Communication is key. No matter which field or sector, clear and effective communication with the marketing team is the basis on which work gets done. The global pandemic has vastly increased the number of people who’re working from home. With digital marketing companies shutting down their offices to preserve employee health and safety, remote work has become the new normal. This presents a new set of challenges for the marketers to support and manage their team while staying connected with their newly remote workforce.
Sharp and effective communication skills are always desirable and often sought after trait in marketers and only get more important further in the career, but managing a whole digital marketing team and keeping them inspired enough to work through the pandemic is different. You need to keep your head clear and balance your own workload to successfully work with individuals within your department.
As the manager of a remote team, you need to incorporate all the communication skills of an in-office manager and much more. You need to be tactical and organized while keeping your team in the loop the entire time. This takes time and a huge effort in honing communication skills that serve the best during remote work, on your part.
So whether you’re a new manager or an experienced one, managing a remote digital marketing team is a huge transition. This article is aimed to help you navigate through the challenges of managing a remote team effectively. Read further to know how.
Challenges of managing remote marketing team during Coronavirus
The global pandemic has forced the companies to adopt a work-from-home policy for an indefinite time, to ensure employees’ safety from this imminent threat. This move, though the need of the hour, has brought specific challenges with itself in these already testing times for digital marketing agencies.
- Social distancing: Social distancing has made the marketers work from home because of which mundane tasks have become complicated. The absence of social interaction can be problematic for some workers as they tend to work well in office spaces.
- Creating perfect workspace: Teams have been working together in the office were not prepared to become a remote team prior to the Coronavirus outbreak. So to style out a workspace at home with all the distractions around is quite a task.
- Logistical agony: One particular and perhaps the worst part of remote work is stress for employees and employers alike. Remote working can cause logistical issues like communication misunderstandings, delay in response time, etc.
How to improve internal communication for remote teams
Below are a few tips to help marketers in keeping things running smoothly and establish transparent communication while maintaining trust and accountability within their digital marketing agency employees.
- Run effective virtual team meetings: Team meetings are a crucial means of communication to discuss ideas, goals and chalk out a plan of action for the project your team might be working on. It also helps the team to get along and stay visible. With the entire team working remotely, it is still important that you be in constant touch of your team to carry out the same tasks just as efficiently as before.
Designate a meeting software, such as Zoom or Google Meet, keeping in mind the budget and requirements of your virtual meetings. Make sure that your entire has that program on their computers. Long and unsystematic daily meetings are overkill, so schedule a time that works for all the members of your team. Send out e-mails explaining why you’ve decided to hold the meeting and what they should do to prepare for it along with the meeting joining information.
Once you’ve launched the meeting, hold up for a little while before starting the discussion, in case any member might be running late. You can also record the meetings for any colleague or team member who might be unable to attend the meeting. This way, you can still keep them in the loop.
Towards the end of the meeting, encourage your team to put forth any issues they might be facing in regards to their project or work.
- Implement digital productivity tools: Whether you’re using Teams, Skype, or any other communication platform, letting your team know you’re available is the key part of remote communication. There are many tools available online at your disposal that you can use for effective management of your remote team. These tools allow you to request, manage, and schedule meetings with your team.
Task management systems like Asana or Trello allow you to collaborate on various projects and assign tasks to different team members virtually. You can also set a deadline for the tasks and mark them complete upon finishing.
Remote team communication can start long email threads where the entire team is replying to the same message. To avoid this, use instant messaging apps like Teams or Slack. These apps allow you to create groups and upload assets within the chat. This is an easy way to get connected with your team regarding the topics that don’t require video calls.
Read more on digital management tools in the upcoming section.
- Be mindful of employee boundaries: As a remote team manager, it is important to navigate around your teammates’ differing work hours. It isn’t easy working from home. Your teammates would expect flexibility in their work hours as there are many distractions at home. Be a little mindful of your remote employees’ work schedule and allow them the flexibility to prioritize their tasks.
A great way to deal with this is by implementing a team calendar like G Suite or Teamup calendar. These tools allow your teammates to mark their working hours and non-working hours on their schedule. As the team manager, you can discuss your teams’ preferred work hours and ensure all the team members are up to date with everyone’s work roster.
This strategy could be extremely helpful to offer 24×7 availability to your clients and keep the rest of the teammates in the loop of what they’re up to.
- Encourage virtual team bonding: Your teammates have a habit of working closely in an office. In these distorted times, that’s a luxury that they can’t afford. It is particularly difficult for newly inducted employees that haven’t had the opportunity to get to know their team. It is easy to assume that your team is bonding during team meetings and team celebrations, but video calls are the only time your teammates are able to see each other.
To build an efficient remote digital marketing team, look out for opportunities in the virtual domain that allow teammates to connect on a more human level. Enable your teammates to connect during the virtual meetings so they can stay in touch comfortably when they’re working on a project in your absence.
To build a professional relationship, it is important that your teammates spend some time together. This can help them understand how to best work together, communicate, and interact. With remote working, time naturally is limited, so encourage your teammates to bond in the regular virtual team meets.
Tools to manage remote marketing team effectively
There is a vast library of tools available online to help you manage your remote digital marketing team. Some of the best ones are mentioned below:
- G Suite: G Suite is a Google product that comprises enterprise-based products like Gmail, Drive, Docs, Sheets, etc. online software to help streamline your business so the marketers can work mobile. This tool allows your team to work as normal without missing a beat.
- Asana: Asana is a terrific task management system that allows teams to collaborate on projects and monitor the status of the task. This versatile tool lets you create a team for each client and create different projects and tasks within the projects to be assigned to different teammates. You can also save and reuse project templates.
- Zoom: Zoom is a video conferencing app that provides end-to-end conference solutions. It is great for virtual team meets as it allows more than 100 users to attend the same meeting. It also has other useful features like screen-sharing, content sharing, local recording.
- Toggl: Toggl is a time tracking app that allows team managers to observe work habits of their employees and help them with time management and task prioritization. It helps the team to be accountable about their time and productivity.
- Slack: Slack is a great communication and task management tool to help manage the workflow from a single platform by connecting multiple systems. It works well for remote work as it allows you to create team channels within the company. It is easy to collaborate and share with your teammates in real-time.
Parting thoughts
If you’ve never worked remotely, then remote working and managing a digital marketing team will take little time. You might stumble a little while crafting your perfect team management strategy, but you’ll get there. Your priority should be to help the team function efficiently and build an inclusive work culture that encourages your teammates to share thoughts, ideas, strategies while ensuring that the work gets done. These tips also work well if you’re outsourcing work to a digital marketing agency.
Considering the times that we’re living in, it seems as though we will have to keep working remotely for an unforeseeable future. Work upon this skill as it is an evergreen skill, in the sense that we do not know how long we’ll continue that way or how the work scene will be, once the normalcy is restored.
Remote communication and management are sought after skill to be able to effectively communicate with clients and executives. Managing a remote team is full of challenges. Following these simple tips will help you keep your communication simple and clear with your team.
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