Significant results in digital marketing are obtained with the assistance of top level managers. However, there are many situations when a company needs online marketing, but the managers do not understand that. What should marketers do if their CEOs are digitally unfriendly?
The first idea is to hire a team and outsource the tasks. The problem is that it may take forever to find an appropriate team within your budget. Some companies open tenders every six months after the teams fail to meet KPIs. Who is in charge then, a team that failed or management who tried to save the budget? Let’s find out.
Systems, Culture, and Agile
Some theory first. A business or its part can be analyzed as a system. The question is how detailed you would like your system to be. Dave Snowden states that there are 4 levels of system complexity.
A simple system is easy to manage; typically, no innovations are needed. A complicated system requires analysis, findings, and actions. A complex system is all about conducting experiments and continuous testing. This is where the best practices do not work. A system becomes chaotic after we analyzed results of experiments in a complex system and ready to implement the findings. For instance, setting up DoubleClick remarketing or contextual advertising is an example of a chaotic system.
Chaotic systems are almost impossible to predict. That is why digital marketing agencies cannot simply answer “how much a particular service costs” question. Professionals can only estimate the cost based on their expertise in the niche. Either way, the degree of uncertainty is high because of a particular brand, product cost, SKU number, website UX, page load speed, cart, etc.
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A chaotic system has positive and negative relationships, complex relationships. So, it is easier to conduct an experiment to find out how the system responds and then to start planning and making predictions.
The approach to management methods in the system, depending on its complexity, is called the Agile approach.
Well, let’s say, we determine that the way we used to do things does not work out anymore, so we decide to recruit the team and allow it to conduct experiments. And here is the issue. You should not hire a team if you do not create suitable conditions for them. Remember the Agile manifesto! It was originally designed for software development, but it is also applicable to digital marketing.
In addition, Agile specialists usually add two other rules:
- • Non-blaming culture,
- • Experimenting and learning rapidly.
People, Freedom of Choice, and Responsibility
So, you have decided to apply Agile principles, create suitable conditions for your team, and the question that you need to address is where to find a team.
The obvious answers are to grow a team or to hire specialists. And there, you are likely to start thinking about the fact that the working environment is fine for making mistakes. The freedom to choose tools, methods, and etc. can result in choosing wrong. In other words, you may lose money if employees are not responsible enough. Top level managers usually have that sense of responsibility, so they do not want to risk and invest in digital marketing.
The Agile environment requires higher responsibility. Freedom and impunity may create chaos. The management has the highest level of freedom and responsibility. However, specialists in your team should also understand their area of responsibility and share the company’s values.
Meanwhile, there is no silver bullet. An experienced, bright tech experts may fail to be as successful in your company as they used to be. It is important that the experts understand your business idea, can make decisions, hold the necessary resources, and have the same expectations than you as a business owner do.
To create an effective digital marketing department/team in the company, you need to think about the following factors:
- • Understanding of the system and management methods,
- • Management and working conditions,
- • Knowledge and competence of the team.
The conclusion can be described by the phrase “Healthy body – healthy spirit.” A mature business needs a mature team, one without the other does not work well.
Probably, Promodo won’t help you to build a strong team, but we can help you develop from scratch and strengthen your digital marketing strategy, feel free to contact us.
About the Authors
Alexander Kolb
CEO at Promodo
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a very simple google or yahoo check out claims system is synonymous with, “usually the hobby or marketplace connected marketing and advertisin