Invest in Actions – 5 Ways to Scale Marketing Operations While Managing Layoffs and Budget Cuts
All of our worlds have taken a very different shift in the last couple of months. Today we are heading towards what one may call the “New Normal.” While we are managing the pressures of this new change, the leaders are carving out new paths to manage work disruptions like social cancellations, remote work, hiring freezes, and budget cuts.
Some of the latest reports have suggested that over 65% of marketing professionals are reportedly apprehensive of being laid off during this recession. However, around 63.2% of advertising and marketing companies have embraced the remote working strategy to allow professionals to work from home. There is no hard and fast rule about what will work and what will not, but from the previous recessions, we have seen companies who plan well in advance fare better than the others.
We are here to discuss some of the best ways companies can focus on generating revenue while managing the current economic challenges:
1) Take time to strategize your Marketing Operations
It was seen in the past that organizations that fare better than others during a recession had invested ample time in their strategies. Whenever a recession hits, the “knee jerk” reaction is to cut costs. Most certainly, it hits the employees first, and some are laid off. Surviving a recession heavily depends on how one manages to not run out of cash. Organizations that are heavy on debt have problems maintaining steady cash flow and possibly are the first to close shop. In this situation, organizations should be proactive and futuristic.
Marketing leaders should think about not letting layoffs hurt the business. By investing in outsourcing, they can maintain two things at the same time; first is scaling their marketing operations and secondly maintaining a restrictive budget.
Marketing teams can outsource their heavy burden of repetitive operational tasks to an agency to free time and resources to be able to focus on strategy.
2) Prioritize on communications
It is important to prioritize your in-house team as soon as the need for layoffs begins by having honest discussions with them about the company’s reasoning with the layoff and sharing information to help employees understand what has happened. You should also make sure that you do not leave the employees’ responses, concerns, and reactions unanswered.
3) Honest approaches in the delegation of roles and tasks
While the team may panic at the thought of taking up additional responsibilities, planned delegation and readjusting workloads can lessen their apprehensions. Start with analyzing skills and distributing new assignments according to their skill sets to complete pending and urgent projects. Make sure you clarify the new roles and responsibilities with individual employees by meeting your team members regularly.
4) Find the “New Normal”
New changes can be scary for both team members and managers. It is important to help the team cope up with the new challenges, like inflated workloads. While some teammates are laid off, the pressure to perform falls on the people who are still with the organization.
It is important to offload work so that your team doesn’t feel additional pressure than normal. Also, this is the time you want your team to focus on strategizing rather than executing. Hiring a team of Marketing Experts can retain your focus on internal tasks and help to scale the business.
Adding diversity to the team also helps to get newer ideas in place for improved performance. Industry experts can guide your team to implement best practices to scale operations during a crisis.
5) Invest in Technology
According to an EY report, 41% of marketing leaders are continuing to plan for digital transformation for the post-coronavirus economy. And most of them are optimistic about scaling operations.
A crisis can be sort of a catalyst or can speed up changes that are on the way — it almost can serve as an accelerant. A new tech era is waiting to emerge as the pandemic recedes. While in general, we think that crisis makes people cut costs but economic literature over the last decade has proven that investments were made specially during the crisis.
Investing in marketing automation will improve your efficiency during such a time. It will help you reach out to your prospects in a more efficient and regular manner and having experts to run the martech will increase your ROI.