Collaborating with a remote team comes with its challenges. From ensuring you’re giving and receiving effective feedback to using the right tools for your team. Here are 7 responses from industry experts on “how to collaborate on email campaigns with a remote team.”
Make Sure All Team Members Get the Test Send
“As you're working on an email campaign with your team, you're certainly going to push “test sends” before the campaign goes live. Make sure everyone on the team gets a copy of this test. Regardless of in-office, remote or hybrid status put the whole team on the test distribution list. They'll all have insights and perspectives that’ll make sure the finishing touches are taken care of before the email goes out to a larger audience.”Logan Mallory, Vice President of Marketing, Motivosity
When getting feedback from multiple team members, clear expectations must be outlined for each member to avoid vagueness. Here are our top tips on how to give helpful feedback.
Use Online Word Processors
"Nearly 44% of employees working remotely complain about clunky communication between colleagues. Poor communication doesn’t only slow down the time it takes to complete projects, it also impacts quality. Delayed responses force other team members to rush their responsibilities in hopes to meet what should have been reasonable deadlines.We've worked around this remote work caveat by using live word processors, like Google Docs, to create and collaborate on our email campaigns and copywriting projects. These tools allow writers to share their work and receive feedback in real-time. Editors can make direct changes to campaign documents without going back and forth with the original document owners. In this way, we've managed to streamline our campaign workflows despite the major transition to a remote workplace. You’ll be saying “goodbye” to delayed deliverables!”Brian Nagele, CEO, Restaurant Clicks
Brian Nagele hit it out of the park with this tip! Making communication a smoother, more efficient process was a huge goal for us here at BEE. Read about our latest efforts in this blog.
Schedule Consistent Check-Ins
"Working in a remote or hybrid environment can be tough when it comes to making sure everyone on the team is on the same page. One great tip for collaboration when developing emails and newsletters is to schedule consistent check-ins with colleagues. Having regular meetings, even if they’re just ten minutes long, can make a world of difference.This way, you'll be able to provide progress updates and troubleshoot any issues efficiently, all while promoting constructive collaboration between team members. It sounds like a no-brainer, but scheduling these check-ins will make sure everyone is always in the loop and working together as one cohesive unit."Travis Lindemoen, Managing Director, nexus IT group
Invest in Communication Technology
"Technology is key for remote collaboration. At Relay, we use Slack to work collaboratively on projects from software development notes to our company newsletter. With all of our employees working remotely, this provides us a way to share ideas and design documents.We frequently use specially designated Slack channels for specific projects. We can hold video meetings and share screens. It also includes integration with apps like Google Drive, which enables us to ensure version control when working on documents. We’ve found this to be more convenient and effective than traditional methods."Chandler Rogers, CEO, Relay App
Create Transparent Guidelines
"One important factor in effective collaboration is setting clear guidelines upfront. This includes agreeing on what the newsletter will look like, what topics it’ll cover, who will be responsible for writing and editing what content, and how it’ll be formatted.It's also important to establish communication protocols, such as how often everyone should check in on progress and whether there will be regular team meetings or conference calls. By taking the time to establish these ground rules upfront, you'll save yourself (and your team) a lot of headaches down the road."Kate Wojewoda-Celinska, Marketing Manager, Spacelift
Record Video Messages
“One tip we find super helpful for improving the remote design process at our email marketing agency is encouraging team members to make use of Loom videos to provide feedback for each other or to ask detailed and complex questions. Loom is great because it allows the creation of quick screen-share videos which are easily shared on any channel.This lets our team get a message across much more quickly than going back and forth in a chat or messaging platform and is more convenient than always setting up Zoom calls which can get off-topic fairly easily. We've found Loom to be the best way to share detailed thoughts and feedback on emails, newsletters, and other design tasks on the eCommerce projects we're working on."Ryan Turner, Founder, Ecommerce Intelligence
Automate the Process
"Asana is my favorite tool for ensuring everyone is on the same page during newsletter production. We publish a monthly email newsletter and work remotely. Asana keeps us on track and informed without redundant emails and meetings.The best thing we did was to build roles, responsibilities and best practices for using Asana. Sometimes we'll forget and still email something, but we've all promised to kindly remind each other to “put it in Asana!”Alison Meyer, Chief content marketing writer, Indigo Communications
You’re invited to: “How to easily collaborate across departments to achieve high-performing email campaigns,” A BEE Webinar
We’re kicking off our first webinar, talking about our favorite subject: collaboration. In our latest blog, we discussed our efforts to make collaboration more efficient, effective, and easier in 2022. Now, we want to show you.Join us on January 25th, 2023, at 10 AM PST to learn how to communicate and collaborate as a remote team easily. Register here.We hope to see you there!
