Creating marketing processes to set teams up for success & collaboration

SUMMARY

Federal Realty Investment Trust (FRIT) is a retail real estate company that invests in high-end shopping centers across the country. I was brought on to create a digital strategy that included seven properties in the DC Metro and Virginia areas. After analyzing their current digital marketing landscape, I recommended creating a strong foundation to get their team working together more collaboratively and consistently. 

STRATEGY

Phase 1: Complete a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis is a powerful technique to understand a company’s strengths and weaknesses, and to expose the opportunities and threats. This high-level view helped FRIT see the most important issues that need addressing in order to be successful. During this time, I assessed all data, social platforms, and marketing processes and provided them with a thorough analysis along with recommendations/next steps. 

Phase 2: Recommendations

After completing a SWOT analysis, I presented my findings and recommendations for next steps:

1. Create Marketing Guides

• Social media guide: outline style guidelines for all accounts, the go-to source for how FRIT appears and acts on social to create a cohesive experience across every profile.  
• Community management guidelines: guidelines help to ensure consistency across social media accounts when it comes to how they are managed. When you have guidelines written down as to how often platforms will be monitored, how quickly questions are responded to, have defined responses and FAQs, your accounts are run more smoothly and expectations are clear. 

2. Document all Processes and Procedures

Everything you’re doing should be written out clearly and shared with your team as a working document. How you’re managing your social accounts, your content calendar, working with agencies, using project management tools, event promotions, frameworks for advertising and digital campaigns.

I created a document that encompassed all of these processes which in turn helped the team work more efficiently and collaboratively. It’s great to create a content calendar, but if you don’t have a process for how it’s being used and when it’s being populated, there’s no point in having it. 

3. Project Management

Introducing and implementing project management tools that included all of the teams requirements helped to organize communication, streamline marketing procedures, and increase collaboration across projects.

4.  Editorial/Content Calendar

Created and implemented a content calendar for each property, which included social posts on each platform, emails, website updates, advertisements, and events. This allowed the team to establish a workflow for their editorial. 

RESULTS

While the results may not be numerical, they were valuable to the team. After working together, the team reported increased collaboration, more efficient workflow, and consistency in content. It was a pleasure to work with FRIT’s passionate team.