It’s no secret that the way we work has completely changed. Although remote work has been a reality for well over a decade, in light of today’s current climate, more and more people work remotely than ever before.
However, despite the concerns, risks, and worries shared by many traditional executives and leaders, remote work is… well… working.
In fact, a recent survey from the National Bureau of Economic Research shows that the remote workforce has nearly quadrupled to include 50 percent of U.S. workers. The truth is that remote work has opened up the door to a world of career possibilities. It creates jobs, sparks new business growth, and even shifts roles that drive more value to the organization and customer base.
The rise of the marketing technologist
Before we get too deep into this article, let’s first explain what the role of the marketing technologist is, and why it’s more important than ever in teamlancing models today.
According to an article published by the Harvard Business Review, marketing is quickly becoming a top technology-dependent business function. This means that technology and digital transformation are huge parts of this role.
A marketing technologist is also known as CMT, and wears many “hats,” which includes the following:
- Marketing strategist
- Technology leader
- Change agent
- Creative director
- A liaison between marketing and IT
The marketing technologist’s goal is to align marketing technology with overarching, high-level business goals, set the marketing vision, and also assist in developing new digital business models to accelerate the company’s competitive advantage.
This role also involves working with other departments and team members for content creation, pinpointing the right target audiences, and accurately tracking and analyzing crucial data related to KPIs, metrics, and high-level OKRs.
The rise of teamlancing
So, what is teamlancing? A teamlancing model is one that involves recruiting, allocating, and collaborating with a team of freelancers, each with their own individual skillset, specialty, and experience level to work on and deliver a project.
There are two ways to approach building a teamlancing model:
- Individuals. Individual freelancers can work with a pool of different networked teams or freelancers, serving a different role in each, for any number of clients. In this approach, individuals “pitch” themselves as an individual expert. Individuals can also source various freelancers themselves to work on a project.
- Teams. A team of freelancers can “pitch” their combined skillset and experience to clients, offering a varied skillset. This allows clients to maximize a team of specialized creative resources that are the right fit for the project.
Here are some primary benefits of teamlancing:
- Pulls together varied roles, specialties, and skillsets
- Builds comprehensive martech stack
- Involves creative collaboration with others to work on a project or toward an overarching goal.
Teamlancing goes far beyond simply filling a role or tasks and executing on it; it allows individuals to contribute creatively and collaborate with others in multiple, cross-functional disciplines — and remote work brings this all together to make it possible.
5 ways remote work facilitates teamlancing
So what does the marketing technologist role have to do with remote work? How does remote work facilitate and necessitate teamlancing models? Let’s put the two together.
As mentioned briefly above, the shift to remote work has made the marketing technologist role even more important, particularly in teamlancing models, and here are some reasons why:
1. Sparks new opportunities and job growth
Amidst a global crisis, the job market has found ways to adapt, innovate, and grow. Although remote work sparked a radical change in the way many workforces operated, it also opened the door for many new opportunities for many professionals through social media, word-of-mouth, and even freelance marketplaces.
2. Facilitates the talent hunt
The teamlancing model not only helps create new jobs for freelancers and independent professionals, but it also makes it easier for professionals to find jobs. The marketing technologist also has access to a large pool of talented, experienced, skilled professionals that have a lot to offer and contribute to a project or goal, regardless of geography. This means that marketing technologists are able to recruit and tap into other skilled and talented resources much easier and without limits.
3. Drives business agility and creativity
The teamlancing model itself is very agile. Freelance teams have the ability and flexibility to work their own schedules yet still rely on the social and creative support of other team members. This is a huge step up from working in traditional, siloed and isolated work environments.
Additionally, remote work environments also drive more business agility. Technology also allows freelance teams to position operations differently, fill specific skills gaps according to client and project needs, and also further embrace digital transformation.
This also allows marketing technologists and teams to keep up with topic trends, news, and shifts in the market easier. The marketing technologist can take an agile approach to content creation projects, for example. Implementing an agile workflow helps to increase the velocity and productivity of content creation activities, which allows marketers to deliver more content faster and more consistently.
And speaking of technology, this brings us to our next point…
4. Access to tech and talent
As briefly mentioned above, teamlancing business models and marketing technologists gain more access to talent and tech in remote work settings as they are no longer limited to the four walls of a traditional physical office setting.
Additionally, going beyond the remote work infrastructure itself, many teamlancing businesses have transformed the ways in which they deliver services to customers, such as via video conferencing and augmented reality.
5. Creates a culture of collaboration
The beauty of remote work is that it can be done from “virtually” anywhere. However, the true success of remote work is highly dependent on communication and collaboration. Many freelance teams rely on a variety of tech tools to streamline their operations and communication, such as Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, and Google Suite, just to name a few.
Furthermore, communication is important for building trust in remote team settings and also accountability. Therefore, the marketing technologist can hold regular virtual team meetings and check-ins for fostering communication, building trust, and ensuring accountability. Regardless of team members’ geographic locations, establishing primary connecting within the team and with the marketing technologist is critical for success.
For example, some freelance teams follow a communication plan that involves everyone sharing or publishing a Friday update on the top priorities and accomplishments for the week. Then, the team works together to outline a plan for the upcoming week. This is a great example of stellar team communication, project planning, and establishing accountability and transparency — and all without micromanaging.
Marketing technologists in teamlancing take action
All in all, the benefits of teamlancing are plentiful. Teamlancing encourages more professionalism, agility, accountability, and therefore provides higher-quality, productive, and more fulfilling work. Teamlancing models are iterative and can encourage creativity. They also allow marketers and marketing technologists to constantly create and experiment with new ideas, allowing businesses to deliver while also learning what worked and what didn’t in their experiments.
Because a large part of a marketing technologist’s role is to review and analyze data and strategize, this is a crucial role for helping to understand how teamlancing works and how to grow and scale the model.
Finally, one can clearly see how remote work can help facilitate creative teamlancing models and also make the marketing technologist role that much more important.
