No single person can make a marketing program successful on their own, no matter how talented they are. That’s why it’s crucial to create strong teams, as this is the only way to effectively achieve business goals. When you bring together skilled, high-performing marketers with effective leadership, the outcomes are much better than if individuals work alone.
How are you guiding your team members to exceed their goals and expectations while also engaging them in a way that makes them want to remain with the organization? With a very competitive job market, you want to keep your best performers. If your employees believe they are doing meaningful work that contributes to their growth, they will feel inspired and motivated to stay and reach their potential within your company.
Marketing is such a fast-paced and demanding area that it’s possible for even top talent to get burnt out and feel uninspired. As a marketing leader, it’s your job to make sure your team members are motivated and empowered to perform at their best.
As a marketing executive search firm, we know that at the highest levels, leadership more than marketing strategy is what sets top CMOs apart from their peers. This is true because, at that level, top marketing strategy and thought leadership are a given.
Too often, we often encounter leaders who don’t understand that leadership is a privilege. Having the opportunity to lead, mentor, and help professionals grow is one of the most valuable takeaways leadership provides. However, we also understand leaders face challenges with knowing exactly how to motivate a team and steer them toward success over time.
A Marketing Recruitment Agency’s Most Effective Ways to Motivate Your Team Members
How can you help your team continuously succeed and be productive? How do you push your team to be diverse in thinking and effective in delivering marketing plans in order to create groundbreaking results? While there isn’t a perfect formula, here are a marketing recruitment agency’s top ways to ensure you motivate your team to reach greatness.
Get Your Employees Involved
Employees without a clear set of goals are naturally less productive. Provide each team member with achievable goals and make sure there are measures in place to evaluate their performance. Have an established understanding of what your expectations are and how individual performance impacts end results.
In order to get people to perform and work together as a group at a higher level than individually, you have to ensure everyone is on the same path. Foster the belief that teams achieve more by working together than apart, and ensure that there is a clear understanding of what they need to do to get there.
The more you get your team members involved in the planning of their goals, benchmarks, and strategy to meet those objectives, the more buy-in you’re going to have from them to want to accomplish those goals. The less you engage them in that process, the less enthusiastic they will be.
In addition to getting them proactively involved in the planning of their own success, get your team involved with your company’s growth. Encourage a collaborative workplace for innovation and to think of new ideas that will push marketing initiatives forward. This, in turn, will propel the entire company forward. When they feel that are part of successful results, it inspires them to be more productive. This not only helps your company in the end but inspires them to be more invested in the organization.
Be a Servant Leader
In order to have teams that contribute at their highest potential, leaders must give them the resources and tools necessary to be successful. That’s why servant leadership is a big part of being a great leader.
Servant leaders look to involve others in decision making and relentlessly work to develop their team members to perform as highly as possible. They put the needs of others and the organization first, and exist to serve the people. When leaders adjust their mindset to serve their team, this improves the growth of their employees and results in better performance.
Listen to what your team needs to meet their goals. Show respect and appreciation for their hard work and dedication to contributing to the team. A big part of being an exceptional leader is listening to and recognizing the needs of your team.
Adapt to Different Members
Marketing leaders must enable their team to focus on their strengths and unique skills while holding them accountable for results. In order to do so, being caring and empathetic to each individual is important.
Any marketing recruitment agency knows that managing two different employees isn’t going to be the same. You must be nimble enough to not only adapt to changes happening in the industry, but also to the different members you have on your team.
Leading each individual toward reaching their own unique potential can seem challenging, especially when you’re extremely busy. However, the time you invest in engaging with each member will make them feel valuable and will prove to be rewarding on your end results.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate
You can’t expect your team to work collectively if you don’t foster the importance of communication and practice it yourself. Prioritize being transparent with your team and encourage constant communication. You must lead by example if you want to hold your team up to high expectations.
Communicate business and campaign updates so that all team members are involved and can contribute to future accomplishments. Share your vision for your team and the goals you want to achieve. Every single member should be aware of the brand’s vision and purpose.
Hold team meetings and one on meetings. Meet with everyone on your team so that there is an established, clear line of communication and hold meetings where managers are able to share their projects and work. Make sure that you highlight individual or team accomplishments to celebrate small and big wins.
The frequency of meetings will all depend on your unique needs as a marketing team. You don’t want to have too many or not enough. Create an agenda for your meetings and distribute it to your team well in advance so that you’re not wasting time.
Encourage Self-Development
Great leaders encourage personal and professional growth, and are great mentors. Lifelong learning must be a core value if you want to motivate and inspire your team. You should value individual team member development and be willing to invest in them to help them grow in a way that continuously contributes to the organization’s objectives and their own goals. After all, the more your team learns, the more confident they will be in their work.
Encourage your team members to attend networking events, read professional development books, and watch webinars. Provide your team with the training and resources they need to keep up with the latest marketing trends.
With the opportunities to learn new skills, the members of your team will be more valuable to the growth of your organization, and themselves. Knowing that you, as their leader, supports their growth will inspire your employees to want to enrich their professional development even further.
Conclusion
Being a leader isn’t easy – especially in the fast-paced world of marketing – but it’s worth it. You want to achieve excellence, not mediocrity – and motivation is an incredibly strong force that drives employees forward. Invest in your team members and continuously work to inspire them to be the best that they can be.
You must lead by example if you truly want to be a model leader, and show them that you want to help them grow personally. By understanding the people on your team and helping them get to where they want, you will see your company move forward in the right direction.