Covid-inspired remote and hybrid working practices might create a better work/life balance and even improve mental health but more than 9 out of ten marketing professionals reckon they have had a negative effect on creativity, ultimately leading to poorer customer experiences.
So says a new global study by digital experience platform provider Optimizely, which reveals a whopping 92% of marketers said the ability to deliver content to the right audience at the right time has been impacted by working from home.
The survey also analyzed what factors about remote work and dispersed teams created these barriers to driving exceptional CX – finding that 92% of marketers also agreed dispersed teams have impacted the ability to develop creative ideas; the ability to optimally execute marketing campaigns; collaboration with members from other teams such as IT, finance, etc; and collaboration with other marketing team members.
Even so, many marketers have been able to overcome barriers to creativity by relying on content management, experimentation, and collaboration tools.
More than two-fifths (42%) say content marketing systems that ease the creation and delivery of content to the right audiences were the most useful, while a third say video collaboration tools (33%), collaboration tools that capture ideas and notes in one central location (32%), and idea capturing tools like Microsoft Word (32%) were most useful.
Meanwhile, 31% say experimentation platforms and tools to test new ideas were most useful, and over one-quarter (28%) say chat collaboration tools were most useful.
Optimizely chef marketing officer Kirsten Allegri Williams said: “Creativity is essential when it comes to creating strong marketing campaigns that impress customers.
“The pandemic caused all marketing teams to rethink not just how they define creativity, but how they inspire it and deliver creative experiences to customers.
“Remote and hybrid work won’t be going away anytime soon, and senior marketers need to be thoughtful – applying strategies and technologies that combine the art and science of marketing to ensure they continue inspiring creativity in their marketing teams, and in turn, drive strong customer experiences.”
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