Marketing Production in the COVID-19 Era: What You Need to Know
Today’s society is one of constant motion. Fast and furious; forward—and suddenly, everything shuts down to protect the most vulnerable populations from a nasty virus in a matter of days, or even hours. It’s a time of navigating uncharted waters, and it’s left many feeling nervous and unsettled in both their home lives and their work lives.
In these uncertain times, many are unsure about how to proceed; with their daily life, with their families, and with their work. The entire globe has been impacted by this virus, and in countries across the world, people are pulling together to fight, prevent, and heal in countless ways. It’s inspiring to see so many working for the greater good, and for the health of their neighbors, but it opens up questions about how work can continue during social distancing and quarantines.
As the coronavirus continues to spread globally, millions of office workers are required by local governments to work-from-home with very little notice. This is causing massive interruptions for organizations without a comprehensive plan in place to access mission critical systems and databases to keep your processes moving forward.
Things are completely up in the air globally, with news reports and health recommendations changing seemingly by the minute. It can feel overwhelming unless one stops to look for the opportunity. Right now is the perfect time for businesses to reevaluate how they operate, and the future they can create during this critical time.
Marketing Production & Working from Home
For many, working from home might feel like getting thrown in the deep end to learn how to swim. It’s a challenging time; finding strategies to be managing and maintaining marketing campaigns and creating content from home.
Questions and problems might arise in this new work-from-home era, no matter the industry. Things like:
- Laptops that can’t process large amounts of data or lack the security and applications of an office computer.
- Connecting to office or remote servers can be slow and clunky, and workers can’t easily access the data they need.
- Employees don’t have all the necessary data to complete work accurately. They need things like images, brand copy, and access to price lists or other vital information, but they don’t have access to it.
- Delay in communication between team members means employees struggle to know where the team is in the course of the workflow, and what still needs to be done.
- Storefront retail establishments are closed, which means data posted to the web may be inaccurate– all while online ordering, curbside pick-up, and home delivery are experiencing rapid growth. How can content correctly reflect inventory?
Issues like these and more are being tackled by workers all across the world right now– it’s a lot to handle all at once, and there’s more and more workflow coordination that must be implemented and maintained.
Moving Forward
Things won’t ever be the same after this pandemic ends –which it will– and that’s good news. Business will take many new key learnings away from this time of social distancing and self-isolation, and adapt and commit to digital transformation, making their operations stronger in the future.
With so much technology available, companies can harness the capabilities available in the digital age to grow the way their employees work and communicate from any location.
There’s no better time than this to implement employee cloud-based access to applications and data, with one enterprise system replacing multiple-point solutions. Multiple systems mean multiple web sessions and potential challenges that could easily be eliminated.
What other changes can be implemented moving forward?
- Companies can develop built-in workflow processes and stage gates so that remote teams know always what tasks are in their jobs folder– from any location. These workflow processes can outline exactly what needs to be done (and by whom) and can include all of the required data. This data needs to be available locally for remote teams to work accurately and efficiently.
- This is the time to create a remote workflow plan that accounts for scenarios like this one. Is critical data replicated in more than one place? Essential members of sales and marketing teams should be able to access all critical marketing assets so that workflows continue without disruptions during and after a pandemic–or any other unforeseen circumstances.
- Companies need bi-directional connections between data and creative marketing content. Uninterrupted access to secure InDesign documents, means DAM systems and PIM systems have never been more critical for a remote workforce.
Comosoft is offering a free workflow assessment throughout the summer of 2020 to help companies ensure their team is always working on the same page. We are a pioneer in multichannel media, which means we can make sure your team is always ready to work from any location in the world.