If you want your business to be successful, it has to have a good marketing team – even the smallest of businesses can benefit from this, and it’s wise to invest in marketing over and above almost anything else; it’s what will get you customers and make your business a household name (when it’s done right).
However, just having a marketing team and leaving them to get on with things isn’t the best course of action, and there are actually a number of things you can do that will help you really get the most out of the team you’re relying on to do so much. With that in mind, here are some ways to get the most out of your marketing team so you can take your business to the next level with their help.
Give Them Goals
You can’t expect your marketing team to do what you want them to do and go in the direction you’ve mapped out in your business plan if you don’t tell them about it and give them some specific goals to reach. Without any direction or guidance, your team might try their best, but in the end, if they start heading in an entirely different direction than what you intended, that’s a big waste of time, money, and effort.
On top of that, if you tell them they’re doing it wrong, they’ll be disheartened and possibly not want to work hard for you in the future if they think their work isn’t appreciated (especially if you didn’t tell them precisely what you wanted in the first place).
That’s why it’s so important to set out clear objectives for your marketing team, and, ideally, work out a plan together rather than just telling them what you want. In that way, you can give your marketing team an idea of what you’re looking for and then you can discuss the best ways to do it, coming to a final decision and a good plan of action. Everyone will be happy, and you’ll get the results you want.
Make Them Comfortable
Once your team knows exactly what it is you need and want from them, the next step to get the most out of them is to make sure they’re comfortable. If you work together in an office, this could mean offering a dedicated break room with snacks and free drinks, or perhaps other perks like free gym membership or flexible working hours. You can also make sure the office is a welcoming place to be, even down to installing ASI Accurate Partitions in the bathrooms.
If your team is a remote one, you can still do all you can to make them comfortable by providing them with the equipment they need, guidance to follow, and giving them software that will allow them to easily connect to other members of the team. The more comfortable you can make your marketing team, the more productive they’ll be, so any money you need to spend to ensure this happens should be considered an investment.
Invest In Training And Development
There are actually a number of things you can invest in that will help your marketing team do their job in the best way, and another is training. Marketing changes all the time, and new ideas keep being developed, so it makes sense to give your team regular training so they can stay up to date on what they’re meant to know and how to do their jobs most effectively.
The best employees will generally read up on these changes themselves, but by giving them formal training, you can reinforce the ideas and rules and you can show them that you care about their career progression and helping them do the best job possible. This has a number of benefits, including the fact that when an employee feels that their boss is helping them, they’ll be more loyal and work harder, often going above and beyond to do their very best work.
Provide The Right Tools
Some of the tools your marketing team will need have been mentioned above, including collaboration software so they can all work together even if they’re not in the same room, but it’s possible they’ll need more than that, and it’s wise to listen to what they need and provide it if possible if you want to get the most out of them.
There are all kinds of tools that a marketing team might need, including:
- Analytics tools
- Design software
- Automation software
- Social media programs
Get regular feedback from the team about what they need (especially if you know they’re keeping up to date with the latest technology) and discuss what those programs and tools would help them do. As a business owner, you won’t be able to provide every single item they ask for (in most cases, at least), so you’ll need to determine what’s going to get the most out of them and be most useful and spend your money there.
Give Them Realistic Workloads
It’s true that marketing is one of the most important things you can do for your business, and it’s how you’re going to find new customers, tell people about your products, and generally let potential clients know you exist. With all that riding on your marketing, it could be tempting to give your marketing team as much to do as possible, sure that their skills and experience will make it all possible.
In reality, it doesn’t matter how many skills or how much experience someone might have; they’ll also only have so many hours in the day, and they’ll quickly get overloaded – perhaps even burned out – if you give them too much to do. Far from making them more productive, the opposite will happen, and they’ll possibly just stop working altogether (either through choice or because they get too sick and tired to go on).
By giving people realistic workloads, you’ll find they’re much more productive and happier, and that makes all the difference. If you’re not sure how much they can handle, talk to them about it and ask – everyone will be different, so it might be a case of speaking to everyone individually to see what they prefer.