When you look across your team and organization, chances are that you have assembled a team of people who are experts in their craft. That combination of team members may be backed by expert agency partners and resources to help you improve the creativity, speed, and efficacy of your program. But are these brilliant people all operating in isolation? When targets and KPIs are often compartmentalized by function, how can you unite your team members to a singular objective that moves your business?
For the sake of clarity, we’ll take this challenge on at the campaign level. Yes, it’s so much bigger than that. Yes, it starts at the top and in your organizational structure, leadership, and establishing a culture of trust. But looking at it from this lens, you’ll see how it can expand into your overall approach.
Ensuring effective cross-functional collaboration
Here are 6 things that you can do as a leader to help break the silos and build a cross-functional team for your next campaign.
Establish a clear campaign lead
Define leadership, ownership, and accountability by appointing a dedicated campaign lead, distinct from project management support. It’s important that you choose someone with a holistic perspective, strong relational skills and influence to galvanize your team and drive the campaign’s vision forward. This person may live within a particular functional expertise, but you see the qualities in them that make them a strong fit to lead the campaign.
Bring all the experts to the table
Yes, that’s right, bring them all together. It’s important that you engage stakeholders across critical functions from the onset of your campaign to align on goals, vision, and timelines. An example mix of expertise could include leads from brand, external comms, corporate marketing, social, product marketing, growth marketing, and analytics. Consider forming a core team that is supplemented by consultants for expertise, ensuring strong, balanced representation without overwhelming meetings with too large a room.
NOTE: If you work in technology, consider incorporating deep expertise from engineering or tech evangelists who can ensure your core team is well-versed in the product or offering being supported. This will pay dividends in ensuring message clarity and breakthrough.
Define KPIs up front. Measure and optimize throughout
If there is one thing you must do well early on, it is to set clear targets and KPIs. You cannot know you were successful unless you set a clear expectation of what success looks like. What’s even better, is that these clearly defined KPIs allow you to measure, learn, and optimize throughout the life cycle of your campaign. Grab your expert, engage your integrated agency partner, and set those KPIs. We have some stellar performance and analytics experts who can also help you with that.
Develop a comprehensive timeline
Work with project leads and relevant teams to create realistic timelines, incorporating input from in-house, agency, and vendor partners. Ensure clarity and accountability. Do your part by honoring those timelines with timely reviews and adapted resources as needed. Everyone works better when the expectations and timing are both clear and realistic.
Simplify for impact
Especially when you are faced with a short timeline or limited resources, it’s important that you prioritize the aspects of the campaign that will drive the best results. Choose what’s most important to reach your goals and execute those things with precision and excellence, without the distraction of unnecessary complexity.
Embrace and acknowledge change
Change is constant in our industry. It’s important that we not only embrace that, but we acknowledge it as it happens during the campaign planning or execution process. Share the rationale behind changes and potential impact on outcomes. This fosters transparency, collaboration, and buy-in across your integrated team.
As you prepare for your next integrated campaign, know that breaking the silos may be challenging, but it is possible. Embrace the discomfort that comes with behavioral change, knowing that the benefits far outweigh those initial hurdles. Our integrated consultants at TEAM LEWIS are ready to support you on your journey to a more cross-functional, collaborative approach, leveraging our expertise across the full marketing and communications ecosystem. Let’s do this. The results will be worth it.
Want to boost your cross-functional collaboration efforts? Reach out to our team of experts today.
