The modern workplace has evolved from what it used to be traditionally. The corporate world is more scattered today, with team members operating from different countries or continents, even. The internet and social media have facilitated remote work, enabling the existence of more diversity in cultures and ideas in a company.
There aren’t limitations anymore. You can recruit and work with people from anywhere in the world. If you are a small business looking for the best talent available within your budget, your potential candidate pool is wider than you might realize.
In 2016, 43 percent of American employees worked remotely, and the number seems to be gradually increasing.
Why you should embrace remote working …
- Remote workers enjoy flexibility and are less stressed
- Happier employees are more productive and responsible
- They cost a company relatively lesser than onsite workers
- Remote working saves companies and workers commute costs
Tips for Building a Remote Digital Marketing Team
Content and digital marketing is being impacted by this trend greatly. Platforms like Upwork and Fiverr are enabling remote work globally, and companies have begun to take advantage of this trend. You can too. Here’s how.
1. Use a Task Accountability Platform for Efficient Management
When managing remote workers, planning, communication and task accountability are slightly more taxing. You want to choose convenient communication platforms, so you can constantly be in touch with your team.
Asana is a great platform for task management, and Slack is excellent for general communication.
Even using a task management tool, you might find the exercise time consuming, so it’s important to plan for it. You could hire a task manager, or block that time on your own schedule. You could also consider hiring a virtual assistant.
2. Create an Accessible and Organized Editorial Calendar
Social media and content marketing are an essential part of digital marketing, and they involve the creation of a lot of content. Yearly or quarterly editorial calendars can be life savers, because they can help you plan for holidays, trends and even flexible, fun days when creating content, and that can earn your brand some serious traction.
By planning in advance, you’ll also retain a lot of control. It’s easier to account for unpredictable trends and make changes to a plan if you already have one in place. It’s also easier for remote employees to manage their work if they are privy to the plan.
Google Sheets, WordPress and HubSpot editorial calendars are solutions worth checking out.
3. Invest in Valuable Content Repositories and Resources
Your social media and content marketers are only as efficient as the resources you provide them with. They should ideally have access to research and content tools to spark great ideas. You will need a content editor, research tool and image/design repository for your team to function without any hindrance.
- Google Docs is an excellent, free content editor that works just as well as Microsoft Word or Pages on iOS.
- HARO is a great place to find original quotes from subject experts and influencers.
- Plagiarism Checker does exactly what it’s name suggests, and does it quickly.
- Pexels is a free image repository for HD pictures.
Introduce your team to these tools early on in the game, so they can deliver great work.
4. Research and Commit to the Right Stack of Marketing Tools
It’s crucial to introduce your social media and content marketing team to a stack of tools that can amplify their efforts. As a small business, you may not have access to the same budget as larger firms, but certain tools can help you accomplish more with a limited working capacity and budget.
GrowthBot is a great Slack integration that helps you conduct content and marketing research at low cost. You can chat and ask the bot which keywords your competitors rank for or are targeting via PPC.
5. Establish a Smart Reporting Order and Means
When working remotely with employees, setting up a reporting order is critical. Who reports to whom, how often they are required to check in and how they should communicate on a day-to-day basis needs to be decided in advance.
Slack works well for this purpose. Using the tool, you can create channels for different teams and chat with each member one-on-one.
The tool has specific bots and integrations that support different types of job roles like developers, marketers and sales personnel. You can also share files from your computer and Google Drive securely on Slack.
It’s over to you now! Don’t limit your workforce by borders and distance. Find the best people to work with and get the most out of your digital marketing budget.
Virtual Team Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “Get The Benefits of a Remote Digital Marketing Team: Follow These 5 Steps” was first published on Small Business Trends