Live: Digitally Transform Your Marketing Team in 2022

It's unbelievable that we're almost at 2022. It seems like yesterday that it was 2019.

What's happened in those past two years? The pandemic accelerated changes at work that were already in motion. This was the subject of discussion in a recent LinkedIn Live with Marketers on Wednesday 10 November with Elizabeth Knights-Ward, Emma Robertson, and Fernanda Gurgel

I contributed to the discussion in my role as VP of Global Demand Generation at MOI Global, an agency based in the UK that services the B2B Tech sector. I co-run the Digital department, overseeing digital media strategy for our clients.

One of the interesting questions asked of the panelists was what are some of the targets marketers should be setting for digital transformation. For me, it falls under 4 categories:

People

You have to constantly think about the talent in your organisation. This is especially true at an agency where we don't have large capital investments or property, but instead rely on the brains and skills of the people. And they are in demand right now in the marketplace. It can be challenging, especially in a growing organisation, to get to know who all your employees are, what are their goals, and what do they hope to do. Their aspirations and dreams are valid and we have to see how we can facilitate them. This has been made harder with working from home, where you don't get to see your colleagues F2F daily anymore. Relationships change and we are still getting used to conducting most of our day on video calls now.

My organisation has benefitted from headwinds as a result of the pandemic on the B2B Tech sector: with most people working from home, then the demand for almost all of my client's services has increased 3x, whether it be cloud computing, cybersecurity, and the like. Also, without the ability to run F2F events due to the pandemic, almost all our agency's clients have poured their marketing budgets into digital media, leading to growth opportunities. The department staff increased from 4 in January 2019 to 30 today.

Processes

With the growth we've experienced during the pandemic, it can only be sustained if there are the right processes in place. You need to be able to delegate work to move up. Replicable systems need to be established that are not dependent on an individual or personality. Everything has to be documented so new people understand that there is a certain way of doing things in order to be able to scale. And this cannot be done without training and upskilling, so that people can move up personally and professionally, and we can function at an organisation at a higher level.

Platforms

In short: technology. Do we have the right technologies in place to be able to function as a team? How do we manage all the communication tools that our clients use (e.g. Zoom, Slack, Teams, Box, Google Meet, Sharepoint, etc.) and use them efficiently and wisely. It can be very confusing to have so many of these tools and having to toggle between all of them can be a real bother. But the takeaway is that we have to manage the technology and not the other way around. These are a means of communication between people and we cannot lose sight of that. And they're not perfect and they go down quite a bit.

Profit

All the changes due to the pandemic have positively affected our organisation, but we have to mindful about the expenses incurred, whether it's hiring new people, promoting current talent, purchasing new technologies, and scoping work properly. So keeping an eye on profit during a period of fast growth becomes a daily concern as you have to balance many inputs.

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Personal Note

This was my first LinkedIn Live as a guest. It was a positive experience, not only because the subject was relevant to me and I felt like I could speak to it, but also that the event was well produced and moderated by LinkedIn and that I could collaborate with leaders in my field. It also motivated me to write my first LinkedIn article.

Probably the most surprising outcome for me from the LinkedIn Live session was the amount of engagement received during the event. Over 11K people watched the session and from over 90 countries. It touched me to see comments from marketers around the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. To me, that is the digital marketing transformation story of 2022 to be told: what will their contributions be?