Despite what you may think, Mondays actually aren't the least productive day of the week. Those would be Thursdays and Fridays. According to a recent survey by the staffing company Accountemps, 39% of HR managers said that Tuesday was generally the best day for employee productivity. That beat Monday (24%), Wednesday (14%) and Thursdays and Fridays (a paltry 3% apiece).
Then again, HR managers may not be the best gauge of employee productivity. According to this fascinating infographic on workplace productivity, we learn that while HR "suspects" that employees waste 1.6 hours day, employees themselves admit they waste almost twice as much time: 3 wasted hours per 8-hour workday.
Our point here is simple. Mondays can be a drag — and a major drag on marketing productivity. With that in mind, we'd like to pass along some tips to enable your marketing team to make the most out of their dreary Mondays.
Automate whenever possible. Regardless of the day of the week, intelligent marketing automation can ensure consistent and effective marketing productivity. First ask yourself what roles can be automated. Next act yourself where you can get the most "bang" for your automation buck. For example, if most of your social media followers are on Facebook, a Facebook automation tool is, quite naturally, something to consider. You can also automate blogging and e-mail related tasks as well. Check out or take on automation decision rules here.
Axe the Monday Morning meeting. Let's face it: Monday morning meetings are bad for morale. It's the last place people want to be after the weekend. But it may also be bad for productivity. That's because most employees are rested, relaxed, and ready to work come Monday morning. Having to come into the office and then sit in a meeting for an hour or two intrudes upon a time of the week when employees can be extremely productive. Have your pull-up meetings mid-week instead.
Reevaluate your marketing goal deadlines. Let's say you set goals for the middle of the week. Human nature being what it is, many employees will relax on Friday afternoons and cram early in the week. There's just one problem with this approach: other work accumulates and most employees spend Monday morning sifting through emails rather than addressing that mid-week goal. Consider setting your goals towards the end of the week so employees can start Monday off fresh.
Plan more effectively. We can all plan better, can't we? And the same logic holds true to boost your marketing productivity. Encourage your team to sit down on Friday and look across their upcoming week. Prioritize the most time-sensitive or client-facing marketing tasks. Break these tasks out into discrete "to-dos" and allocate the most important ones for Monday. Don't be over-ambitious, as other tasks will inevitably come up as well.
Delegate. Is one of your salespeople spending two hours a day researching leads on LinkedIn? It's not a bad idea, but maybe their time would be better spent on another task. Loop in marketing assistants or interns for these less-critical, time-consuming tasks.
What do you think? Is your team afflicted by the Monday marketing productivity blues? What's been successful in addressing this ailment? What tactics did we neglect to mention?
Looking for more tips to optimize all components of your marketing function? Contact us for a free consultation.
