Your Checklist to Implementing a more Efficient Marketing Process
Efficiency is one of the marketing team’s ultimate goals.
According to Robert Half, approximately 49% of leaders run leaner teams. Secondly, 48% are adopting a more efficient marketing process. Marketers, both internal to business and agencies, are thinking about responsive customer experiences, data-driven strategies, and different messaging to reach your consumers. And today, you have to do this all more efficiently.
Improving your efficiency enables you to get products and services to markets quicker, reduce duplication and rework, and save your business money.
But becoming more efficient is easier said than done. All too often, marketers are bogged down in administration and reactive work.
Three Reasons for a Lack of Efficiency
- There is a misunderstanding between any activity the business thinks the marketer does and the work that would really drive results that match the business objectives.
This can lead to a situation where marketers take on roles that don’t really fit with their skills and ambitions, often because there is no other home for them in the business. This means that you spend too much time responding to short-term demands rather than focusing on true marketing campaigns and deliverables.
- A lack of planning or plans focusing on the wrong areas contributes to this reactive approach. Failing to create a marketing plan of activity contributes to this.
Again, the marketer isn’t always at fault here; a lack of structure can be due to a business that lacks clear direction or takes a ‘whoever shouts loudest’ approach to securing marketing’s time and budget.
- Ineffective systems and work practices. How are marketing projects managed? Is there a clear and consistent process for producing collateral? How are agencies briefed if you work with an agency or firm? How are new marketing materials reviewed and signed off? In many cases, the ways these processes are managed do not encourage efficiency.
Six Actions to Implementing a More Efficient Marketing Process
1. Create a Marketing Plan
Failing to plan leaves marketers subject to the business’s uncertainty regarding objectives and activity. Work with your business in advance of your year—whether this is a calendar or financial year—to identify business goals and priorities.
The organization’s aims should be mapped across your marketing campaigns. How will your activity support the business strategy? What have you learned from previous campaigns; what will you do more of, and what will you drop? What marketing trends are happening currently; what will you do to adapt and evolve with current and future economic conditions? Mine the results of your previous activity and current trends so you can continually refine your approach.
A key element of planning is deciding how you will measure your success. Make sure any objectives you set are realistic and within your control. It’s too easy to set goals that are unachievable or cannot be easily measured.
Of course, business priorities will change, and new, unpredicted activity will be added to the plan. However, setting a clear strategy with documented and achievable objectives will prevent too much time from being diverted to ad hoc, unexpected projects, helping to maximize your efficiency.
2. Continual Review of Your Processes
How do you execute your marketing plan and activity? Project management is key, whether it’s briefing projects to the team or your external agencies, managing the creative review process, or ensuring your approvals and sign-off are as efficient as possible.
Look at the way your marketing plan and activities are managed. Are there specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound actions? Is everyone sure of their role in this plan and process? Is it easy to see when the next steps are due and who is responsible for them? A clear process is important if you want to run an efficient marketing operation.
3. Communication Among the Team
Inefficiency is far more likely if people don’t know what their colleagues are up to. A lack of cohesive activity can lead to unnecessary duplication of effort, rework, and wasted time.
Schedule regular briefs to stay up to date on the whole team’s progress. These don’t need to be daily, and they don’t always need to be in person. Today’s work-from-home environment and technology enable teams to hear and see each other, wherever they are. Find out what works best for your team. Keep it brief, keep it focused, and make sure everyone stays up to speed.
4. Cut out the admin
Getting bogged down in admin can be a real problem for marketers. You may be shocked if you calculate how much time you waste on admin.
Tackle this by looking at where processes are inefficient – for instance, do you have numerous people making the same document edits? Or are you the jack of all trades and need support to cut out some tasks? Is there potential for duplication? Are there more efficient ways to, for example, share content on social media without needing to post on multiple platforms? If there is, take a look into Hootsuite or Sprout Social. These social media management platforms can help reduce the time you spend scheduling all your social media accounts. As a result, improved efficiency.
Do you spend too much time correcting materials produced outside the marketing team? Make your marketing assets easy to find, and you spend less time reproducing existing materials – or correcting others’ efforts when they try to do the same!
Unnecessary administrative and manual processes distract marketers from their core work. Addressing all these areas will free up your time to focus on planning and executing activities that add value to your business.
5. Focus on what works
Refining your activity means using the data at the ready. It means creating more content that drives results in terms of successful initiatives and letting go of creating content that doesn’t deliver results or ROI.
Streamline your marketing approach this way, and you will spend more time doing the things that deliver the most return. Creating marketing personas can help you identify your audience and their preferences, enabling you to focus on creating engaging content that stands out.
If you eliminate the unnecessary, you will immediately improve your marketing ROI, spending your time more effectively on activities that generate tangible results.
6. Collaborate successfully
Collaboration is a key element of the marketing process, whether between team members and departments, with people outside the business, or with external agencies.
This need for collaboration often peaks when marketing materials are being reviewed and approved. Inefficiencies here can lead to marketers being criticized for delaying project sign-off. Take a look at how your team works together and with others to see if you could improve the way this is managed.
Many marketers are saving time and money by introducing automation to their processes. The right collaboration tool can help team members to share ideas, edit documents, and streamline reviews and approvals. Automated solutions improve collaboration via well-defined workflows, with actions and responsibilities clearly outlined.
Improving marketing efficiency can seem daunting—and it can be. But there are some easy steps you can take to achieve quick results. We hope we’ve given you some actions to consider here. If you need more help creating efficiencies in your marketing process, contact us.
