TEAM STRUCTURE & OUTSOURCING “OUR CONTENT MARKETING TEAM WAS BUILT DURING THE “Less content marketing and social media management was being produced/ PANDEMIC AND GREW FROM ONE TO THREE PEOPLE — ALL FULL- maintained due to a reduction in staff and working hours per week.” TIME REMOTE, EVEN AFTER ‘RETURN TO OFFICE.’” “The pandemic hit our marketing team resources (furlough, leaves, etc.) and “We work in the clinical trial space, so we were extremely busy with a VERY put new hires on ice.” small team. We had new products that we developed and promoted in response to the pandemic that were not on our roadmap. We were also in “Our executive team did not approve most marketing efforts. It seemed like the middle of redoing our website and suddenly had to pivot and add a lot we were pushing for sales during a terrible time. All budget was pulled for more information that was not originally planned/budgeted for. The shift to activities. The ones that remained brought minimal effort and low results. virtual events/tradeshow was also a very big lift for us.” This was against my professional recommendation to continue marketing to keep leads coming in.” “Our company increased its respect for our messaging strategy and content marketing efforts, though it also demanded more from our small Others took on more work team. I had to take a seat at more tables and collaborate more across the In some verticals, companies saw business increase: company to put together the most valuable content possible.” “We support data centers and edge computing. The increase in work “Our content marketing team was built during the pandemic and grew from from home and data use led to a booming market with many different one to three people — all full-time remote, even after ‘return to office.’” technologies. Our company is investing in more R&D and creating new products in adjacent markets. This means our content team has had to Some faced staff reductions understand new technologies, find new SMEs, and understand new target But it wasn’t all rosy. Others lamented the reduction in staff: personas. There was no Netflix bingeing for us. We have been running since March 13, 2020 and will be running for a while.” “Our budget was significantly reduced overall and remains that way. We also had to lay off employees, so we don’t have the time to develop a full-blown strategy.” continued on next page 13