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Contributed on September 15, 2020

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Tips and tools to create a world class remote marketing team

Blog: NASSCOM Official Blog

– By Mr. Apurv Verma, VP Operations, SRV Media Pvt. Ltd.

The current pandemic has challenged the notion that “working from office” is for efficacy of work. Many companies functioned so smoothly as if nothing happened although it was an unplanned experiment. This demonstrates the flexibility & robustness of corporate sector to adapt in a challenging situation.

While different departments have different nature of work style, achieving smooth transition to ‘remote working” for teams like marketing is not easy.
Marketing is a highly specialized domain where SMEs collaboratively work towards achieving the desired marketing goal. The team comprises of Performance marketers, market researchers, content & copy writers, designers, website developers, PR & SEO professionals etc.

A lot of team brainstorming along with analysis of market trends, client data & customer persona happens in each team is required to come up with “effective” communication & marketing strategy for a Brand. So how to effectively implement the “remote learning” in marketing team which has such diverse work culture? Well, Necessity is the mother of invention.  Therefore, with efficient strategy, planning & technology enabled execution, it’s very much possible.

The 3 major building blocks for creation of a world class remote marketing team: Process, tools & Accountability

Let’s discuss each block one by one:

• Process:
  “Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes…Process makes you more efficient”- Steve Jobs
  Creating stringent processes across teams is very important for smooth functioning, else the efforts can go haywire & can lead to waste of time, energy & money. The process document for a marketing team should ideally contain project marketing brief document specific to each team, plan containing time- dependent activities to done with milestones, KPIs, Flow of work from one department to another, Number of internal meetings to be done, KRA document for teams, training document & materials, Quality checks at different levels of hierarchy & reports submission day etc.
  Additionally, the process guidlelines should be aligned to the vision of the company as well.
• Tools:-
  Using appropriate tools & technology in marketing department can certainly reduce the unwanted efforts in redundant work, bring automation & improve collaboration with team members.
  Below are the type of tools which are very important for a marketing team while working remotely:

Video conferencing: A video conferencing tool really enables the team to seamlessly discuss concepts together, seek clarity on activities & execute the marketing campaigns faster. Zoom or Facebook workplace provides seamless experience with respect to video conferencing.

Task management tool: – Marketing output in the form of creative, emailer, leads or sales generation is the result of the consistent efforts put in a sequence by different individuals. Therefore, a task management tool is vital in implementing the process of task creation with proper checkpoints & task status. This makes life easier for the team members involved in the project & help them avoid wasting time on trivial things. Tools like Jeera, proofhub & Monday.com are widely used by marketers for task management purpose.

Visualization tool:-
A tool like Jam board by Google helps in experiencing unhindered productivity even while working remotely. It helps in using the easy-to-read handwriting, shape recognition tool, and draw with a stylus but erase with your finger. This tool is mostly used by Branding team & designers to brainstorm ideas to design creatives.

Team wise Groups: –
Separate groups can be made on WhatsApp or Google hangouts for each department so that any hindrances related to a task can be eliminated quickly.

Creating knowledge base: –
Having a knowledge base with all requisite materials related to market trends, industry reports, subject knowledge papers becomes very essential for everyone to refer. 

Collaboration tools: – 

Collaboration tools like google sheets, slides, doc etc. provide “standardization” of information – every employee anywhere on the globe can have access to the same version and state of data at any point of time.

• Accountability:

Be it remote working or working from office, it is absolutely important to create accountability matrix in all the teams. The culture of accountability creates a sense of ownership among employees to complete the task.

With proper implementation, the remote working strategy can bring amazing results for the companies. The efficiency of employees can grow manifolds since they no longer need to commute to workplace. Money saved in indirect & direct expense for maintaining the office can be used in providing benefits & appraisals for employees. Higher job satisfaction, higher retention rate, no geographical dependency for hiring, cost benefits- the benefits are endless for a remote working marketing team.

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