The secret to Trello's remote marketing team's success

Marketing Powerups #74: Stella Garber, Co-Founder and CEO of Hoop, shares her flipped communication strategy.

Ramli John

Feb 19, 2024

Hello, and welcome to Marketing Powerups! 👋🏽

Today's powerups include:

What makes good B2B content?
Write motivational copy like Maslow.
Stella Garber’s flipped communication strategy.

Ready? Let's go! ⭐️

🎖 Turn more new users into lifelong customers.

The 2nd cohort of the User Onboarding Masterclass that I’m hosting with Maven kicks off next week. 🎉

Building a sustainable growth engine will be incredibly hard if you don't plug the holes in your marketing funnel.

My course is designed to fix that by helping you identify bottlenecks in your new user's journey and accelerate your company's growth. In this course, you’ll get:

A proven strategy to improve your product’s onboarding experience.
Templates, swipe files, and cheat sheets to start making an impact now.
6 months of access to an online community for support and networking.

The best part is you'll get direct access and feedback from growth experts, including me, Lyla Rozelle (Appcues, Litmus), Kate Syuma (Miro), Andrew Capland (Wistia, Postscript), and Georgiana Laudi (Forget The Funnel, Unbounce).

Altogether, the goal of the User Onboarding Masterclass is to help you turn more users into paying customers.

Students from the first cohort loved the course! Here is what May Luk (Growth at Vidyard) said about it:

"I learned so much not just about user onboarding best practices but also about PLG. I also love how interactive and open the discussions are."

We kick things off next Tuesday, February 27, at 12 pm ET. Spots are limited, so save yours today.

→ Learn more about the User Onboarding Masterclass and save your spot now.

Got questions? Hit reply, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

⭐️ Stella Garber's flipped communication pyramid

If you're stuck in marketing meetings and have less time to do creative work, Stella Garber—Co-Founder of Hoop and former Head of Marketing at Trello—suggests you "flip your communication pyramid."

Today, Stella shares how your marketing team can become more productive and spend less time in meetings.

1. Establish clear remote work expectations.

To kickstart your remote work journey, it is important to establish clear remote work practices and expectations. This involves:

Defining available times and response times: Clearly communicate the specific hours during which team members should be available for synchronous communication.
Documenting team practices: Create a working document that outlines remote work practices, including guidelines for communication tools, deadlines, and availability expectations. This document will ensure alignment among team members and provide a reference point for everyone.
Setting guidelines for career advancement: Clearly define what success looks like for each team member and provide guidelines for career advancement in a remote work environment.

2. Emphasize and over-communicate.

When working remotely, effective communication is key. Follow these practices to streamline communication and ensure everyone is on the same page:

Over-communicate when necessary: In the absence of in-person interactions, sharing information proactively and providing regular updates is important. Keep team members informed about project progress, challenges, and any other pertinent information.
Document everything: To ensure easy access to information and avoid the need for constant interruptions, document everything in a centralized location. Opt for tools like Trello, which enables you to create boards to manage tasks, collaborate with team members, and track progress.

3. Foster autonomy and outcome-oriented work.

Remote work thrives on autonomy and outcome-oriented work cultures. Implement the following strategies to promote autonomy and productivity:

Create a sense of organization and consistency: Develop structured systems, routines, and rituals that provide a sense of organization and consistency for your remote team.
Provide uninterrupted, focused work time: Deep work and creativity require uninterrupted focus. Encourage team members to block off time for focused work and minimize interruptions from synchronous communication.
Define clear criteria for success and accountability: Clearly establish what success looks like for each team member, and hold everyone accountable to their goals and outcomes. This provides a sense of structure and supports productivity in an asynchronous work environment.

4. Prioritize asynchronous communication.

Traditional office communication often heavily relies on synchronous interaction. To optimize remote work, flip the communication pyramid to prioritize asynchronous communication.

Here are a few ways to do it:

Reduce synchronous communication: Meetings and real-time chatting should constitute a smaller percentage of your day. Minimize unnecessary collaboration to avoid meeting overload.
Default to asynchronous communication: Make asynchronous communication, such as documentation, emails, and collaboration tools, the default mode of communication. This allows for more focused work and reduces interruptions in team members' schedules.
Focus on deep work and creativity: Flipping the communication pyramid provides team members with uninterrupted time for deep work and creativity, fostering a more productive and innovative work environment.

Free powerups cheatsheet 🔖

I’ve created a powerups cheatsheet exclusively for Marketing Powerups subscribers to apply Stella Garber’s flipped communication strategy.

→ Download and make a copy of it here (a direct link with no email required).

In the latest Marketing Powerups episode, Stella further explains her flipped communication strategy.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcast and Spotify now, or watch it on YouTube.

✨ Mini powerups

Fun-sized tools, links, and blurbs to boost your marketing.

❤️ Write motivational copy like Maslow (newsletter):

Joe Portsmouth shares how you can use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to write inspiring and motivational copy. I love how he gives a simple writing exercise to help you speak to your audience's deepest desires.

📝 How to leverage the OKR framework to create a dynamic calendar in 2024 (article):

It’s more important than ever for content marketers to showcase the ROI of their work. In this Moz article, Priyam Chawla (Content Manager at Connect.ca) shares how to use the OKR framework in planning out your content calendar and measuring the results.

🏆 What is Good B2B Content? Content Leaders on 9 Must-Haves for Standing Out From the B2B Crowd (roundup):

Nine leading B2B content marketers share what they think B2B brands can do to create good content that stands out in 2024 (with examples). My favorite one is that good B2B content leans on expert insights and original perspectives, which this Buffer article does so well!

That’s all for now, friends!

Have a powered-up day,