Managing a Marketing team - 6 ways to save time
As marketers, our to-do lists can often feel never-ending. From creating and sending emails to collecting and analyzing marketing data from different sources, it's easy to get bogged down in day-to-day tasks and lose sight of the big picture.
According to a recent Hubspot survey, the average marketer spends almost a third of their time completing repetitive tasks, leaving little time for the creative work that really drives results.
But what if we told you that there are simple shortcuts you can use to reclaim your time and streamline your workflow?
By implementing a few key strategies and tools, you can free up your schedule and focus on the high-impact work that drives results.
In this blog post, we've compiled 6 time-saving tips to help you work smarter, not harder. Whether you're a seasoned pro or just starting out in the industry, these tips help you optimize your productivity and achieve your goals.
So if you're tired of feeling overwhelmed by your workload and ready to take control of your schedule, keep reading. From automating routine tasks to using the latest tools and technologies, we've got you covered.
Let's dive in and start working smarter!
Set clear goals and expectations (as a team)
Managing a marketing team is all about success and results. However, you can't expect your team members to perform at their best if they are unsure of what is expected of them.
That’s why setting clear goals and expectations is the first and foremost step in holding your marketing team accountable.
Imagine embarking on a road trip without a clear destination in mind. You might end up driving in circles, unsure of where you're headed or when you'll get there. It's the same for your marketing team.
Without clear goals and expectations, they may end up lost or uncertain about what they're supposed to achieve, which can lead to frustration and demotivation.
To prevent this, ensure that your team members know exactly what they're expected to achieve and when. Be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound when setting goals. This approach is known as SMART goal setting. It can help ensure that your team members have a clear understanding of what they're working towards and how they will be measured.
When setting goals, consider involving your team members in the process. Allow them to provide input and feedback on the goals, and ensure that they understand how their individual goals fit into the team's overall objectives.
This can help increase their sense of ownership and accountability, as well as promote collaboration and teamwork.
Ensure accountability by making feedback a dialogue
As a manager, you understand the importance of accountability for achieving success. Holding your marketing team members accountable for their actions is critical to ensuring they deliver results that meet or exceed your expectations.
However, holding team members accountable can be challenging, especially when they are not meeting expectations or performing their tasks incorrectly. The key is to have open and honest conversations with them about their performance, providing constructive feedback that can help them improve.
As a manager, don't forget to also keep an open mind to the feedback they have to share back with you. By making feedback a dialogue, you'll know exactly where your team members stand, if there are any things you need to work on, and in the end, have your message far better received.
Think of holding team members accountable like playing a game of tennis. Just as you need to hit the ball back and forth to keep the game going, you need to have open communication with your team members. This will help to keep them on track. If someone isn't serving the ball correctly, you need to provide guidance and support so that they can improve their technique and perform better in the game.
69% of employees say they would work harder if they felt their efforts were
better recognized.
Similarly, if a team member is not meeting expectations or is underperforming, you need to have a conversation with them to identify the root cause of the issue. This can involve setting performance improvement goals or providing additional training and resources to support their development.
When holding team members accountable, it's essential to be fair and consistent in your approach. This means applying the same standards and expectations to everyone and giving them the same opportunities to learn and improve.
Reduce creativity
Email marketing, for example, can be a huge time drain for marketers. From crafting the perfect copy to designing eye-catching graphics, it's easy to get lost in the details and lose sight of your goals.
But what if we told you that you could save time by reducing your creativity?
While it might sound counterintuitive, sometimes the simplest solution is the most effective.
Instead of starting from scratch every time you send an email, why not reuse the text from your landing page? By making small tweaks to subject lines that have proven successful with your audience, you can save yourself hours of unnecessary work and still achieve great results.
This isn't only related to email marketing too. Create post templates, topic clusters, and go-to sources of information that will make it easier to stay more focused on quality, than form.
Think of it this way: By working smarter, not harder, you can free up more time to focus on the high-impact work that really drives results.
So if you're ready to take your content production to the next level, try reducing your creativity and see what kind of time savings you can achieve. Your future self will thank you!
Consider repurposing your content
Creating high-quality content is time-consuming, and, understandably, marketers want to make the most of every piece. Luckily, there's a solution that can help you save time and get more out of your content: repurposing.
By repurposing content for social media or other channels, you can give each piece a new lease on life and extend its reach far beyond its initial publication. This means less time spent creating new content from scratch, and more time to focus on other important tasks.
The possibilities for repurposing are endless. For example, you can take a webinar you've already created and turn it into a blog post, a downloadable guide, or even a series of social media posts.
This not only saves you time but also provides your audience with valuable content in different formats, which can help boost engagement and drive more traffic to your website.
So if you're looking for a way to save time and get more out of your content, consider investing in repurposing. With a bit of creativity, you can make each piece go further and reap the benefits for months (or even years) to come.
Automate where possible
As your business grows and your online presence attracts more visitors, it can become difficult to manage leads effectively while maintaining customer satisfaction. For small businesses with limited time and resources, implementing marketing automation can be a game-changer.
Marketing managers can benefit from implementing automation in several ways, including:
- Increased efficiency
- Improved targeting and personalization
- Better lead management
- Enhanced data analysis and reporting
- Increased revenue and growth
Examples of things that can be automated are onboarding emails, product updates, and even newsletters.
Make your research collaborative
Whether you're scoping out the competition, gathering data on your target audience, or conducting keyword research, the process of researching can be time-consuming and overwhelming.
But what if we told you there was a way to make online research more efficient and collaborative?
With Collabwriting, you can easily share notes, highlight important information, and streamline your research process. Plus, the extension automatically saves your work and allows you to revisit it later, so you can pick up where you left off without missing a beat.
McKinsey & Co. reports that 97% of executives and employees blame a lack of alignment within a team as a reason for constant project failures.
So the next time you find yourself drowning in a sea of research tabs, try using Collabwriting to collaborate and conquer. With this tool at your fingertips, you can save time, stay organized, and collaborate seamlessly in real-time with your team.
Collabwriting - Shareable Notes on Web Pages and PDFs
Collabwriting allows you to gather all your online sources in one place. Just highlight, save, and collaborate with anyone on any content you find online.
Final notes
While these are just some of the ways you can save time when managing a team, the most significant thing to remember is that less is more. Whether it's the tools you use or the meetings you schedule. Always try to keep your responsibilities to a minimum so that you and your team can be productive and efficient.
Being productive is an ongoing journey, not a destination you can reach and forget about. Just like your business and goals, your time-management strategies will evolve and adapt over time. Embrace the process of productivity, and don't get discouraged if your strategies don't work perfectly right away.
Think of productivity as a mindset, a way of approaching work that helps you prioritize, focus, and get things done. It's a process of trial and error, experimentation, and learning from your successes and failures. And the most awesome part is, the more you practice productivity, the better you become at it.
Remember, it's all about progress, not perfection.