Team Mission

This should be the Brand team's purpose in relation to the overall mission of the company. When I was at HubSpot, the Creative team's mission was "We tell HubSpot's story." 

Team Goals and Priorities

This should align with the business and provide clarity into what the team is focused on. There's not enough time in the day to work on everything (or to respond to every email) so use this to set the tone and start setting boundaries.

Org Chart

Share the org chart and who does what

Who to contact and when

In wanting to eliminate distractions, you should clarify who and when to reach out to otherwise it's open season on your team.

Where to find us

This is where you share things like Slack channels, email aliases, important meetings. 

Creative Process

This is the section where you start to unveil the magic behind the work the team does. If you're getting feedback like "I don't know how this works" or "Creative is a black box" this is the first step towards clearing things up. Here's how to do that:

Process Graphic

When colleagues say things like "Creative is a black box," it's partially comms related, but it's primarily related to how it's made. Your process graphic should be a high level view into how things happen.

Intake > Kickoff > Research > Execution > Round 1 > Revisions > Round 2 > Final Edits > Launch > Measure.

Not every project is going to be 1:1 but it should be close (examples: 5-Step Process, The Double Diamond).

Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Continuing down the transparency path. Most Marketers don't know what it takes to get creative work done (the same way most Creatives don't know what good marketing is) and this drives Creatives nuts! So when a request comes in for something that seems wild, it's coming from a place of not knowing. Service Level Agreements are where you explain how long it takes to make something. Pick the top 10-15 most requested types of work and spell it out.

What the team does and doesn't work on

This is about intentionality and being more proactive. The team can't and shouldn't work on everything. This is where you spell that out. Being intentional and decisive about the work you do take on is how you deliver it at it's best.

Who to contact and when

In wanting to eliminate distractions, you should clarify who and when to reach out to otherwise it's open season on your team.

Intake Process

You know about this one. This is where you explain what the intake process looks like and what to expect. Every bullet preceding this one is about ensuring that the team understands what it takes to get work done and that they should be thoughtful about what gets requested through intake.

Self-Service

This is the big one. If you're going to say no to work, you've got to provide ways of getting it done. Simply put, you can't leave your teammates in a position where they fail so as you set up systems for them to do more work with tools like Canva, Capsule, or Asana, you need to help them figure out how they work too. This is what this section is for:

Benefits

If you're trying to convince someone to pick up new responsibilities—especially ones that were done for them in the past—you're going to need to convince them of why. The good news is the benefits of self-service are obvious. As we discussed in 004, the benefit to the marketers is they get to move so much faster: no intake, no kickoffs, no review rounds. You just get the work done.

Self-Service Checklist

This is a simple two-column table: Yes and No. The Yes column should be longer and should list all of the tasks the Marketers can take on via self-service. The No column should be short (the goal is to do fewer things better) and should state what needs to go through intake. If two columns aren't enough for you, add a "recommendation" column next to Yes to highlight templates, tools, and freelancers to work with.

Getting started

You've explained the benefits and made it clear what the team can do on their own, now show them how to get started. Provide guidelines, information on gaining access, insight into your review process, and finally a small project. Make it easy, achievable, and useful (I like the idea of an email signature in Canva). 

Resources

This is probably the most important section of this bad boy because it teaches you how to use all of your new tools and systems. You should create documentation and how to's for every tool (make sure you cover all those gotchas and special considerations like localization). Next, provide access to your surround sound assets. Those are the photos, icons, illustrations, and additional guidelines that actually bring your self-service tools to life. Nobody wants a template and stock photography. Finally, wrap it up with an FAQ section that covers those repeated questions.

Communications

Yes, we want to eliminate distractions but people will still have questions so take control of how they get asked. Set up a special slack channel for self-service (#self-service works), create an email list for updates (let people opt-in), and set up weekly office hours with appointment slots that people can book.

Feedback Forms

You're creating these tools and systems for your colleagues, you need to take their feedback seriously. Make it easy for them to submit feedback, create and share an SLA for when that feedback gets reviewed, and be transparent about what feedback gets actioned.

Outsourcing

Self-Service is critical but if you want to unlock the next level of removing distraction, it's enabling outsourcing at scale. Every VP, Brand and Creative just flinched, but don't worry, it'll be ok because you're building the guardrails. Here's how:

Outsourcing checklist

This is literally the same thing as your self-service checklist but for outsourcing. Two columns, Yes/No, maybe a recommended vendor if you'd like, but again the purpose here is intention. If you're only outsourcing because you run out of bandwidth then you're adding distractions. This list should be a predetermined decision of what you've decided always gets outsourced, not just sometimes. 

Budgets

Ok, this one won't win me any friends but I don't think Brand and Creative teams should hold the total Marketing outsourcing budget. I get why it happens. Creative does the work or outsources, so they make the call, but the downside to this is that requests for everyone else are free, so put in as many as you want. As soon as someone needs to put up their own money, priorities start to shift. This is the case for Creative too by the way.

So I've lost the Creatives, now I'm gonna lose the Marketers. So you own the budgets now, congratulations! Creative is going to own the relationships with the freelancers, contractors, and agencies. This is how they maintain quality and consistency. No vendor that hasn't been onboarded by Creative will be allowed to do any work. I've literally rejected 5-figure projects because they came from a vendor I didn't approve (this was for completed work, this is not a flex).

Freelancer Rolodex

This is the focus of this section because those vendors that Creative has approved live here. It's a database or spreadsheet of vendors, their rates, their specialties, examples of work, and their purchase order numbers. That's right, even though the budgets are held throughout Marketing now, there's still a single PO to keep track of annual spend with a vendor.

Updates

Your brand isn't a one and done. Just because you rebranded or published a wiki page, doesn't mean it's over. Your brand is constantly evolving, as should be your tools and systems. This is where you share how things evolved.

Make it readable, user friendly, add a joke or two (the Slack changelogs are a great example!). And I was serious earlier when I said you need to take feedback seriously. This is where you're going to show your colleagues that their opinions are important. By showing them their opinions are important, you're going to foster a sense of ownership in them, and if they own it, they're gonna use it.

Quick Action Sidebar

So you just spent all this time building this amazing asset for your company. You've taught people the ways. Well guess what, now they don't need it! So the job becomes making it easy for them to get to work.

Quick Assets

These are the links to your logo and brand guidelines, plus the hex codes to your primary colors. If you have a #marketing channel in Slack, search through it and find out what people are looking for. Put the top 3-4 here.

Quick Links

These are the bookmarks. You've taught people what the tools are for (and they have the deep dive to the left), now make it easy for them to get moving.

Quick Updates

These are the headlines or one-line versions of your most recent updates a la "bug fixes to improve performance" with a link to the full update. Again, the more people see things evolving, the more they'll use them.

Don't Stop, Keep Going

This isn't a small undertaking but creating space rarely is. Once you have your Brand HQ built, share it with your colleagues, pin it in slack, add it to onboarding docs. This should be the first stop for all things Brand and you'll notice something really cool happen once you do. People will start submitting better requests, they'll start creating things on their own, they'll offer feedback on what is and isn't working. You'll create an ecosystem that pulls distractions away. Now you've got to deliver!

Did you know I offer one off consultation and advisory sessions? Not every topic requires weeks of interviews and research. Sometimes you just have a question or want to run an idea by someone. I'm here to be that guy for you.

As you wrap up planning and you run into questions about headcount, strategy, or tools, hit me up and we can talk shop.