Best Practices to Enhance Your Marketing Teams

By George Stenitzer, Founder, Crystal Clear Communications

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With the right training, your teams will improve business results and become more productive and engaged.

Three ways marketing leaders can help teams better perform:

• Encourage your marketers to sharpen their skills: Make sure your team gets exposed to fresh marketing ideas frequently. Help them learn by encouraging them to participate in relevant conferences and workshops. ANA workshops enable you to address specific marketing needs, such as content marketing, agency management or creative briefs. For best results, ask participants to fill in the whole team on what they learned at an event. People learn better when their objective is to also teach others what they have learned.
• Insist that your marketers learn your business: The better your marketers understand your business, the better they will be at marketing your business. In high-growth companies, most marketers know the answer to key organizational questions such as, "What are your CEO's top two or three objectives for the year ahead?" and "If you could look over his/her shoulder, what is at the top of his/her list?" It is surprising how many marketers do not know the answers to these questions. The most effective marketing teams can drive growth through a deep understanding of their business and the industry.
• Cross-train high-potential people: What kind of career path does your organization offer marketers? Many marketers move up by sticking with one discipline: such as marketing communications, digital marketing, or events. But you can get even more out of your team by helping marketers gain work experience in all marketing disciplines. For example, a successful content marketing team blends three different skill sets:
• Communications, including storytelling, writing content, and working with third parties such as news media and influencers.
• Marketing, including branding, marketing communications, advertising, and events.
• Conversion, including marketing analytics, lead generation, and artificial intelligence.

As you cross-train marketers by assigning them to adjacent disciplines, you develop a team that brings a diversity of experience, plus three-dimensional skills to every project. Consider rotational assignments that expose team members to adjacent disciplines. Taking this approach builds relationships and trust among your team as they come to understand each other's work.

To make your marketing team super-sharp, encourage people to sharpen their marketing skills, learn the business thoroughly, and cross-train by working in related disciplines.

The views and opinions expressed in Marketing Maestros are solely those of the contributor and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the ANA or imply endorsement from the ANA.

George Stenitzer is an ANA instructor for the Marketing Training and Development Center. For more on this approach, be sure to view George's Content Marketing Mastery Program.