How to Increase Marketers’ Productivity After COVID-19
Want to improve the efficacy of your marketing team? Check out some of the most effective ways to boost productivity during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has accelerated the shift to remote working.
Prior to the pandemic, 60% of companies restricted remote work by either not allowing employees to work remotely or by limiting the number of WFH days. But the outbreak forced a majority of companies to go remote.
As the workforce suddenly and unexpectedly moved remote this year, it caused miscommunication errors, loss of productivity, and fewer results.
In fact, many business owners and marketers are still struggling to work and manage their teams efficiently.
Are you having similar issues in managing your marketing team?
Then, you’re in the right place.
In this post, I’ve put together some of the best tips, strategies, and tools to help you stay productive during and beyond COVID-19.
Let’s check them out.
1. Stay organized
Are you logging in straight from your bed?
It’s time to change that.
The best way to increase productivity at work is to keep everything organized — be it your work desk, task list, meeting schedule, or routine.
For this, you should set up an independent work area. This can help you easily separate your work-life from home-life. And it will also help you feel more productive and motivated when you’re at your work desk.
At the same time, you should also build a solid virtual workspace using the right tools. This includes streamlining how you and your marketing team will:
- Communicate with each other.
- Brainstorm and share ideas.
- Assign, prioritize, complete, and track tasks.
- Share documents, images, videos, and other files.
- Provide feedback and appreciate good work.
You can use effective communication channels such as Slack or Skype to ensure everyone in the marketing team is on the same page.
Similarly, Google Docs can make it easier for your team members to collaborate and work together on marketing ideas.
You should also choose the most appropriate apps or tools for video conferencing, time tracking, task assignment, and project management. As a marketer, even choosing the right marketing tools can be of great help.
2. Give yourself a refreshing break
As the famous proverb goes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” working 24/7 can really do more harm than good.
What should you do then?
You should learn to draw a line between work and life. Take some fun breaks between work hours to recharge yourself. Go out for an evening jog, play games such as Solitaire for a while, or make that long-awaited conference call with your friends.
Indulging in activities that you really enjoy doing can help you relieve stress, improve focus, and get more work done in less time.
However, you should ensure that these work breaks don’t stretch for hours, leaving you with huge piles of pending work.
3. Check on your internet connection
As marketers, one thing you can’t afford is poor connectivity.
Now that you’re working remotely, you should ensure that you have access to a high-speed, stable internet connection. In fact, your entire team should be connected properly for smooth functioning.
If you work from home with a low-speed Internet connection, you may miss out on some of the essential and trending marketing news.
Additionally, slow-speed internet connection leads to delay in customer service, emails, chats, and other research.
On the other hand, high-speed internet ensures an appropriate connection to zoom meetings, access to large files, convenient customer service, and more.
Considering this, many IT companies have also offered extra allowances to their teams for a good internet connection.
4. Create a centralized resource base
Is your business information scattered across multiple platforms?
This pandemic has probably given you another reason to reconsider how to collect and store information. It is essential to build and maintain a centralized, online database for all of your business information.
How can you build one?
You should consider using a reliable CRM (customer relationship management) system or a business management app for this.
Most CRMs allow you to create information silos, share them with different departments, and track new changes and updates.
And the best part?
Most of these CRMs and business management apps are cloud-based, which means that you can easily access them remotely.
Your centralized database should hold information about:
- Your brand, products, and services
- Your clients
- Sales pipeline
- Important resources, tools, and reports
- And more
5. Communicate effectively
If you want to increase the productivity and overall efficacy of your marketing team, it is essential to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Communicating effectively is now more important than ever to ensure continued collaboration and keep team spirits high.
What can you do to communicate more effectively?
You should host weekly calls to share clients’ and tasks’ updates and targets, discuss common points and processes, and mitigate miscommunication.
These meetings can also help you stay more connected and engaged, reduce rework, and help boost the overall productivity of your marketing team.
6. Upskill Yourself
Another effective way to increase productivity is to upskill yourself.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced you to stay indoors and physically distance yourself from people. You can utilize this time to learn new things and enhance your marketing knowledge.
You should:
- Listen to marketing podcasts by the top marketers in the world.
- Take up online courses to learn about new strategies, tips, and other marketing secrets.
- Do certification courses and improve your resume.
- Follow industry experts on social media platforms and consume the valuable content they create.
7. Embrace flexible work hours
Working from home gives birth to a number of distractions — from your crying kids to the pile of dishes in the sink.
While it can be difficult to stay productive during the normal 10–7 work hours, embracing flexible hours can help you boost productivity.
Many marketers like to start their day early and plan ahead. This helps them block their day for specific tasks and meetings and have a well-curated plan to get work done.
Or, are you the night owl who is more productive at midnight?
You should utilize the most productive hours of your day to plan your day’s schedule and complete the most tedious or difficult tasks on your list. Getting tough things done first can boost your morale and increase productivity.
Pro Tip: In this pandemic time SaaS companies get opportunities to boost their business with building effective plans, implementing and measuring the results of the tactics they are using to grow their business.
Ready to increase productivity and generate better marketing results?
Remote work culture is probably here to stay.
Considering this, you should take the current challenges as an opportunity to prepare your business and marketing teams for working remotely.
Though it may seem difficult to boost productivity and efficacy, it isn’t. You just need a better management system, streamlined workflow, flawless communication, and efficient tools to make it work.
Are you ready to leverage the productivity hacks I’ve shared in this article?
Do you have other questions about increasing your productivity as a marketer? Feel free to ask me in the comments below.
