A remote-first culture prioritizes remote work and builds a work environment around that model. Building this kind of culture will entail maintaining asynchronous communication, allowing for flexibility of work location, and facilitating virtual connections, all while establishing remote-centric processes and policies. Marketing teams will benefit from this kind of culture with the right approach, shortening project lifecycles while reducing costs.
In this blog, Lina Zehan, Ignite Visibility’s Senior Content Strategist, will look into what building remote-first companies involves, their advantages for marketing teams, and some tools and best practices to develop a healthy remote company culture.
What You’ll Learn:
- Why Remote-First Culture Matters for Marketing Pros
- Pillars of a Remote Company Culture
- Industry-Specific Best Practices
- Leadership and Culture Maintenance
- Tech and Tools Stack
- Overcoming Remote-Specific Challenges
- Measuring Success
- FAQs
Expert Opinion on Remote-First Companies
If you want to excel with your marketing and move your business into the future, it helps to develop a remote-first company. As more companies adopt and reinforce a remote company culture, the benefits of this kind of work model are becoming increasingly obvious.
The pandemic in 2020 was one of the driving forces of the move to a remote-first workplace for many businesses across a range of industries. Not only are workers discovering the conveniences and advantages of working from home, but a growing number of businesses are also realizing the positive impact of a remote-first culture.
For instance, recent studies are finding that 29% of fully remote workers are more consistently engaged, while 20% of on-site employees exhibit the same level of engagement. Management teams are also backing the advantages of remote work, with one study concluding that 78% of managers find their remote teams to be exceeding their performance goals.
Remote teams are ultimately capable of helping businesses flourish, but the key is to take the right approach to developing this kind of culture.
Let’s look into how to develop a remote culture that really works for you.
Why It Matters for Marketing Pros
Marketing professionals across industries will benefit from nurturing a remote-first work environment in the following key ways:
Faster Content Cycles
Remote-first companies often benefit from shorter content strategy cycles. One way this occurs is through effective asynchronous communication that enables teams to collaborate on, develop, and deliver content with more efficiency. Teams can also make decisions more independently without the need for delayed approval, and experts from around the globe can work together across time zones, with one picking up where another leaves off, to see to it that projects adhere to their timeline.
Global Talent Access
A remote-first company can also gain access to some of the most experienced and knowledgeable employees from all over the world. These workers can provide a wide range of perspectives to enhance content, offer localized insights, and lend specialized expertise that may not be readily available in a single location.
Increased Autonomy in Campaign Flow
Remote work also allows for more autonomy across campaigns, with employees able to take more ownership of their work, especially when they have a good sense of trust and empowerment. More autonomy leads to streamlined processes that contribute to overall shorter marketing campaign timelines.
Pillars of a Remote Company Culture
There are multiple foundational elements that go into building company culture remotely. Here, we’ll go into these pillars, including the challenges around them, best practices, marketing use cases, and some tools to help.
Async Communications and Documents
How can a global team work from home without organized communications? Asynchronous communications and documentation are critical for managing teams at every point.
You can facilitate this communication by being consistently clear and concise with communications, setting realistic expectations for response times, developing a shareable and easy-to-access knowledge base, and coordinating communications based on each employee’s time zone.
Taking the right steps to ensure consistent communication can overcome challenges like delayed decision-making, information overload, and misinterpretations or other miscommunications.
Some marketing use cases for async comms and documentation include communication with leads via email and other messaging platforms, autonomous AI chatbots that provide employees with the resources they need at all times, and company-wide announcements and other coordinated internal communications.
Some tools to help with this include:
- Asana, Monday.com, and other project management tools
- Messaging solutions such as Slack, Twist, and Microsoft Teams
- Loom and other video messaging systems
- Google Drive and Google Workspace for document collaboration
Equity in Visibility
Another aspect to consider is ensuring all of your employees feel seen and heard and like they are a true part of your team.
To enable this, promote open communication channels using tools that are easy to access and encourage employees to participate regularly. Guidelines for communication can also further ensure that all employees remain consistently comfortable when communicating across teams, and you should promote cultural awareness and offer diversity training to develop a truly supportive environment for all employees.
These best practices can overcome challenges like feelings of isolation, crossed boundaries, and an overall lack of visibility among employees.
Employees who feel visible and welcome within your organization will also benefit marketing efforts in a few key ways. For example, you’ll build more trust and authenticity, and employees who feel more visible will be more inclined to advocate for your brand.
Tools to help out here might include:
- Microsoft Teams or other types of communication platforms
- Team events, virtual coffee chats, or another kind of virtual team-building event
- Employee recognition programs and surveys that reward employees for their contributions, while also requesting feedback to ensure they feel valued
Onboarding and Training
Effective employee onboarding and training programs will go a long way in helping you get the most from remote operations.
Some best practices here involve providing pre-training resources, developing videos and other content that’s conducive specifically to remote training, condensing content into bite-sized units for microlearning, and implementing a clear structure for onboarding.
Challenges in this stage could entail accessibility issues and limited personal interaction, along with keeping new hires consistently engaged. However, you may overcome these with regular communication and a highly engaging onboarding and training process that moves new hires along.
Streamlined onboarding can help make sure employees have a good understanding of marketing practices and tools.
Plenty of solutions could help with onboarding and training, such as:
- Project management platforms like Trello can help organize programs
- Innform, which offers an onboarding solution that’s ideal for hybrid work environments
- ClearCompany, WorkBright, and other remote onboarding checklist software
- Video conferencing tools
- Lessonly and other learning management systems
Mental Well-being
Employees must benefit from an environment that’s good for their mental health and not overwhelming for them.
To maintain employees’ mental well-being, you should conduct regular check-ins with employees and allow them to communicate their feelings freely. Also, help employees effectively manage their workload with realistic goals, and promote a healthy work-life balance, along with breaks.
These measures can overcome challenges like feelings of isolation, digital fatigue, stress, burnout, and a sense of a lack of support.
Internal channels could promote mental health awareness and support, with the following tools potentially helping:
- Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that provide employees with access to support and counseling
- Wellness programs involving stress management workshops and mindfulness sessions
- Tools to help with workload management
Team Bonding
When building a remote team, it’s crucial to build a bond between everyone on your teams.
Get to know all of your team members, including their hobbies and interests, and conduct regular check-ins with informal conversations to develop a real relationship. Team-building activities can help with this even more, encouraging a more cohesive connection across all staff.
Regular communications and connectivity will maintain spontaneity, replicate in-person experiences, and prevent isolation among employees.
In marketing, you can highlight the activities implemented to help with bonding.
Communications tools from video conferencing solutions like Zoom and team-building platforms such as virtual escape rooms could allow for effective bonding.
Industry-Specific Best Practices
Let’s look at some examples of remote-first companies that have excelled in developing a remote-first environment:
Ecommerce
One business that has flourished with remote ecommerce has been Shopify, which went “digital by default” in 2020 under CEO Tobi Lütke during the pandemic. Since then, the company has grown to more than 10,000 employees, and in 2020 alone the company saw an 86% increase in revenue from the previous year, earning $2.93 billion.
Agencies
Many marketing agencies can also succeed with a remote-first environment. These companies often have many clients and a large number of remote employees to handle them and their respective projects, developing a work culture that maintains effective communications and coordination using the latest project management platforms and communication tools.
B2B
An example here is Automattic, the company that runs WordPress.com. The company has developed a “Results-Only” work environment that enables employees to work during the times when they’re most likely to get more done, giving them total control over their schedules.
Leadership and Culture Maintenance
In building trust in a remote work environment, it’s important to consistently work to maintain leadership and determine how to improve remote work culture as needed. The goal is to become remote-first as opposed to hybrid through agile leadership.
To learn more about how to maintain leadership and culture in a remote-first environment, download our agile leadership checklist today.
Tech and Tools Stack
Some tools you could use to develop a healthy remote company culture include:
- Slack: This communication tool uses real-time messaging and facilitates organized discussions among teams, with the ability to manage documents as well.
- Loom: Remote-first companies can use this video messaging tool for regular communications and training video development, with the ability to record meetings.
- Notion: Effectively manage projects and develop and maintain critical documentation, such as an in-depth knowledge base.
- Figma: This solution allows design teams to collaborate on both user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) projects, with mockups, wireframes, and many other communication features for remote teams.
Overcoming Remote-Specific Challenges
The following are some of the challenges that remote-first companies may face as they develop:
Isolation
A remote-first workplace could lead certain employees to feel isolated without strong communication. You can overcome this challenge by nurturing connectivity among employees, scheduling virtual and, when possible, in-person meetings to facilitate a dialogue, and engaging in various activities to encourage participation from all employees. Not only will consistent communication and connectivity help prevent isolation, but they can also help with building trust in a remote work environment.
Reduced Spontaneity
Remote-first work can easily eliminate some of that spontaneity seen among in-office workforces, but it doesn’t have to with the right steps. For instance, you could enable employees to freely share ideas, successes, and challenges with open communication. Instant messaging apps can allow employees to instantly communicate with each other and management, and virtual break rooms could create some more spontaneous “water cooler” moments.
Burnout
Keep employees from burning out through specific boundaries that encourage productivity, and assist employees in managing their workloads with realistic schedules and regular breaks. Counseling services and other mental health resources could further help here.
Timezone Friction
Email, messaging apps, project management boards, and other asynchronous communication solutions can ease timezone friction. Also, take steps to plan meetings and communications based on when each team member is available, keeping everyone on the same page.
Campaign Delays
Regular and clear communications can mitigate campaign delays, and you should also make sure timelines don’t come with any unrealistic expectations. Using the right project management tools will also help with comprehensive coordination.
Measuring Success
To determine whether your efforts in building company culture remotely have succeeded, there are multiple metrics you can measure. The specific metrics you track will depend on your goals and may include:
- Retention: Tracking employee retention could tell you how effective your efforts are in mitigating turnover. Keep in mind that remote work tends to see higher retention, with up to a 25% lower turnover rate.
- Campaign Speed: What kind of timeliness and efficiency are you seeing with your strategy? Are teams working swiftly enough to get results on time? Maybe you notice certain costly delays you need to avoid.
- Employee Net Promoter Score (NPS): This metric can help measure employee loyalty and satisfaction based on the likelihood of employees promoting the company as a great place to work. In surveys, you could ask your staff how likely they would be to recommend working with the company on a scale of zero to 10.
Based on the data you collect against your goals through analytics and reporting, you can then determine how to improve remote work culture and develop an even healthier environment for your teams.
FAQs
1. What does ‘remote-first culture’ really mean?
A remote-first company is one that emphasizes a flexible work model that facilitates effective communication and relationships across teams through asynchronous marketing management, with a focus on implementing helpful digital solutions that foster a healthy, functional work environment.
2. How can marketing teams stay connected across time zones?
How can a team work from home all over the world and remain consistently connected? Optimizing for asynchronous communication and organizing synchronous communication with strategic planning can help ensure that everyone is able to communicate effectively and consistently, regardless of their location.
3. What are the measurable benefits of remote-first for marketing?
Building a company culture remotely has multiple measurable benefits for marketing efforts, including increased overall production and efficiency with higher output and eliminated commute, access to a larger talent pool, reduced expenses on office space, and optimized scalability.
4. How often should remote teams meet face-to-face?
A key part of building trust in a remote work environment is connecting all employees together as people, not just employees. Scheduling regular face-to-face meetings, either virtual or in-person, can keep everyone together. The frequency of these meetings will depend on factors like team size, preferences, and project complexity, but quarterly or twice per year are common periods.
5. Which tools supporting async marketing work best?
Remote-first companies can choose from plenty of tools out there to help them manage asynchronous marketing efforts. When a team works from home, some tools that the entire team could use for effective collaboration include project management platforms like Asana and Trello, communication tools such as Loom and Slack, and Notion or other knowledge management tools.
6. How can leaders maintain brand alignment remotely?
Everyone within the company should be on the same page regarding what the brand is all about. When facilitating remote-first work, companies can maintain brand alignment across the company by establishing clear brand guidelines for all employees with accessible documentation and regularly communicating the brand story and values.
How Ignite Visibility Can Help You Build a Remote-First Company Culture
Want help with developing a remote-first culture for your business? The marketing experts at Ignite Visibility have the resources and knowledge to help you get your remote business off the ground. As a company that has established a widespread remote work environment, we can guide you on how to succeed with your company.
When you work with our marketing team, you’ll be able to:
- Implement the best solutions to facilitate efficient and cost-effective remote work
- Develop an asynchronous marketing strategy that works for you
- Manage your entire team to build a healthy work-from-home environment
- Continually monitor and measure the results of your efforts
- And more!
Get in touch with us today to find out what our team is able to do for your brand.
