Business marketing demands change frequently, requiring new methods and skills to stay on top of trends. Your team may feel a bit scattered and uncertain as technology and consumer needs shift. The things working yesterday may not work tomorrow.
HubSpot surveyed 1,067 marketers around the globe from business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) companies. It varied samples from larger and smaller firms as well as the experience level of the marketing professionals. About 34% saw influencer marketing as a top trend, with mobile-friendly website design at 33% and short-form video content at 31%.
Those doing well across all areas had strong teams working together either in person or remotely. They utilized technology and understood their target audience’s needs.
Why Is a Strong Marketing Team Important?
The right mix of skills and personalities helps drive growth to your brand. A well-trained and passionate marketing team shares your vision with others and focuses on consumer benefits.
The structure you choose for your marketing team can mean the difference between success and failure. At the same time, don’t get so tied into one method that you keep doing things that don’t produce results.
How Can You Improve Marketing?
Fortunately, any marketing team can improve its efforts and embrace new technologies as they come along. Here are some crucial factors to ensuring promotional success for your brand.
1. Keep Skilled Staff
Companies everywhere struggle to hire enough people to fill empty positions and keep them engaged for the long term. One issue with marketing teams is that you get everyone humming along to the same tune when someone leaves and you must start over with a new face.
Source: https://www.marketingcharts.com/brand-related-68200
Around 85% of millennials wish their employer would give them volunteer opportunities to complete with friends and family, and 83% feel loyal to companies that do so.
Do everything in your power to keep the employees you have. Add new programs, survey them to find out what they want and pay what each is worth.
2. Talk to Youth
Most marketing professionals tend toward being internet savvy. They’re as comfortable on Instagram as they are on Facebook. However, new platforms emerge constantly, with TikTok being the perfect example. The social media option has grown rapidly in the last few years.
One of the best ways to find new social media opportunities is talking to younger people you know. Tap into the knowledge of your little cousin, your friend’s child or your own family. Ask them what is hip at the moment — just don’t use the word “hip.”
3. Spend Time Team Building
An excellent marketing team works together like a well-oiled machine, sensing what other members need and filling the gaps quickly. How do you get to the point of everyone clicking so easily?
Believe it or not, a cohesive marketing team usually results from spending quality time together. Invest in retreats and workshops to help you understand where the other person comes from and who has the best skills in different areas.
Don’t try to do a bunch of work outside your typical wheelhouse. Your team will work much more efficiently and happily when given projects they feel comfortable working on.
There’s still room to learn new things, stretch and grow, but you don’t want anyone feeling overwhelmed.
4. Establish Key Marketing Metrics
Advertising and public relations is a $148.81 billion industry in the United States. Dig into the details for your sector and figure out how much competitors spend on marketing and where.
Your marketing team will thrive if they feel the power of success due to their campaigns. Advertising is a little like throwing some seeds into the wind and seeing what takes hold.
Your team must understand how to analyze results so successful attempts can be repeated and unsuccessful ones dropped. Make sure your brand sees a strong return on investment to motivate the entire marketing department to continue forward.
5. Keep Training
Keeping up with technology requires understanding how to use new features. The best marketing teams train regularly, taking online courses and learning new ways to use gadgets.
People didn’t commonly use augmented reality (AR) a few years ago. Today, customers are much more familiar with the idea of dropping a couch into the camera view of their living room to see how it might look and fit.
Your marketing team can push new technology, but they first have to understand how it works. For example, knowing how to link on Google can benefit your company greatly. Recent research shows ranking in the No. 1 slot brings 28.5% of traffic from the search engine results page.
6. Figure Out What’s Relevant
Don’t invest in new technology just because it’s hot for a minute. Virtual reality headsets were quite popular with the younger crowd until Google Glasses and more AR-friendly mobile devices hit the market.
Don’t just jump on a trend because it seems to be the in-thing. Think about how relevant the idea is for your marketing needs.
For example, some retail stores offer experiential events. A vacation planning service might invite clients to attend a dinner where they go through some waves and enter an under-the-sea experience.
On the other hand, if you sell commercial real estate, using technology to transport people to the beach probably isn’t helpful unless you’re selling vacation homes. Know what is worth your investment and what you can ignore.
7. Brainstorm Problems and Solutions
Don’t just leave one or more employees hanging as they try to navigate new technology and an ever-changing online world. Meet regularly to share struggles and brainstorm solutions together. Be open to creative ideas.
No one should ever feel an idea was silly or wrong. Everything has merit, even if just a springboard to another idea. Use tools such as a whiteboard and Venn diagrams or cluster notes to flesh out ideas and come up with a few to try.
8. Follow Influencers
A recent survey showed around 57% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budget. About 77% wanted to work more with micro-influencers, who have between 5,000 and 100,000 followers.
Influencers bring some expertise to the table your own team might not have. Since online personalities tend to focus on one particular niche, they may have details your employees don’t have. Working with one brings in a fresh perspective and market research you otherwise might overlook.
Influencers also know what campaigns worked best for their other clients. They can help you avoid the mistakes you’d otherwise make.
9. Consult Outsiders
Don’t be afraid to hire the guru who knows how to get the highest conversion rates in the industry. Spend the coaching fees to have a videographer come in and train your staff how to take short videos and add them to social media for ads.
You don’t have to hire a full-time employee for every task. Sometimes you can bring in contractors or pay someone to share their skills with you.
Bring in a motivational speaker to fire your team up and get them all on the same page for the upcoming big project.
10. Reward Ingenuity
Encourage your staff to come up with fresh takes on marketing. Host a weekly meeting and recognize the people going above and beyond to build the team, bring new knowledge to your company and grow your network into something powerful and lasting.
Take your team to lunch, celebrate finishing a big project and teach each other new skills.
Pay Attention to Big and Small
It’s natural to focus on the big picture for your marketing efforts. Is revenue growing? Are clients happy? However, focusing only on major wins can make some of your workers feel insignificant or let details fall through the cracks.
You also must look at the small victories and additions that make work flow more smoothly or serve to springboard you toward bigger and better things. With a growth mindset, there’s no telling where your team can go and the new things they’ll learn.