Many companies ask teams to make do with a lower budget during economic downturns. Unfortunately, this often comes with the expectation of maintaining current growth projections, forcing marketing teams to buckle down and figure out ways to increase leads and revenue with fewer resources. Cultivating new growth opportunities when your team is already struggling to maintain current day-to-day tasks can be daunting and adding more hours to overcome constrained resources has diminishing returns.  

According to a study performed by Stanford University, economic professor John Pencavel found that “productivity per hour declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a week. After 55, productivity drops so much that putting in more hours would be pointless.” Throwing more hours towards finding innovative solutions to grow your audience could not only be a detriment to your team but also be economically ineffective.

In this article, we’ll address common challenges marketing teams struggle with when trying to find new, exciting ways to grow their audience, and how they can utilize technology and external help to transform your current program weaknesses into strengths. 

Address Your Marketing Program’s Gaps 

To begin doing more with less, marketing teams must analyze what processes are limiting their growth potential. That could be anything from not having enough team members to start prioritizing strategic objectives to having difficulties gaining insights from data.  

According to Salesforce’s 2022 State of Marketing report, some of the top challenges faced by marketers are: 

1. Ineffective use of tools and technologies 

2. Measuring marketing ROI/attribution 

3. Balancing personalization with customer comfort levels 

4. Building/retaining trust with customers 

5. Resistance to new marketing strategies/tactics 

Whether these are your top challenges, or you have any additional challenges that are hindering growth, it’s critical to examine the following questions to determine how to bridge your marketing program's gaps: 

1. What areas, if addressed, would have the largest impact on ROI? 

2. What skills or expertise does your team lack?  

3. How much time would it require to train the team to gain those skills? 

4. What gaps does your current marketing tech stack have that are preventing your team from solving your top challenges?  

You may discover that some of your challenges could be solved by maximizing your investment in your existing tools. Only half of marketers underutilize their MarTech stack, so there are possibly tools within your existing technology suite that you may have missed that could help you exceed customer expectations and achieve your strategic objectives.  

In our eBook, A Marketer’s Guide to Maximizing the Value of Your MarTech Stack, we discuss how marketers can begin to fully utilize your MarTech stack to fulfill your strategy, automate manual, day-to-day tasks, and enable deeper, personalized experiences that will keep their customers coming back for your brands, products, and services. Check it out to get best-in-class tips on how to design your MarTech stack to better work for your team and towards your objectives. 

Assess What Your Team Can Realistically Manage

There are only 40 hours in a standard work week, so time is limited. Everyone has competing priorities, which could get in the way of finding innovative ways to grow your marketing program, so you need to analyze your largest roadblocks and plan accordingly. If your team is not strong in all the focus areas you need to grow the business, or if you simply have too many projects to manage, it may be time to consider reaching out to external partners. They can help you audit your current marketing efforts and tech stack to figure out what marketing efforts would have the largest impact on ROI.  

Benefits of Bringing in a Partner to Address Marketing Gaps 

If your team is strapped for time, bringing in a flexible marketing partner may be the most economical choice to grow your marketing program with constrained resources. 

A great marketing partner: 

1. Is aware of current trends and how other businesses leverage technology. They have experience implementing best-in-class marketing strategies and operations. You can trust that they will provide objective solutions to your toughest problems.  

2. Can help you solve your greatest challenges quickly. There’s no waiting for responses to a job post, interviewing, hiring, and training an employee. Great partners have the knowledge necessary to embrace your unique needs, dive deep into your processes, and create innovative solutions that take your marketing operations to the next level.  

3. Is experienced at aligning key decision-makers. They’ve had success with convincing key decision-makers of the value of changing processes and technologies. They can help you form a strategic roadmap that details what actions will make the biggest impact or take the least amount of effort regarding your overall goals. 

4. Teaches as you go. Great partners don’t just set up complex automations, they teach your team how to maintain and update them, so your team can replicate these workflows in the future. 

Whether you are looking to build an omnichannel marketing strategy, enhance your eCommerce experience, or craft a content strategy on a limited budget, Lev can help you get the most out of your marketing investments and deliver not only what you ask, but also what you need.  

Our team, with a winning combination of next-level marketing strategies and deep technical expertise, can help you connect with your customers at the right place and time by continuously evolving and optimizing your marketing operations and strategies across channels. 

Check out how we’ve helped many clients re-evaluate their marketing strategy and ensure their systems and processes enabled them to pivot quickly. By partnering with us, you can remain confident that you have the capabilities needed to expand your audience with messaging that resonates at the right place and time.