A productive marketing team equals a productive business. A good marketing team generates leads, spearheads successful campaigns, and spreads awareness of your product.
However, a slow, inefficient unproductive marketing team does exactly the opposite. They get stuck on repetitive tasks, don’t communicate with one another and have difficulty generating creative ideas.
How can you, as a leadership figure within your company, prevent this stagnation from occurring? How can you keep your marketing team determined, happy, on-task and above all, productive? Use available resources to encourage the various elements of a productive work lifestyle.
Encourage Creativity – Office Space
A boring, stifling office space discourages the flow of creativity. Your marketing team needs to be able to come up with exciting new campaign ideas. Stimulate the generation of these ideas through an open, well-lit and well-aired office space. Invest in a good fire duct system that will ensure both safety and a cleaner environment.
Make sure your office is always getting plenty of natural light. Spruce it up with colourful artwork on the walls and abundant plants to provide that splash of nature. Establish collaboration-friendly spaces such as “couch clusters”. Encourage employees to decorate their desks with personal touches – you could even offer a “best-dressed desk” award to stimulate friendly competition.
Encourage Communication – Chat Services
Chat services such as Slack will ensure that your marketing team members will always be able to reach one another and stay up-to-date on each other’s projects. Plus, the quick, real-time nature of chat eliminates the need for slow, never-ending email chains.
Use your chosen chat service to facilitate regular updates and check-ins. This will help team members have a greater understanding of what everyone else is doing. Your team will be more willing and eager to come up with projects which utilise everyone’s talents.
Encourage Organisation – Accessible Data
Make sure that each member of your marketing team is providing regular progress updates. Data regarding completed tasks and projects should be stored in an easy-to-access format such as a shared Google Drive, Dropbox or Cloud server. Each member of the team should be able to understand exactly what the others have been up to.
How will organisation encourage productivity? Team members will have a better, more complete understanding of each task’s workflow. They will also be able to draw on past successes and failures when generating new ideas for marketing campaigns.
Encourage Efficiency – Eliminate Unnecessary Steps
The downfall of even the best marketing team is inefficiency. Ideas get lost among endless email chains. Nobody knows what anybody else is working on. Each step of a project takes ages to complete as team members are constantly waiting on one another to finish their portions.
Establish efficient solutions to stagnation problems wherever possible. As discussed above, move away from email and towards real time chat. Schedule meetings via software or apps, rather than having to constantly ask everyone about their availability. Use task organisation tools such as Trello, so that members can be aware each time someone checks an item off the team to-do list.
Encourage Collaboration – Roles and Workflow
Marketing teams will be far more likely to collaborate with one another if they understand exactly what everyone else’s role entails. For example, a graphic designer might be aware that the company employs someone to run various social media accounts, but they find themselves too nervous to suggest Instagram or Facebook-related campaigns because they don’t know which ones the business uses.
Always make sure that every team member understands the roles of the others. Making project data accessible is a step in the right direction, as is implementing real-time chat. However, you should also provide your team with plenty of opportunities to get to know one another better, such as group lunches, birthday celebrations, or scheduled, collaborative brainstorming sessions in the office.
Encourage Growth – Evaluation and Feedback
Lastly, never forget that individuals will be much more productive when they can clearly see how they themselves are benefiting and improving. Evaluate your marketing team members regularly – ideally several times per year – and provide detailed, constructive feedback. Don’t just focus on the negative; always let them know where they are succeeding. Praise is an awesome motivator!
Listen to your team members, too. Find out what their personal goals are – what they would like to get out of working for your business? In what areas would they like to improve? What do they think their strengths and weaknesses are? Keep a record of employees’ goals, and don’t forget to celebrate their progress and achievements.
A few small changes around the office can make the difference between a “stuck” marketing team and a happy, productive one which is constantly moving forwards. Plus, productivity is contagious – if the marketing team is motivated and hardworking, other teams will see this and follow right along. Soon, the whole company will be more productive than ever before!