What You Need To Know To Supercharge Your Creative Workflow

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What You Need To Know To Supercharge Your Creative Workflow

Table of Contents

The State Of Enterprise Creative And Marketing Teams

The Future Of Your Workflow

Creative Workflow In 2016 And Beyond

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Supercharge Your Creative Workflow |

1Supercharge Your Creative Workflow | 1

The State Of Enterprise

Creative And

Marketing Teams

Whether you’re running a small agency or working at

a global brand, it’s both an exciting and challenging

time to be a member of a marketing or creative team.

The ground beneath your feet is shifting quickly.

Are you ready for the changes that are in store?

Supercharge Your Creative Workflow | Supercharge Your Creative Workflow |

What it looks like to

be part of a successful

marketing or creative

team in 2016

3

Supercharge Your Creative Workflow | 5

WHO YOU ARE

You're running

the show.

Almost 30% of the global marketing executives

surveyed by the Society of Digital Agencies report

that they kept all projects in-house and didn’t

rely on any outside agencies for digital marketing

support in 2015.1


WHO YOU ARE

A 2013 survey of 450 leaders of in-house creative

teams found that 31% of teams had 11 or more

members.2 By 2015, that number had jumped

to 42%.3

Your team is expanding.

7


WHO YOU ARE

You're working on

diverse projects.

According to a survey of marketers conducted by

the National Association of Advertisers, among the

most common responsibilities of marketing teams

are creating promotional materials for digital media

(91%), email marketing (77%), trade show and event

materials (73%) and direct mail (72%).4

9


WHO YOU ARE

You're juggling

more than ever.

Research finds that approximately 50% of creative

teams with 11 or more people manage over 2000

projects annually.5 Only 56% of teams use a project

management system, but 83% claim to have at least

some process documentation in place.


What's changing?

What do those 56% of teams that rely on a work

management system know that colleagues who

are working ad-hoc don’t? They’ve recognized

the key challenges that the new working reality

for creative and marketing teams represents.

13


WHAT'S CHANGING?

Over 37% of American workers participate in some

degree of telecommuting as part of their jobs.6

As teams become more geographically distributed,

the complexity of managing collaborative projects

that span time zones or even countries continues

to grow.

Remote work is

on the rise.

15


WHAT'S CHANGING?

Mobile technology means that project work can

happen anywhere at any time. The need to reduce

friction to facilitate this type of work approach while

managing and coordinating resources is an emerging

pressure teams are facing.

Work is no longer

restricted to 9-5/M-F.

17

WHAT'S CHANGING?

Client expectations

are growing.

Living in an always-on world means that internal

and external clients expect real-time project

updates and the ability to provide input when and

how they want.



WHAT'S CHANGING?

Data drives corporate

decision-making.

Being able to capture and analyze relevant project

data (time spent, costs, productivity metrics) in real

time in order to identify efficiencies and/or course

correct is top of mind for leading creative and

marketing teams.

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2Supercharge Your Creative Workflow |

The Future Of

Your Workflow

Creative and marketing teams are busy and getting

busier. Their diverse mix of projects and growing

team sizes coupled with the changing nature of their

work context calls for a simple, streamlined workflow

automation approach. As we’ve noted, however,

almost half of teams don’t have one in place.

We think that’s poised to change. Here’s why.

23


FUTURE OF WORKFLOW

You're in control.

With increased marketing spending and reliance

on cloud computing and data-driven decision-

making becoming the new normal, teams are in the

driver’s seat when it comes to choosing the solution

that fits their needs. More than ever, vendors are

working hard to get their products in front of

potential customers and compete for their tech

investment.

25


FUTURE OF WORKFLOW

Martech is a huge

market.

Almost two-thirds of in-house creative teams say

software tops their list of non-personnel expenses,

so it should come as no surprise that workflow

automation software is a big business.7 It’s currently

forecasted to be a $5B market by 2019 and forms

a significant chunk of the almost $32B marketing

technology market.8 That means more vendors,

more products and more information to sift through

in order to determine how to allocate your martech

investment.

27


FUTURE OF WORKFLOW

500 US IT and business execs surveyed about their

use of workflow automation software identified

a few key pain points driving their investment.9

Topping the list was a desire to eliminate bottlenecks

that were slowing down work (48%), followed by a

need to reduce duplication of work (46%), improve

communications (39%) and manage documents and

assets more easily (33%).

What do teams want in

a workflow solution?

29


FUTURE OF WORKFLOW

How do teams decide

what to invest in?

31

Industry research shows that peer recommendations

(66%) held the most influence over martech

purchase decisions, followed by online reviews

(44%) and analyst reports (33%).10 Word of mouth will

continue to grow in importance as a way to parse

the increasingly crowded market of workflow tools

available to creative and marketing teams.


3Supercharge Your Creative Workflow |

Creative Workflow

In 2016 And Beyond

Given current realities for creative and marketing

teams and the drivers of investment in workflow

automation, what factors will shape how teams work

and the type of workflow solution they need in 2016

and beyond?

33


2016 AND BEYOND

The digital world is awash in shared content and the

rate of content production shows no signs of slowing.11

The Content Marketing Institute recently found that

76% of B2B marketers are planning to create more

content this year than they did in 2015.12 In other

research, the CMO Council found that while two-

thirds of the marketing leaders they surveyed in 2015

felt visual assets were vital to the content they create

and share, less than a third had a process in place

to manage these assets across their department or

between departments.13 As content production and

consumption grows, formal Digital Asset Management

will no longer be optional for teams that want to stoke

their content creation engine efficiently.

DAM(n)ed if you don't.

35

2016 AND BEYOND

CMOs will outspend CIOs by 2017, with their

investment in tech rising to $120B over the next

decade according to Gartner and Foundation Capital.14

In addition to spending on inbound and outbound

marketing tech, marketing teams will also be turning

an eye to optimizing internal processes via strategic

investments in project management solutions to

consolidate and coordinate their workflows. The

decision about what tech to use has traditionally

resided with IT, but we’ll see a continued shift to

creative and marketing teams as the controllers of their

own destiny. With this newfound power will come the

responsibility to deeply understand their own workflow

needs and diligently vet potential workflow solutions.

Marketing teams will

have deeper pockets.



2016 AND BEYOND

According to Gartner research, companies will spend

almost $150B globally on enterprise applications this

year, with much of it going to cloud-based software.15

By 2020, Gartner predicts 60% of companies will rely

on cloud-based office systems to manage various

functions within their business.

In the shorter term, the growth of cloud-based

computing and the establishment of cloud-based

services such as Dropbox, Adobe Creative Cloud and

Slack as business must-haves means a robust list of

integrations will be high on the shopping list of teams

looking to invest in workflow automation solutions.

Integration is integral.

39


2016 AND BEYOND

41

The marketing technology marketplace has been

doubling year-over-year.16 With so many new

vendors entering the market, the value of peer

recommendations and word of mouth as a means

of identifying the best workflow automation

solution for your needs will become increasingly

important to cut through the noise. The caveat

being that before you can meet these needs, you

have to understand what they are. Savvy teams will

be judicious in their reliance on word of mouth.

Peer reviews help to narrow the field of vendor

options, but playing follow the leader isn’t the smart

way to make a definitive purchase decision.

Word of mouth matters

more than ever.


2016 AND BEYOND

Being present doesn’t mean being productive.

Atlassian reports that when pointless meetings,

meandering email threads and personal distractions

are taken out of the equation, 60% or less of the time

we spend at work is actually allocated to productive

tasks.17 As companies experiment with flexible work

arrangements, teleworking, unlimited vacation days

and other perks to spur productivity, they’ll also

increasingly be relying on data-driven insights to help

them do more with less. Look for forward-thinking

teams to start focusing intently on collecting,

analyzing and optimizing measurable metrics of

productivity and expecting their workflow solutions

to deliver this functionality.

Productivity goes under

the microscope.

43


2016 AND BEYOND

All of these trends have a common theme. They call

for or depend on the empowerment of marketing

and creative teams as drivers of investment, process

improvement and increased productivity. As these

teams gain prominence within organizations and see

their scope of work expand, their need for education

and critical analysis of their workflows increases.

Successful creative and marketing teams in 2016 and

beyond won’t necessarily be working harder, but

they’ll definitely be working much smarter.

Empowerment is the

name of the game.

45

1. http://www.slideshare.net/sodaspeaks/the-soda-report-

volume-1-2015

2. http://www.creativeindustryreport.com/2014_InHouse_CS_

Ind_Report_final.pdf

3. http://www.creativeindustryreport.com/2015-IHCSIR-Report-

web.pdf

4. https://www.ana.net/content/show/id/26957

5. http://www.creativeindustryreport.com/2014_InHouse_CS_

Ind_Report_final.pdf

6. http://www.gallup.com/poll/184649/telecommuting-work-

climbs.aspx

7. http://www.creativeindustryreport.com/2015-IHCSIR-Report-

web.pdf

8. http://www.marketsandmarkets.com/PressReleases/

workflow-management-system.asp

9. http://www.slideshare.net/comptia/comp-tia-market-

research-on-business-process-automation

SOURCES

10. http://www.walkersands.com/images/files/file/Whitepaper-

PDFs/Walker%20Sands%27%20State%20of%20Marketing%20

Technology%202016%20Understanding%20the%20New%20

Martech%20Buyer%20Journey!5.pdf

11. https://www.domo.com/blog/2015/08/data-never-sleeps-3-0/

12. http://www.slideshare.net/CMI/b2b-content-marketing-2016-

benchmarks-budgets-and-trends-north-america?ref=http://

contentmarketinginstitute.com/2015/09/b2b-content-marketing-

research/

13. http://www.cmocouncil.org/press-detail.php?id=5084

14. https://foundationcapital.com/assets/whitepapers/DotCMO_

whitepaper.pdf

15. http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/08/27/enterprise-upgrades-

behind-software-spending-growth-gartner/

16. http://marketingland.com/infographic-2015-marketing-

technology-landscape-113956

17. https://www.atlassian.com/time-wasting-at-work-infographic


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