Build an Extraordinary Marketing Team in 2018 to Boost Your Trade Success

It is not easy to build a focused, efficient and fruitful marketing team, especially in this digital era where trends change almost daily. It is thus important for an entrepreneur to be updated about the latest changes in the marketplace to prevail as the frontrunner. A well-devised marketing strategy ensures business growth; it is not an easy task.

However, marketers can avail the knowledge of successful B2B strategies in 2017, which they can apply in the current year and improve on it for greater business growth and success. Subsequently, 72% of the B2B marketers altered their marketing strategies according to the current trend and this change helped them attain exponential growth. Some factors played a vital role in this success. Let us find out what they were.

• Use of updated, informative and quality content had 85% contribution to this growth.
• Application of development/adjustment strategy had 72% contribution to this growth.
• Content marketing is no longer an additional plan. It became priority last year. Businesses spent more time on this marketing strategy and it brought 53% commercial growth.
• Identifying and targeting suitable content distribution channels that led to 50% growth.
• Organizational changes in staffing, management, HR strategies and content marketing roles contributed to 43% growth.
• Changes in content measurement strategies induced 42% growth.
• Businesses allotted more resources towards content marketing and that led to 25% growth.
• Application of new content marketing tools/technologies that lead to 28% growth.
• Training/education on content marketing contributed to 23% business growth.

The B2B marketers also made some alteration to their ‘content marketing tactic’ to avail this growth.

• 83% marketers increased the use of social media content.
• 80% marketers used informative and fresh blogs.
• 77% marketers used email newsletters.
• 68% marketers arranged for in-person events.
• 65% marketers found assistance through eBooks.
• 60% marketers used pre-produced videos.
• 58% marketers used webcasts and infographics.

The inclusion of content-marketing tactics has proved t be successful for the B2B marketers. Some B2B marketers (less than 50%) applied other types of marketing strategies.

• 42% of these marketers used online presentations.
• 39% marketers used photos/illustrations.
• 28% marketers used interactive tools and research reports.
• 23% marketers used print magazines.
• 17% marketers used digital magazines.
• 14%-15% marketers used books and mobile apps.
• 12% of marketers used podcasting.
• 10% marketers used live video and separate content hubs.
• 8%-9% marketers used virtual conferences and print newsletters.

The B2C companies also changed their marketing strategies in 2017.

• 30% of the B2C companies have appointed professionals and these businesses are at a mature stage of content marketing.
• 49% of the B2C businesses use moderate-sized teams to look after a company’s content marketing.
• The planned management changes in 42% B2C companies had the positive influence on content marketing strategies.

Essential Members of Marketing Team

These changes indicate that marketers may witness many improvements and changes in 2018. Even the experienced marketers may witness challenges in face of these changes. Hence, it is imprudent for any businessperson not to maintain a team of experts for the marketing. It is vital for a marketing team to include experienced data-analyzers, advertisers, copywriters and PR specialists. The expertise of these specialists can efficiently handle all unpredictable changes in the world of digital marketing. They can maintain updated marketing strategies and keep pace with the continuous shifts in the digital world.

Assembling an Efficient Marketing Team for 2018

Role Determination

It is vital to correctly assess the effectiveness of last year’s marketing team. It may help you determine the marketing efforts for the current year. Every member of the team plays a vital role in marketing and you may find some roles to be ineffective. You may even find it necessary to add new personnel capable of playing major roles in this year’s marketing strategy.

• It is crucial for a businessperson to identify and remove the factors that restricted a company’s growth and prevented a marketing team from using its potential to the optimum level.
• It is essential to identify and remove the roles that did not benefit the marketing team.
• It is equally essential to identify and grow the roles that benefitted the previous year’s marketing team.

These identifications can help you determine suitable and successful marketing strategy in 2018. Depending on your competitor’s marketing tactics would not help, if you cannot tailor it to your goals. You can easily determine the tactics that generated maximum revenue for your business over the past few years. You may even create a diagram of the positions that explicitly shows the hierarchy of the marketing team necessary for 2018. You may use a combination of experts and current employees to fill these positions. This structure may ensure a balanced performance.

Determining Standard of Qualification for Each Position

You cannot expect a first-class performance from a mediocre team. Hence, it is essential to build a team with individuals capable of delivering exclusive performance and meeting the level of your expectations. You may iterate the level of your high expectations in the advertisement for new personnel. It may thwart the inefficient applicants and prompt the experts to reply.

It is not possible to judge a marketer’s capability from technical qualifications. However, you may give a detailed description of requirements to define the standard of qualification for each position. For example, an efficient copywriter is expected to have vision, insight and effective strategies for the creation of thoughtful, coherent and entertaining copies suitable for different channels. You may give this type of detailed description for every position. It can readily exclude the substandard candidates. It is equally essential to mention the ‘Key Performance Indicators’ to individuals applying for different positions of a marketing team.

Well Paid Team Delivers Great Performance

It is impractical to expect extraordinary performance from a team receiving insufficient payment. The money works as the catalyst and an adequate salary-structure motivates the employees to give maximum effort. It prevents the staff from leaving a company due to frustration. It is a prudent step for an employer to research the market and determine the average salary for each position. You may offer a little bit above the average salary to the deserved candidates and acquire the best talents from the market before your competitors.

You may even consider the profit that you expect to make from an employee’s performance. It may help you determine the adequate amount of salary. You may consider the contribution of an employee to the growth of your business to determine his/her true value. A detailed analysis of these factors can help you determine the proper salary structure for each position. At the same time, it is prudent to leave some room in salary structure for future increments. You cannot expect your employees to work at the same salary every year. It is a fact even if you offer the exceptionally high salary in the beginning.

Finding Talents in Existing Marketing Personnel

It is not always necessary to look outside the group of current employees to find exceptional talents. It may be possible for an employer not to notice the true potential of an employee. Hence, it is essential to assess the potential of existing employees. It may save you from some unnecessary tasks, such as searching for new candidates or posting advertisements. Your old employees also know the requirements and marketing strategy of your company better than the potential candidates. Hence, it is essential to reanalyze every employee’s efficiency and talent before making new recruitments. You may even find an employee to be more efficient in different position. A detailed analysis may help you identify and correct these mistakes. A reshuffling of the positions may strengthen a marketing team. You can determine the contribution of each member through a tête-à-tête conversation.

• You may ask your employees to rate their likeness for current positions on a scale of 1-10. The employees rating their likenesses from 1-8 may not like their current positions.
• You may even ask your employees about their alternate plans for the workdays if they are not working.

The answers to these simple queries may help you understand your employees’ state of mind and help you determine if reshuffling is necessary to acquire optimum results from the current personnel.

Hiring Impressive Personnel for Impressive Results

It is not easy to act as a lead marketer and create a dream marketing team for 2018 or upcoming years. The market analysis shows that 51% of the employed individuals are currently looking for better positions. Hence, it is hard for an employer to find committed and enthusiastic members of the marketing team. In this scenario, it is not enough to hire an individual capable of meeting all your requirements and fitting with the vision of a team. The employers are supposed to put an extra effort and look at an individual’s past service record.

• It is vital to check the number of days a candidate spent with the past company or companies.
• You may check a candidate’s standard of performance in a previous organization. It helps you determine if the candidate put in extra effort or just standard efforts in the past.
• It is prudent to check the references in order to determine if a candidate is ‘good’, ‘average’ or ‘exceptional’.
• The employers may even consider offering remote works to expand their hiring borders. It increases the chance of finding better talents from the larger pool of candidates.

Detailed Education on Marketing Goals

An employer’s/CEO’s work does not finish with the hiring of new talents or reshuffling of old talents. It is essential to give your marketing team every necessary resource to help them succeed. You may educate the team about the goal and specify the terms of your expectation. You may follow the rules of SMART objective.

• The ‘S’ stands for ‘Specific’ that details what is necessary for execution.
• The ‘M’ stands for ‘Measurable’ showing the progress or achievements you can measure.
• The ‘A’ stands for ‘Achievable’ that shows which defines the objective accepted by the individuals who successfully achieved these objectives.
• The ‘R’ stands for ‘Realistic’ objective that is attainable.
• The ‘T’ stands for ‘Timed’. It clearly states a period that is necessary to achieve the effective results.

The ‘SMART’ objective clears your intention to your marketing team and helps members understand your goal. You may even print a poster featuring these objectives. It serves as a constant reminder and prevents the team members from diverting from the correct course of action.

 Image Credit: tutor2u

Conclusion

The marketing trends change and there is no exception to this fact. These trends usually change every year; however, it may happen even twice in a year. To maintain progress and to remain ahead of the competitors, it is essential for the businesses to keep pace with the changing trends. In 2017, the infographics, quality content and live videos ruled the world of marketing. These trends may change and make way for some new trends in 2018. The old trends may even continue to prevail this year. The possibilities are endless and they throw constant challenges to the marketers. It is crucial for a marketing team to readily adapt to these changes to prevail over the competitors or to remain in focus.

A flexible marketing strategy may seem feasible in this scenario. However, it is not possible for any strategy to generate lucrative results without an efficient marketing team. Hence, it is essential to create a team of specialists capable of maintaining flexible marketing strategy and bring lucre to your business. These steps may help you design a dream marketing team in 2018 based on your requirements and your goal. These steps can keep you ready for the unpredictable changes the marketing world faces every year. A flexible and updated marketing strategy can help you combat the changes with confidence and let you become a winner with the guaranteed commercial success.

Discover Your Search Engine Opportunities. We would love to take a look at your current search engine positioning and analyze the growth potential within your industry!