Simplify work management: 5 steps for marketing teams

The pandemic has changed what work looks like, bringing a whole new set of challenges. These challenges are particularly true for marketing departments in medium-sized organisations and enterprises. 

Marketing on this scale requires a strategic, cohesive multichannel approach encompassing different territories, demographics, and preferences. For it to work well, it demands a coordinated effort across various departments, adding layers of complexity to processes. Marketers also have to balance local expertise while always incorporating the global perspective.

Compared to marketing on a smaller scale, these large departments have to make decisions based on data. They rely on tools to analyse market research, transactions, social media metrics, and customer interactions to plan and prioritise the next steps. According to our work management report, Productivity is not a place, 69% already use AI tools for decision-making, with nearly three-quarters (71%) investing in the technology.

The multitude and proliferation of tools combined with cross-functional, multi-level communication rightly throw up several significant challenges. So, let's look at some of the most common ones.

Too many tools 

First, let's tackle the tools. Organisations of this size usually have accumulated a fair few tools to manage customer relationships, score leads, launch, and analyse the impact of their campaigns, among other things. However, information can be siloed or buried within them without seamless integration, making it hard to understand customer behaviour and preferences. Hence, marketing teams face the complex task of managing elaborate workflows, improving communication, and nurturing effective collaboration. Conventional project management tools may fall short of meeting the specific demands of marketing teams in today's dynamic environment. Why? They have particular, single-use functionality, functionality that isn't all useful, their tools need to be integrated, or a combination of these challenges, which means wasted time duplicating updates in multiple places and annoying tool switching.

A typical marketers toolset may include:

• Email 
• CRM tool
• Team chat tool
• Video conferencing tool
• Content creation suite 
• Project management and tracking spreadsheets
• SEO tool
• Website analytics tool
• AI tools
• Design/video tool
• Social media tool
• Paid media tool

With specific work management tools, workflows, task tracking, automations, resource management, communication, and collaboration could all be done in one place, making space for all-important strategic thinking and creativity and reducing the sheer number of tools in use. Work management tools help bring some order to the chaos and fun of daily marketing tasks by providing a single platform to manage all work activities.

Let's remember the more tools your teams are using (or hardly using), the more money your department is spending, and the more resources required to procure, implement, and maintain those tools for your teams. 

Siloed data

And it's not just tools that can become siloed. With the number of systems on the rise—and the number of people—it can be hard to handle all the information and how it interconnects. While the marketing function doesn't need to know everything (you're more interested in customer data than sales figures, for example), it's essential to have a centralised system with clear governance around data collection, storage, and use.

Process complexity

The volume and breadth of tasks needed once an organisation reaches a specific size can make manual work arduous, such as manually segmenting audiences and simultaneously launching campaigns across touchpoints. 

Automation and AI can help here, such as with data collection and even content creation. It helps to reduce friction and eliminate wasted work. Our survey showed that 75% of marketers already find automation tools helpful to support productivity in their work environment. According to Gartner's Predictions for CMOs, by 2025, organisations that use AI across the marketing function will shift 75% of their staff's operations from production to more strategic activities. Adopting AI in marketing will be a considerable shift in the marketing approach.

But remember, problems can arise when scaling those processes if the right culture, practices, and tools are not in place.

Poor communication

As resource demand increases, management can become more complex, and communication can break down, particularly if people work across multiple locations and time zones. This demand can lead to busy, unproductive teams, duplicated work, and time spent on projects that don't align with the department's goals.

Unfortunately, less than half (48%) of the marketing teams and departments who completed our survey would rate the level of collaboration and communication in their team, department, or organisation as 'very good'.

One important area that's helping teams face these challenges head-on is marketing work management (MWM). MWM simplifies routine and ad hoc tasks to drive productivity, typically supported by a market-leading tool like monday.com or Jira Work Management. 

It helps create a structure for your marketing teams to collaborate more efficiently and bring all your tools together in one place. No more jumping between different systems to get visibility, find the necessary information and finish your work. Let's look at how work management addresses these challenges directly. 

1. Take a joined-up approach.

Fed up with too many unconnected tools? Work management solutions integrate all your apps together, so all the information and functionality you need are in one place. This consolidation reduces tool switching, too, so your people can spend more time doing their jobs. 

2. Remember: one business, one system.

And you can say goodbye to those siloes between the marketing department and other parts of the business. With work management, aligning goals and best practices and building cross-functional teams to get the work done is much easier.

3. Be driven by data.

With total visibility, you can track, monitor, and assign workloads to your teams based on real-time data. That overview also makes managing budgets, tracking progress, and reporting confidently easier—no more guesswork.

4. Power up productivity.

With the right work management solution and practices in place, you can get the most out of your resources, and your teams will have everything they need to be as efficient as possible. They can also use automated workflows to simplify processes and keep manual efforts to a minimum.

5. Close the communication gap.

When we asked marketers what factors had positively contributed to their team or department's productivity, 75% cited having clarity of goals and objectives. And 90% of them rely on collaboration tools. It's clear that visibility over the work people do—and why—significantly impacts efficiency and enthusiasm for that work, as does their ability to work together efficiently.

Work management tools help improve communication and encourage collaboration in distributed teams, keeping everyone more engaged and motivated. It helps eradicate burnout and lets you build healthier, happier teams.