible with a remote team, but you actually can achieve great results with the right strategy. When you make all remote workers feel included and supported, you bring them into your company’s environment. You should focus on what your company’s values are, and you should reflect those values in your daily efforts.
More than that, all employees should be treated respectfully. They should feel valued and trusted. You can also ask them periodically how they are doing so that they feel cared for and appreciated.
Communicate Effectively
A successful remote marketing team must communicate effectively with each other, and you need to encourage this with your own actions. Communications may be short and sweet throughout the day so that everyone feels connected and up-to-date. Reach out to each team member in the morning to review their plan of action for the day.
However, weekly roundups that bring the team together are also important. A primary reason for a weekly meeting is to let everyone share their efforts and results. This is also a time to set new goals and to offer constructive criticism that may pertain to the group in different ways. Singular issues should be handled privately. Remember to always deliver bad news verbally rather than via chat messages or emails.
Performance and Productivity
You understandably want your remote team to be as productive as possible. When it comes to marketing, you also need the team to perform well with all of their efforts. Planning, scheduling, and tracking performance are essential when leading a remote marketing team.
Plan and Schedule
Your team can feel lost and even left out when they do not have a plan to follow. More than that, a marketing plan helps your team to create constant content and to meet goals. Your marketing plan may include creating a regular blog post schedule or a social media marketing schedule.
When you plan and schedule marketing efforts ahead of time, your team will have plenty of time to create quality content that produces results. Remember, however, that many marketing tasks today can be automated with technology and software. For example, a CRM may be used to automate email marketing messages. The software may also be used to automate social media posts, blog posts and more. Through automation, your team will have more time to focus on creating effective, quality content.
Track Performance
In order for your team to be as productive and effective as possible, you need to track performance and make thoughtful adjustments going forward. The performance of the team and of each individual should be acknowledged in your weekly team meeting. You can also use various metrics tools or software programs to track efforts over a longer period of time. This can help you to identify trends.
Use the Right Tools
There are now more collaboration and remote team management tools available for you to use than were available previously. The right combination of tools can help your team in numerous ways, and they may also help you to improve your management efforts. However, it can be tricky to find the right combination of tools that will benefit you and your team.
Remember that the right tools for you to use will be user-friendly. Ideally, they will also be customizable so that they can conform to your specific needs. If your business is growing rapidly, it makes sense to choose scalable applications that can accommodate your various needs now and in the future. These are some of the more effective tools that may be suitable for use in your company.
- Slack is a scalable project management tool that has many benefits for collaborative marketing efforts. Its many features enable effective communication, information sharing and more.
- Trello gives your team access to message boards, idea boards, lists and more to promote open communication and active project management.
- Basecamp is a project management tool that helps your team to improve communication and that keep everyone focused on their specific tasks through a centralized organization platform.
- Sproutsocial lets you easily create, manage and track all of your social media platforms for efficiency and improved results.
- Hootsuite has the same functions as Sproutsocial, and it also includes the ability to actively monitor online conversations that may be relevant to your business.
- Google Docs is a file management solution that facilitates file sharing. All files are easily accessed from one location. There is no need to email files between team members, and there is no concern about redundant work efforts.
- DropBox is another excellent file sharing resource that works in a similar manner as Google Docs.
- Google Drive, like Google Docs, stores your documents in the cloud so that they can be shared as well as accessed from any location.
Remember that managing a remote team requires daily effort, and you may have to finetune your efforts periodically. Your persistence to improve your efforts, as well as the use of helpful technological tools, can help you to maximize the benefits of your remote marketing team.
Author Bio:
Jasmine Williams covers the good and the bad of today’s business and marketing. When she’s not being all serious and busy, she’s usually hunched over a book or dancing in the kitchen, trying hard to maintain rhythm, but delivering some fine cooking (her family says so). Tweet her @JazzyWilliams88.
Other Articles
