Ways to ‘Show Some Love’ to your marketing, digital & creative teams

When it comes to making it happen your team is the key driver. Listening to all the brilliant marketing people we work with from all over the world from every kind of business has helped us compile a list of ideas for business and marketing leaders.

Now more than ever, we think it’s important that we all Show Some Love. That’s why our amazing team at Carswell Gould have given our ever popular Show Some Love content a spruce up just in time for Valentine’s Day. You can check out the feature below or head over to our ‘love hub’ here.

You can use these tips to show a little love to the people that matter most and get more from their teams in super positive ways.

Empower them with the best tools for the job

Give your teams access to the tech services, asset libraries and software they really need to do their job to the best of their abilities. Assets such as LinkedIn Learning, Shutterstock, Grammarly, Adobe Creative Suite, HubSpot will help your them to excel.

Write killer briefs to get ahead

As more work is done remotely, more effort needs to be put into briefing. We use online brainstorming workshops to kick off key projects and to make sure all key delivery team members have the opportunity to access all the information on offer – this avoids wasted time and frustration later. Also, don’t forget to hit the record button, it’s a great way to capture every bit of information for everyone to access.

Show some love with structured feedback

A killer of many marketing relationships is the assumption that people can read your mind – trust me, we can’t. That’s why a great way to ‘show some love’ to your marketing team is to ensure they always have structured feedback to work to. You can do it online or in writing, but running a 360 degree feedback session allows team members to properly understand your needs and work more productively for you and the business.

Invest in good automation to aid delivery, insight and organisation.

There should be nothing impersonal about good marketing automation. Done right, it’s a win for your customers and a win for your team. Empowering both with the right information in the right way and at the right time. Software such as HubSpot will provide greater insight into what channels your customers engage with and what content drives the most interaction with your brand, products and services. You can then send highly-targeted and specific content to a defined audience, based on their interaction with your business. Your team will love the way that the tool works and helps to manage their activity and effectiveness.

Focus your team on the job in hand

Yes it’s tough at the moment – especially at the top. We understand the challenges facing marketing directors (dynamic change, digital transition, remote teams) but do yourself and your team a favour by shielding them from any fear and uncertainty at the top of the chain. Focus them, their energy and capability on solving the specific marketing challenges within their role. Marketing is about creativity and analytics. Your team needs to focus on the job in hand and not be dragged into the politics of the wider business.

At the same time… overview and vision refresh sessions will keep your team on track with project, product, programme and brand strategy.

Give updates and workshops, Zoom/Teams meetings and face-to-face time with the aim of working together smoothly and efficiently. Think of yourself as the programme manager and make sure your project team is informed and inspired to keep pressing forward.

Celebrate your team’s individual merits and capability

Celebrating the capability of everyone in your team will reassure them that you need them and that they are important. Something we’ve used at Carswell Gould is with ‘Knowledge Shares’ where, once a month, one team member presents a topic of their choice to everybody. Value what they know and encourage onward learning.

Offer them a seat at inspiring events

Let them attend worthwhile marketing events like www.festivalofmarketing.com / https://www.madfestlondon.com /  Social Media Week London /  SEO London / AI in Marketing Summit / Influencer Marketing Conference. And also encourage them to explore around their work. An example would be venturefestsouth.co.uk which is all about driving the innovation agenda. For our guys it helps them see how their work matters in context to a wider economic and societal impact – inspiring stuff!

Say ‘thank you’

Simple – just say ‘thank you’. Try it now, pick out one of your team and send them an email – it goes a very, very long way and non of us do it as much as we could and perhaps should. 

Give them your time

We’ve noticed that the best client partners we work with give their teams (and us) lots of quality time. Marketing and sales teams often exist in a state of relentless energy and forward motion, so pausing and being open to questions will help them thrive and stay on track with you.

Remember why you love what you do

Most of us got into marketing because we are passionate about the discipline. Whether you’re a ‘left brainer’, who loves the analytics side of marketing and is motivated by how to improve the performance of your activity; or you’re a ‘right brainer’ and are turned on by the creative side of marketing, this profession is populated by people who chose it because they love to understand what makes people tick. Don’t forget that, marketing is about people and, as we’ve discovered, people need to be ‘shown some love’.