Working from home, for marketing teams
Now, we don’t like jumping on the old bandwagon, but with the unprecedented change in the way companies need to work while we are under measures to stop the spread of COVID-19, our founder Victoria wanted to share some of her insights from working remotely, internationally and onsite with teams over the past few years. We hope this helps you, as a marketing team, if you suddenly find yourself working from home..
“I’ve worked on projects where the team, having never met IRL, been scattered across Western Europe, Australia and up and down the UK. And it’s very possible to deliver great work, when the team has the tools they need to communicate, and you all sign up to communicating in a more structured way. In some ways the enforced distance can give you some time to ruminate on things a little more, so you get to refine your thinking before you sit in front of others.
This new way of working will be an adjustment for some, so if anything, sharing my learnings might be a little helpful to any teams navigating this ‘new normal’, no matter how short term.”
Marketing Planning
Your marketing plan is the roadmap and direction for marketing teams and key stakeholders.
But it is a constantly changing, fluid document. You just need to evolve it to make sure that it is still useable when you, your stakeholders, and your clients, are working from home.
Have you considered changing up your software? So, rather than relying on version control for a spreadsheet, consider moving to project management software like Trello or Notion.
Software like this also lets you upload visuals and set up a calendar view, so you can track what goes live, on what day, and assign owners, so that each of your team can keep on top of who’s doing what, and what they need to do next.
Also you could consider setting up approval labels so you can mark campaigns through different phases.
Clarity of ownership, SLAs for feedback and approvals (set up ahead of time) will help you to stay on track to deliver your campaigns on time when everyone is remote.
You might need to get a little ahead of your planning, so you have adequate time to get the feedback (and buy in) from your senior management, finance team or product teams for delivery, but a sketched out forward plan can be firmed up closer to the dates.
Media Planning
Consider how the platforms mentioned above could also help you to show your different planned media weights, alongside narratives for clear cast clearance, and more.
Where you might have usually expected meetings in person as a media brief response develops, consider how these developing responses might be shared - either as a live, ‘work in progress’ with notes to your stakeholders (or client) as or as static snapshots that you capture at key points as you proceed.
For the short-term, you might consider switching out some media channels in your plan to adjust for the changes in your consumer behaviour - investing more in digital rather than on public transport, for example, as more of your audience start to spend more time at home.
Creative
Platforms like Figma allow for creative feedback to be collaborated on directly within a document. This means that you avoid that rather painful trying-to-signpost-to-the-thing-you’re-feeding-back-on as well as writing out the actual feedback in a document where images aren’t easily embedded (hello Word and Powerpoint) suddenly can disappear.
You’ll still need a feedback owner, someone in charge of collating such feedback and keeping everyone on track, but you can distil this into actions for your design team pretty easily.
Figma also embeds into Notion - so you can create something like this example of a pre-made board.
Content & Copy
For your content strategy, you’ll probably have a way of showing all of your content in plan, but your visuals might be somewhere separate.
Why not use this as an opportunity to move away from sheets and sheets of info, and move to a platform that lets you view and approve in one place? Social scheduling tools like Sprout Social and Planable let you do this - and are, in my view, much better for team collaboration than Hootsuite, but if migrating is a step too far at this stage, then perhaps carving out a separate place to manage your content approvals from your overall marketing plan is a good idea. It could be a mirror Trello board, for example.
Chances are you’ll be using the 80:20 rule for your planned vs reactive content, so it’s probably a good idea to review, and make sure everyone is familiar with your social media policy.
Over-processing social can be the killer of creativity for some teams. Rather than making your team wait on approvals (while some big news breaks, something goes viral that you want to jump on or while you clarify the context of a meme), make sure the whole organisation is signed up to your social media terms and apply, a little bit of trust and flexibility.
It is also a good idea to make sure that your social media teams know how to be reflective of your brand tone, and ensure senior management is aware of how this will work going forward.
Over-communicate
From C-Suite, to marketing heads, to product marketing managers, to marketing assistants, this new way of working will be weird. If you’re a manager, it can be hard to balance the feeling of being able to check in with your team without feeling like you’re losing sight of what’s happening - and, on the other side of the coin, making sure that you’re not micro managing.
Working from home for marketing teams can feel quite daunting, especially if the rest of the organisation needs clarity on what you’re doing at the moment.
So if in doubt, over-communicate.
You might forget how much those little conversations with your team can shape the direction of what you’re working on, when you’re physically all in the same room, so creating space to talk, share ideas and collaborate is really important to keeping a happy team, while working from home.
And use tech to help you - perhaps it’s Slack, perhaps it’s Microsoft Teams, perhaps it’s regular updates on Whatsapp and group video conference calls.
Explain what you’re up to, maybe you could provide a brief update to your leadership team on what’s happened that day, or that week, as everyone adjusts to being less visible.
If you’re managing a team, actually having everything down in writing can be useful too, so you and they know exactly what ‘s expected, and what they need to be focussing on.
And while we’re on the subject, video calling
Make time for video check ins and catch ups, but while you do it:
Be on time
Be ‘in the room’ - put your phone on silent and close other browser windows
Pop yourself on mute when you’re not talking - if you’re taking notes the sound of typing could be pretty annoying for the rest of the callers
Find your lighting: you know the rules you have when it comes to selfies? Apply them to video calling too - pop a light behind your camera, not behind you, so you’re not a big old blur for the rest of your attendees
Send a quick text, slack message or email beforehand checking with the person they’re good to jump into video. Avoid the ‘X is trying to call you’ panic search for headphones, brushing crumbs off yourself, putting something presentable on, frantically brushing your hair if you’ve added another dry shampoo day…
Agree where you’re going to video call from and share a link with the group, there are SO many options these days: Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, Skype, GoToMeeting, BlueJeans…give them a go and see which works best for you and your clients.
Keep up with your non-colleagues too
Keep up with your network - if you’re not going to see them so much for a drink after work, at events, conferences or meetings, then keeping up with each other online is super important too.
Humans are sociable creatures - and us marketers are especially geared towards being people-people, as it’s part of our job. We know that social interaction can be so important for wellbeing, happiness which both impact your ability to work for your team, your busines, brand or clients - so make sure you take the time to reach out and chat.
Talking things through with someone in a similar boat to you can make a challenge that did feel monstrous, suddenly feel achieveable, so reach out, we guarantee it’ll help.
We’ve created a Slack just for this, just for marketers, so fill in this form to join.
Media Buying Q&A: Outdoor Media
Lisa is our media buying extraordinaire.
She’ll wrap anything that moves in your brand, buy up space on Europe’s biggest motion billboard (that’s in London Waterloo Station, don’tcha know) and plan a killer radio campaign for you.
Outdoor and Above The Line can feel quite scary if you’ve never done it before.
Here she shares some of her valuable media insight to help you get started.
Q: How’s best for a brand to get started in outdoor media?
For me it always starts with the audience and what your desired outcome is.
As well as matching your target audience to the right formats in the right locations – we need to look at the activity you are currently doing across digital or offline channels to determine the best strategy and campaign to match.
Q: When’s the right time to invest in outdoor media?
The age-old question – is there ever a right time?
Do we capitalise on our busy periods or do we advertise when we need a push?
The ideal answer is both!
Budgets tight?
By using above the line formats like outdoor, to support your other campaigns at key periods across the year – you will create a longer-term multi-layered campaign affect.
This will maximise your budgets and create an ‘always on’ feeling to your brand, with spikes to support when you need it most.
Q: What’s the difference between a Digital Billboard and a Traditional Billboard?
Simply put, a traditional billboard (known as OOH) is essentially, a massive poster.
These are static and come in a variety of sizes and ratios. You’ve most likely seen these on the side of the road, at a bus stop or on the platform of a train station.
These are bought in two-week blocks (or longer), and have a fee related to the production – for the physical printing of the poster creative.
Digital billboards, or Digital Out Of Home (DOOH), as the name suggests are digital screens in same sorts of locations.
These are growing in popularity and in number, and allow advertisers to plan against the number of times the ad is seen – impacts, or impressions. These can be bought by day part – in the morning, lunchtime or evening, or throughout.
Because the screens are digital, there is no additional spend needed to produce the content for these (unless you want to run a specific campaign of course). The creative can be static, or full motion (with audio in some areas), so with digital, you can run many more options.
Q: What format would you say is the best for a brand to dip their toe into an outdoor campaign, without committing to a long period or a lot of money?
Outdoor has come a long way in the last few years and digital formats now offer clients the opportunity to run last minute video content. Sometimes even with audio.
There are no production costs to move your existing video content to a digital outdoor format, and your creative can be super targeted depending on the location of the site – you could even tie creative into the weather, local and regional news stories or trending hashtags!
With this format you can buy the media in impacts (ie the number of times it’ll be seen) rather than committing to longer term campaigns – meaning less wastage and more for your budget.
There are some amazing sites in great locations like train stations, arenas and supermarkets, so you not only get huge footfall (and opportunities to be seen), but you can deliver highly contextual creative for the location.
Have a new FMCG brand launching? Consider in supermarket digital outdoor campaigns to support the launch alongside your stockist activation plans.
What about a podcast that is perfect for the commute? Why not buy commuter impacts in train station locations?
Q: Is it true that it’s easy to pick up cheap, or even free outdoor space last minute?
Shhhh… Don’t tell anyone but yes.
As we work with all the main suppliers and have great relationships that have been built over the last 16 years there are opportunities sometimes to bag a great deal.
If you are looking for last minute space, it’s always best to have artwork ready to go for the format you desire.
Free space is never a guarantee but we work really hard to gain overshow (ie your ad is shown, over and above your booking times, so you get more for your money), and added value for our clients and their campaigns.
Of course, if you have your heart set on a certain site, location and date to run any campaigns - it’s best to book in advance.
Some of my clients book their desired sites over 2 years out!
Often large advertisers will place a hold on a number of sites, so it’s about pushing them for a confirmation on those sites. With outdoor, once it’s gone its gone!
Q: What do clients often forget about when they’re thinking about their campaign?
Most clients when designing their creative often forget the format that the message is going on.
A lot of creatives design the same creative to match the other activity and content across other channels.
In theory each format should be designed in a way to reach the right audience and consideration should be taken for the length of dwell time and also the correct font sizes.
Taking outdoor as an example, the simple messages are always the most effective with just 1 call to action and imagery to match.
Q: When are you most likely to be affected by seasonality?
TV campaign costs are affected by seasonality due to viewer figures, as well as National Magazines.
With most other formats like Outdoor, costs will not change due to the timing across the year but due to availability, sites will get heavily booked up at certain times.
If you are an education client for example you will struggle to get any bus, billboard or press exposure in your desired locations if you book less than 9 months ahead of September activity.
Q: What about major events in the year?
This is at the discretion of the main suppliers and certain sites may warrant a premium from time to time.
I can’t stress enough how booking early is always recommended.
Some clients think that it’s a sales tactic to book so far ahead but its genuine and most of them learn this by trying to book too late!
Q: For Digital Outdoor formats, do I have to create videos?
You don’t have to create video content, but research shows that movement in your advertising will generate a more effective and eye-catching campaign.
You don’t have to create a full video – even if you add small GIF’s and animations into your static imagery it can create a difference.
Digital formats allow you to play with your creative and you should have some fun with it.
Q: What format do you expect to see huge growth in from client spend in the next year?
Digital outdoor is growing and static billboards are being dismantled and replaced by digital at a rapid pace.
As buses now look to carry digital formats too – digital transport media is one area that is one to watch along with interactive digital screens.