You hear about the market, every market, being oversaturated every day. Not until you become a part of that market do you feel how true that statement is. Attracting, and even more importantly, retaining customers, is a never ending battle. This is precisely why marketing has become so important. Even though it has come a long way from the days of Don Draper and his crew, it is still the one thing that makes the world go round. No, it’s not money, nor is it politics. Marketing is what tells you where to put your money, and where to cast your vote.
To cut a long story short, the one tactic you want to invest in is having a top notch marketing team, which can execute stellar campaigns, and help you stay on top of this ever-changing world we do business in. This is how you do that:
The goal is the Alpha and the Omega
Before you even start assembling your dream team, you need to sit down and define the goals they will be chasing. Are you looking to expand your customer base, drive sales, improve conversion rates, and so on. If you hire a team without a goal in mind, none of you will know what to do.
Once you have a goal, you will know what type of campaign you need to develop, and this will help you make the right hires. For example, if you will be focusing more on social media, you need to hire people who are well versed in this area, not someone who has decades of experience with TV ads.
Avengers assemble
With a goal, you will be able to determine the resources you will need to reach it, the scale of the project, and start putting together the team. You need to know exactly how many people you need, and which professions or degrees they should have. Do you need designers, SEOs, copywriters, editors? Are you looking for one person to fill more than one role? You may in fact already have some of these people on board, and need to hire only a few additional reinforcements. Also, don’t be afraid to outsource some of the tasks, especially if there is not enough work for a full time employee.
Encourage collaboration
Once the team has been assembled, you need to sit down with them and discuss the project and the goals you had in mind. Keep the discussion open, and listen to the ideas they have, and how they would approach the goal. Make sure everyone is on the same page, and understands what needs to be done, and how you will set about it. Find a project management platform you are all comfortable with using, and have clear tasks set up. By ensuring the best possible communication among team members, you will be ensuring progress.
Agree on deadlines
A goal without a deadline is nothing – but make sure you don’t keep your deadlines too short, and don’t have your team working under constant pressure. Talk to them, and come up with timeframes that work for you, them, and anyone else who is waiting on the outcome of the project. Make sure to create smaller milestones, to boost a sense of accomplishment, and to be able to track how things are progressing. Set goals in numbers as well as descriptive ones, like – you will acquire an X number of new customers by a certain date, and you will also try to improve UX on Z landing page.
Behind the scenes
While your team is working merrily away on their tasks, make sure that everything behind the scenes is also working seamlessly. Make sure the coffee and cream supplies are replenished, that the office supplies are not running low, see if anyone is unhappy with their chair or computer. Hire a reliable accounting company, which can recommend the best online accounting software to help you keep track of all your cash flow and expenses. Reward your team when they excel at something, and keep motivation running high – after all, a motivated employee is much more likely to give it their best.
If you are to put together a stellar digital marketing team, you need to do a lot of planning, and be prepared to take a risk here and there. Running a successful campaign is a dynamic and exciting feat, and you need to ensure that your team can tackle any task at hand, and help you come out on top, and stay there.
