As the trend shows, the future of employment will be either remote or hybrid. According to LinkedIn’s work trend analysis, in-demand employment will be done remotely in the future. Earlier this year, LinkedIn also revealed that the percentage of paid job postings on LinkedIn offering “remote work” skyrocketed 357% beyond last year’s share. So, we see that companies are also not far behind and understand the remote work culture well.
Modern-day customers are scattered across locations, countries, and even continents. They love the option of ordering their favorite products and getting them delivered to their doorsteps right from the comfort of their homes.
Drawing an analogy, the modern workforce is not limited to corporate offices. They are independent, love their flexibility, and are always on the lookout for opportunities to work on meaningful projects right from the comfort of their homes.
It is true that every company, regardless of its size, needs to reach out to customers far and wide to increase engagement and boost its brand presence. And for that, they need a power-packed digital marketing team to thrive in this competition-heavy marketplace. However, the interesting part is that organizations are now able to engage with digital marketing talent from across the globe while reducing their overheads and inefficiencies.
Is it possible? Yes. Can a company build a remote digital marketing team? Of course.
Building an effective digital marketing team
Companies know that digital marketing is a great way to reach out to potential and existing customers fast. However, it is a daunting task to determine how to build a digital marketing team, which function or job roles to hire for, and budget constraints.
It’s no surprise that companies have started to hire remote talent to fulfill their work requirements. If you are looking for the know-how to bring together a well-rounded team of digital marketers, a remote team might be useful in several ways.
To begin with, they are employed based on talent and skills. Their location is no more a factor than it used to be earlier, which means you might locate great talent in a completely different city or country. This gives you access to a wider gamut of talent, trendsetting solutions, ideas, and expertise from different corners of the world, which might work for your business.
Secondly, hiring remote talent involves ‘BYOD,’ saving on IT hardware and other peripheral costs. This reduces the overall liability and cost of talent acquisition and other overheads to the company.
Thirdly, remote teams are usually agile and, with collaboration tools, may require fewer meetings for a specific task and get more time to focus on that. Moreover, team cohesion gets stronger with some of the most exciting collaboration tools, resulting in greater achievements.
Here’s how you can put together an effective digital marketing team:
Hire the right talent – It is critical to ensure what your requirements are and if they are aligned to your business goals. Once that is determined, you would need to make some hires. A typical digital marketing team consists of a digital marketing manager, social media expert, SEO expert, content strategist, creative or graphic designer, and a PPC marketer. While this varies from brand to brand, these talents have different skills relevant for different outreaches for your digital marketing requirements. For instance, if you want to sell on social media platforms, a social media marketer, graphic designer, and influencer marketer would be your ideal choice. Similarly, if you’re going to enhance your brand’s presence online, then a digital marketing manager, SEO strategist, content creator, and PPC marketer would be helpful. Finally, you must hire the right talent for building your remote marketing team.
Ensure the right team size – It is essential to evaluate the size of the digital marketing team that you are planning to build. If you are a startup or an SMB, an ideal digital marketing team size would typically be two to three, comprising specialized talents. These will be a set of broader roles, including a digital marketing specialist, a social media manager, and a creative talent.
If you are a mid-sized company, having a team of three to ten should be sufficient to carry out the requisite work. Here the roles will be more specialized and dedicated towards each set of roles that define digital marketing functions. For instance, a team comprising growth marketer, digital marketer, social media manager, content marketer, SEO specialist, analytics lead, graphic designer, and video producer may form a digital marketing team at an SMB.
Similarly, for a large company, a digital marketing team should be holistic and comprise more than ten remote workers, given the magnitude and complexity of the work at hand. They also have a different digital marketing team for different functions. For instance, a conglomerate with F&B, beauty and personal care, home care, and other product lines is likely to have a dedicated digital marketing team for each product category.
Invest in the right tools – In a remote working setup. Collaboration and task management are inseparable here. This is why it is essential to leverage online tools so that your remote talents feel like a team, even if they are not located in the same region. There are a lot of tools for collaboration such as Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangout, and task management tools such as Asana, Trello, etc. They make the team more efficient and give a sense of responsibility to each team member to give their best shot.
Establish an efficient workflow – To get the maximum out of a remote digital marketing team, it is best to create a set of guidelines and processes and associated timelines for the efficient rollout of every kind of work. Ensure that everyone is on the same page by automating the workflow. This will help save time and save you from reinventing the wheel for new talent that comes on board. An agile marketing team would be of great relevance here. It helps drive programs and campaigns that assist you in adjusting to shifting objectives, changing customer needs, and new technical breakthroughs efficiently.
Track productivity and digital marketing results – Tracking helps ensure that things are moving in the right direction. It is crucial to introduce KPIs for each role and initiative and monitor a remote worker’s productivity. Continue to monitor progress and update KPIs as required, and leverage tracking and performance monitoring tools that are helpful for both the business and talent. And finally, do not forget to map your results to your digital marketing efforts because it will give you a clear inside edge into what is good and what can be better.
Stay abreast of the latest trends – Consumer trends are ever-evolving. As a result, your digital marketing strategy for today may not be relevant a month from now. It’s that dynamic. Therefore, you need to stay relevant to the latest trends, update your strategies, hire corresponding teams and skillsets as required.
To set up a team and manage it is no easy task, and it would not happen overnight. Likewise, searching for remote talent acquiring and retaining them is a huge task. So, getting it right is what matters, not getting it right the first time.
Bio
Eileen Chan is Commercial Director at Hire Digital, which helps enterprises and high-growth startups build and enhance their digital capabilities with a world-class network of digital marketers, developers, and designers. As a result, clients including Expedia, Shopify, and Philips have access to high-performing talents on demand.
