What will our future hold? With more individuals working remotely, will we see a rise in nomadic lifestyles? Could mobile working become the new norm? These are just some of the many questions swirling around the prospect of a fully remote workforce.

For certain professions, such as sales and marketing, working remotely is already a reality. In fact, working remotely is one of the primary ways marketing teams in Hawaii are trying to grow their businesses.

For many others, however, working remotely is still seen as a stepping stone, not a permanent lifestyle change. Why? Even in a state like Hawaii where the weather is beautiful and the people are relaxed, there is still a considerable amount of work to be done. In order to make the most of a remote workforce, businesses need to be equipped with the right tools and tech-enabled processes.

Fortunately, there are a number of tools available to business of all sizes that enable them to operate effectively and efficiently regardless of their physical location.

The Growth Of Online Communities

One of the biggest changes experienced by businesses over the last decade is the rise of digital communities and the corresponding change in the role of digital marketing. Thanks to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, as well as online communities such as Reddit, business has always had the ability to connect with potential customers, engage with existing customers, and boost brand awareness all while being accessible from anywhere.

Before the creation of these platforms, businesses were restricted to establishing physical locations and spending the majority of their time visiting those places to meet with customers. Thanks to technology advancements and the rise of online communities, these restrictions are no longer necessary. With the right tools and processes in place, businesses can now connect with customers and prospects both locally and remotely through digital marketing platforms.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation can be defined as a software or platform that helps businesses automate the collection, analysis, and interpretation of marketing data so that individual marketing campaigns can be executed more effectively. Thanks to marketing automation, businesses can set up automated email campaigns, schedule broadcast ads, and even track the impact of their marketing activities on specific groups of people or segments of the population.

While marketing automation can be a great tool for digital marketers, it doesn’t mean that human interaction is absent. Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), businesses can setup automated email campaigns and other tasks, which require only a small amount of human intervention. For example, HubSpot™ has an AI-based tool that creates and sends email campaigns automatically based on a business’s defined segmentation. While the AI aspect of the tool essentially handles all the heavy lifting, the business’ marketing manager can still review and approve the emails before they are sent out.

If your business is looking to improve its productivity and reduce costs, consider exploring the possibility of working with a reputable marketing automation provider to set up a free trial.

Web Analytics

For marketers, simply measuring the success of a marketing campaign can be challenging. Thanks to web analytics, which track the actions and behaviors of site visitors on a given page or group of pages, business can obtain a clearer picture of the impact of their marketing activities and determine the success or failure of their campaigns. Analytics can be extremely useful when trying to determine the success of a given marketing activity, whether that be a social media campaign, PPC ad, SEO strategy, or the like.

One of the simplest yet most effective tools for web analytics is Google Analytics. One of the key advantages of Google Analytics is that it provides a dash of creativity in the form of custom tracking and funnels so that even marketers with a limited knowledge of digital marketing can create and implement effective strategies.

Content Creation

While marketing automation can be used to send out bulk emails or perform digital advertising, the content that is used in conjunction with those campaigns is still created and controlled by a human. Even in the future, when AI takes over more tasks, creating content will still be a critical element of a business’ marketing strategy. After all, even the most sophisticated AI can’t write a compelling sales pitch, design a web page that draws in customers, or create engaging social media content like a meme or gif that people want to share.

In the realm of content creation, businesses can turn to freelancers, who can be located anywhere in the world, to get the job done. For those who prefer to work remotely, the perfect platform for finding remote content freelancers is Upwork™. With Upwork, businesses can post jobs and receive bids from freelancers who are located all over the world.

What’s different about Upwork is that it connects businesses with vetted freelancers who have demonstrated their ability to perform the required tasks. With freelancers located all over the world, Upwork provides businesses with the ability to access a global pool of talent. This global pool of talent allows businesses to access a larger market and increases the likelihood of finding the person or team who can help meet their needs. In the end, the ability to work remotely via a content creation tool like Upwork can increase productivity, reduce costs, and boost the bottom line.

Chatbots, Virtual Assistants, And More

While the above technologies and platforms have helped businesses become more productive and accessible, the future of marketing is undoubtedly going to involve more than one channel and more than one type of content. Thanks to the rise of AI, chatbots, and virtual assistants, the lines between marketing, sales, and customer service are blurring, and so is the workflow between those in charge of marketing and sales. In the near future, we will see an increase in the use of chatbots and virtual assistants by businesses, either as a replacement for some human interaction or in addition to it. The bottom line is that regardless of where you are, marketing will always be an important part of growing a business.