Most businesses today rely on digital marketing as their primary form of business development. It's how they reach new audiences. It's how they relay critical messaging to customers. And it's even how they build and maintain their brand's image and reputation.
But digital marketing is a multifaceted discipline, and that means most businesses must build marketing teams with the right expertise to do the job right. The trouble is that building an in-house marketing team can be expensive. That is — unless you choose to build an all-remote marketing team.
Doing so cuts down on much of the overhead associated with traditional marketing departments. And it allows for ready integration of freelancers whenever necessary. But to fully exploit the cost-savings of remote marketing teams, it's critical to put the right technologies in place before building one. Here's what's needed.
Marketing Collaboration Tools
Remote teams reduce overhead primarily because they eliminate facilities costs and associated expenditures. But, having team members geographically dispersed creates operational challenges for each member. For example, a marketing team member designing an ad can't simply walk down the hallway to run it by a colleague. But there are marketing collaboration tools that solve those problems for remote teams. Platforms like Slack offer marketing-specific collaboration tools, as do options like Sharelov and Acoustic. And using one lets remote marketing teams operate as seamlessly as they would in a traditional office setting.
Marketing Automation Software
The biggest challenge associated with modern multichannel digital marketing is that it requires campaigns with countless moving parts. There are ad flights, social media posts, guest blogs, and multiple other elements to manage at any given moment. To keep everything running smoothly, it's a good idea to arm your remote marketing team with marketing automation software to reduce their burden. The benefits are massive. Using Instagram automation software alone can save up to 6 hours per week of manual work — which frees up marketing staff to handle more critical tasks.
Project Management Software
For maximum efficiency, teams need a way to track tasks and maintain visibility into the progress of the team's work. And the best way to facilitate that for remote marketing teams is to give them access to project management software. There's a variety of remote-oriented solutions that can do the job, and there are even a few geared toward marketing projects and their specific management needs. By selecting and deploying the right one, an all-remote digital marketing team can focus on getting their work done with no duplicative work. And that will help them to function like a well-oiled machine at all times.
Employee Time Tracking and Monitoring Software
Not all of the technology necessary for maximizing the potential of a remote marketing team revolves around the work the team's doing. The business also needs tools to track and manage their remote teams as they work. For that, they can turn to software for employee monitoring, such as the one made by Insightful, to help guide the work of their remote teams. Some monitoring software provides basic time tracking and productivity measurement. But others go further, giving managers insight into how each employee spends their time while working. Depending on the business's needs, managers can have as much or as little visibility into their remote teams as they deem necessary.
A Recipe For Remote Marketing Team Success
For most businesses, it doesn't take long for the cost benefits of a remote marketing team to manifest. After all, bottom-line overhead costs make up a big chunk of the savings. But those savings don't mean much if the team can't perform up to expectations. The good news is that putting the technologies detailed above in place before launching a remote marketing team will help. It will facilitate the team's work, save them time, and help keep their projects on track. At the same time, it gives managers the visibility they need to steer their teams in the right direction. Together, that's a recipe for remote marketing team success that every business should explore.
