How To Run a Marketing Team With Hive
Welcome to A Day in The Life where we are showcasing the day-to-day moments of productivity with teams across the world. We’re asking real people how they spend their day in Hive — and what they accomplish because of it.????
The Need-To-Know:
Today: The Head of Brand and Content on a remote, team-oriented marketing team for a SaaS company
Occupation: Head of Brand and Content
Industry: SaaS, Productivity Management
Age: 29
Location: Sarasota, Florida
Hobbies: Trying out the newest makeup, playing tennis and kickball, completing difficult puzzles and drinking coffee ☕️
Pronouns: She/Her
How would you describe your role on your team?
My role is the Head of Brand and Content on a marketing team. My role deals with content, lead generation and paid platforms, which sounds complicated, but is really straightforward: I manage any time we pay for a lead, that’s not from Google Adwords.
What does the marketing team do?
At its most basic, anytime you see or hear about my company — either in the blog, website, or emails in our public-facing persona — the marketing team is involved. The marketing team owns the presentation of the company and how it appears from things like the logo, the website, the overall messaging and our social platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn.
What has been the biggest challenge, productivity-wise, for your team?
We used to be a really small team, and as we’ve grown, I’ve noticed that at least for me, it’s been a challenge to make sure that everyone is on the same page while having time to do deep work while communicating properly and with intention.
What are some of the main goals of your team?
Generating free trials for our product. That’s the number one goal. Our number one job is to get people to try it. The first 40% of the funnel is the marketing team’s job.
What do you use Hive to do personally and how does it help you get your work done overall?
I would say that I’m not the most obvious Hive user in that I use very specific things in a very specific way. A lot of my work involves knowing what other teams in my company are doing. For example, Hive gives me access to all actions, upcoming launches, and a view of other teams’ projects. My use of Hive is truly a collaboration process. I mostly go into other people’s projects when needed, help where I can and try to pull everything together into a cohesive message for marketing purposes. It allows me to get the big picture.
A Day In The Life Using Hive
9:30-11:30 A.M.
In the morning, I usually log into Hive and the first thing I do is check the My Actions tab. It’s like a personal to-do for tasks you’ve assigned yourself, assigned others or that are in specific Projects. I create tasks that I add under no project name in My Actions, just to keep me on track, personally. It keeps them top of mind for me. I check them off as I go throughout the day.
I also check any chat messages that I might have. I would say that the chat function is big for me. It helps me communicate, quickly with my team, in either direct messages or in our group chat. Lastly, I take a look at My Actions under specific projects and prioritize what I need to do for the day.
I also find that I quickly glance at the Calendar Feature in Hive, in the morning, to keep track of any scheduled meetings that I have coming up. I also really enjoy that Hive’s calendar feature notifies me when I have a meeting when the time comes.
12-3 P.M.
By the afternoon, I check back in with My Actions that are assigned both to and by me. If I’ve assigned anything to anyone, I can see how things are going, check-in on things that are overdue or what projects are almost completed. I also check to see if there is anything new I should work on. Because I work so in tandem with other teams, I’m mostly using My Actions because if anyone needs something from me, they’ll directly assign tasks to me there. I can see it all in one place.
And I get notifications when someone tags me in something directly with a need for help. The customizable notifications are really helpful because I receive them both on my phone and on my computer. I never miss anything.
Everyone on my team has different ways they like to work, like using different Project Views — I love using a tool that lets you personalize your workflow. For example, some of my teammates like to use Hive’s Notes feature to share notes with the rest of us, while others may use a different view to organize their work. For example, our Content Editor uses the Calendar view to see what we have coming out daily, weekly and monthly.
Often, most of my meetings are in the morning and early afternoon, so if I have any, I use Hive’s Zoom integration to take those. As a fully remote team, it’s nice to still connect face-to-face with my team and clients. I also love that Hive automatically opens Zoom, from within the tool, when I choose to join the meeting. It saves seconds, but it’s nice to not have to open another window.
3:30-5:30 P.M.:
By this time in the workday, I am starting to finish up things I am working on and prepare for the winddown. This includes circling back on things like answering any questions my team has for me in chat, checking My Actions one last time to see if I need to finish anything up before EOD and checking off any tasks I’ve completed.
I also check the News Feed for any company updates, team onboarding messages or exciting news. This is one of my favorite things to do in Hive! ????
Making a True Impact On a Workday
What would you say are the biggest benefits of using hive overall for you and the team?
I would say the biggest benefit is that I can be efficient on my own, without asking other people constantly for things that I need. If someone tags me in something I can go and directly see it, I can also find all of the relevant information with the search function. It just allows me to get things done faster without having to connect with people on an unnecessary email or a call. I don’t have to keep asking for updates. Like, can you send me this? I can just find a document on the Project homepage and find what I need, directly attached to an Action Card. I could go directly into Google Drive via Hive. I can tag people for whatever I need. It cuts down on communication and is a huge increase in efficiency, in my opinion.
What would happen if you couldn’t use Hive anymore?
I would have a lot of emails. I would have to use some kind of chat, but then it wouldn’t be connected to anything. I would just be like chatting in an empty space. I couldn’t attach cards. I would have to do a lot of screenshotting and screen recordings to explain what I need from other teams. I think things would be a lot less efficient. I would have a lot more one-off conversations that didn’t result in anything. Like hey, can you do this? Can you do that? And then people forget about it.
I’d also probably have to have a lot more meetings. And I like meetings, I like talking to people, but for quick things that could take 10 seconds, I don’t really need to have a meeting.
It’s like that meme. It could have been an email.
It would feel like we couldn’t communicate properly and have things in the right place. I just think it would make work much more difficult and it would make remote work much less enjoyable.
Would you recommend Hive to other teams and if so, why?
Hands down, yes. It’s the easiest collaboration tool for rapidly growing teams and cross-functional ones. It lets you check in on progress across the board, without constantly needing to sync up in meetings, and it truly makes everything more streamlined. It gives you back time, so you can focus on the more important stuff.
