Can You Do Marketing-As-Usual with Remote Teams?

November 18, 2022
Although lockdowns from the pandemic are a thing of the past, it’s likely that some members of your remote marketing team still crave the comfort of working from home. If they’re some of your most productive creatives, you don’t want to lose them.
Then, if you’re a global corporation, your marketing operations usually include teams stationed all over the world. Your marketing strategy needs to work these teams into the whole equation.
Or, you might need to work with trusted freelancers or outsource some of your content production to a content marketing agency. Often, these people, too, work in home offices or their agency offices.
In all these situations, content collaboration must take place remotely. But can you do marketing as usual with your remote teams?
The answer is a resounding “Yes!” Here’s how.
Be Available to Your Remote Teams
When you use a content marketing platform that enables all your teams to ideate, collaborate, create, review, and publish in one central hub, communication with your teams halfway across the world is only a click away. Make yourself – or another person in a leadership position – available to them to answer their questions.
Give Them the Tools They Need to Succeed
Don’t kneecap your remote teams by keeping company resources from them. Give them access to all the tools and platforms they need to complete their work.
Whether that’s a documented content workflow , your brand guidelines, or the same grammar checker your in-house teams use, you’ll find that giving them access to these resources will boost their productivity. Integrate all the resources they need into your content platform, and they won’t have to shuffle back and forth from platform to platform to perform their tasks.
Having a dedicated ideation space that lives on your content platform can help drive collaboration among your creatives. Seeing what others are working on can spark others to come up with innovative ideas for their own work.
Remote workers, as Jonathan Hill points out, usually boost their productivity by anywhere from 35% to 40%. Providing them with every tool they need will likely rocket their production even beyond these numbers.
Provide Your Remote Teams with Training and Guidance
Be sure to equip remote teams with everything they need to hit the ground running. Teach them about your brand – its products, its unique voice, and its key differentiators. Give them a chance to get to know your target customers through engaging customer personas .
Assign a mentor to new employees. These mentors should be your top performers in their respective fields — whether they’re writers, designers, videographers, or SEO experts. Invest in your remote teams’ success, and they’ll be more likely to turn their potential into productivity.
Make sure that your briefs and workflows have all the details and instructions they need to complete projects successfully. Be available to them if they have questions.
Give Them Control over Their Schedules
We get it. Deadlines are critical to your success. However, so long as your teams complete their work on time, don’t expect remote teams to adhere to your office’s strict 9-to-5 schedule.
Instead, give them the flexibility to work when they are at their best. You’ll get more focus and creativity, and they’ll be happier — and be more likely to stay with your company.
Since replacing even one employee can drain your marketing budget, keeping your remote teams satisfied on the job will save you money in the long run. The costs of recruiting, hiring, and onboarding a replacement will likely cost your department more than 50% of their annual salary.