A new Airtable ebook for marketing leaders
With greater scrutiny, changing pressures, and an uncertain economy, the notion of "normal" in marketing remains a distant memory. But instead of resisting the relentless pace of change, marketing leaders have an opportunity to adapt the way their teams work to be more efficient and effective—even with fewer resources.
“Certainly, we don’t suggest that your people work harder. What you need is to get your teams to work more efficiently.” — Adam Broitman, partner at McKinsey.
To help marketing leaders rise to the challenge, Airtable created Cost-effective strategies for agile marketing. This ebook features expert insight and commentary from Adam Broitman, a partner at McKinsey and an authority in digital marketing operations and technology. And it includes tactical takeaways from Airtable customers such as TOMS footwear, Code & Theory, and SHI.
In this ebook, you’ll find solutions to three common problems:
1. The data problem: You can’t access and action information
When marketing information (projects, timelines, budgets, resourcing, goals, performance metrics, etc) is stored in different locations, teams can’t find the information they need to make decisions quickly. Research from Forrester found that data silos sap 2.4 hours from employees’ workdays, as the team wastes time searching for information and parsing duplicated data.
Download the ebook to see how to eliminate blindspots in critical data, and challenge your team to unlock data-driven decision making with a framework like Agile.
2. The tool problem: Your martech is complicated, rigid, and pricey
If you’re facing tighter budgets and steeper goals, it’s natural to question the number tools your team is using—and why. The Forrester research found that, on average, enterprise companies have 367 tools scattered across the org. But tool consolidation comes with its own considerations. Moving to the wrong platform risks trapping data, deepening silos, and pulling the team in disparate directions.
In our ebook, you’ll read how leading enterprise customers streamline their martech stacks by adopting flexible, connected tools—and by culling rigid tools that exacerbate silos.
3. The workflow problem: Teamwork is full of friction
Workflow friction is found in the unanswered questions, the uncertain ownership, and the missed notifications that delay every deadline. That friction increases the amount of time, money, and resources that go into every marketing activity, and is the reason only one in five marketing teams meet their deadlines consistently.
Friction leads to:
- Lost revenue: 31% of business leaders said they saw revenue decrease as a direct result of organizational silos, inaccurate data, and broken work processes. (source)
- Risk of mistakes: 46% of business leaders say poor business processes increase the risk of manual errors. (source)
- Time sucked into meetings and non-core work: On average, marketing leaders spend 10 hours a week on non-core work (defined as: administrative work and meetings that don't directly contribute to deliverables and goals) and this increases to 12 hours per week at companies with more than 5,000 employees. (source)
On page 17 of the ebook, Adam Broitman, partner at McKinsey, outlines ways to solve workflow friction by centralizing (and assigning ownership of) workflow design. The most exciting insights in this section urge you to embrace AI and augment automations using tools like ChatGPT.
“I don't think that humans will ever lose their value in the face of AI and advanced automation,” Adam said. “I think the roles simply need to change. And the way in which humans and machines work together just changes the jobs to be done for humans.”
You will find a similar call to change throughout this book, with examples and inspiration from fellow marketing leaders who’ve risen to the challenge, shed bad habits, and adopted a new model of working. It’s time to reimagine “doing more with less” and, instead, do things differently. That’s when magic happens.
Download the ebook here.