In the fast-paced world of Marketing Production, staying ahead means tackling new challenges head-on. From responding to industry trends at lightning speed to managing content volume and maintaining creativity, in-house teams face a multitude of obstacles. This article dives into the top challenges and offers practical solutions to keep your team agile, innovative, and ready to conquer the marketing landscape.
1. Quick Response to Industry Trends
Trends, trends, trends… marketing today is about understanding the consumer, not the algorithm. If your team isn’t focusing on what consumers are interested in, you’re in trouble! Dedicate 10% of your internal creative team’s time to researching what’s trending in your industry. This allows you to know what to jump on and how to do it.
In regulated industries, getting quick turnarounds can be challenging. Build relationships across departments and create a crash team with a Creative Director, content creator, social strategist, legal advisor, and producer. Rotate weekly, and keep this team on standby to jump on trends. You might not always hit the mark, but you’ll learn and adapt.
2. Managing the Volume of Content
The secret sauce: process, education, and martech! Early in my career, Gary Raucher introduced me to “The Briefing Train” at Philips. This systemized briefing process helps you manage content creation efficiently:
Week 1: All briefs must be in by 17:00.
Week 2: Briefs are reviewed and queried.
Week 3: Briefs are signed off and planning begins.
Week 4: Creative teams are briefed.
This process protects creative teams, allowing them to focus on creativity instead of administrative tasks. Initially, teams might push back, but educate them on the benefits and stand firm. Finance teams will love it because it helps with budget forecasting and resource utilization.
The right martech stack, from project planning tools like Monday to collaborative design tools like Figma, can speed up processes. Automate lower-funnel tasks to free up creative minds for innovative work.
3. Planning for Content Spikes
Prior Proper Planning Prevents Poor Performance. Always having the following 12 months planned/forecasted. Your finance team might call this 3+9 or 6+6 (6+6 means that at the end of Q2 you still have the rest of the year planned but also a topline plan for the 6 months after that) this also ensures that you don’t get stuck in Nov, Dec waiting on the budgets getting approved in Jan. Creative Ops should work closely with Marketing Ops, aligning with the marketing and product launch calendar. Include off-shore and agency partners in the process to forecast resources better.
4. Maintaining Creativity
Ensure your creative teams have the room to be creative. Meetings can consume 30-40% of their time. At N26, we adopted a bookended process for the week:
Monday Morning: Creative Warm-up (60 mins) – A team member presents an inspirational/creative insight session. Then, the creative ops team briefs the week ahead.
Friday Afternoon: Creative Cooldown (60 mins) – Teams present their work, share results, and trends, and end with a fun game.
This process keeps the creative juices flowing and aligns teams across the board.
5. Have Fun!
While our work is important, we’re not saving lives. If feedback isn’t great and things need reworking, that’s okay. Learn, adapt, and move on. And remember, have some fun along the way!
