10 Ways to Delegate Marketing Tasks as a Leader

Victoria Mortimer
5 min readAug 16, 2022

As a marketing manager or business owner, how do you ensure that your staff is working effectively and efficiently? One of the most effective things you can do as a marketing leader is to learn how to delegate tasks.

This will give your team ownership and responsibility. However, it’s also important to stay in control. So how can you delegate on a solid foundation?

What Does Delegation Mean for Marketing Teams?

Delegating is a key skill for leaders. But it’s not easy. You must trust your team members and give them the freedom to do their jobs. You also need to be able to set clear expectations and make sure they are on the right track.

Also, if you do not delegate, you’ll have a hard time growing your business. Because you’ll have to do all the marketing tasks yourself. As a leader, you should delegate marketing tasks to all members of your marketing team — whether they are internal or external.

This can include the following:

Writing blog posts

Creating email campaigns

Generating ideas for content

👉 Planning posts for social media & creating social media schedules

As a marketing team leader, delegation can help you free up time so that you can focus on larger projects or other areas of business. In addition, delegating tasks helps build your team member’s confidence and knowledge base. As well as their loyalty to your company!

When Marketing Leaders Should Delegate?

As a leader, you’re probably already overwhelmed with your daily tasks. You may be thinking, “I don’t have time to delegate!” However, if your goal is to grow your business and build a strong marketing team, it’s imperative that you learn how to delegate properly.

In fact, delegating has several benefits:

💡 It allows you to focus on high-priority tasks (like new product development).

👩‍💻 It gives you more time to develop strategies and lead your team.

🙌 Delegating gives someone else on your team the opportunity to take charge of certain tasks.

How to Delegate Tasks Effectively

You may know that delegating is important. But you still may not know when it’s time to delegate instead of doing it yourself.

Marketing team leaders often find themselves in a dichotomy between “doing too many hands-on” and “doing too little.”

Research has shown that when people are too involved in a task, their performance suffers because they can’t see the big picture.

On the other hand, if you get too little involved in a task, you may miss the opportunity to build skills within your team or develop new ideas that could benefit your business 👇

#1: Define Clear Goals for Each Project

Before delegating a marketing task, make sure everyone involved understands the purpose of the task and how it fits into your overall vision for the company. Then, set clear deadlines for each task and make sure team members know when they need to complete each task.

Related 👉 Understanding the Member Lifecycle Journey

#2: Create a Marketing Handbook

A comprehensive guide with step-by-step instructions on how to perform various marketing tasks can help ensure that everyone on your team knows exactly what they need to do and by when. This will also prevent confusion or misunderstandings in the future if someone needs help with certain tasks later!

#3: Set Clear Deadlines & Accountability

When you decide to delegate marketing tasks, it’s important that you establish clear deadlines and responsibilities so that there is no confusion about who’s responsible for what task and by when it must be completed.

This is especially important if you are collaborating with others on the same project or campaign. So everyone knows what they’re responsible for and how long they have to complete certain tasks.

Also, this will help you stay on top of things and not get overwhelmed while making sure everyone knows what they need to do.

#4: Create a Communication Plan

Delegating tasks doesn’t mean dumping them on someone else without any guidance. When you delegate a task, make sure the recipient knows exactly what it is and what your expectations are for getting it done.

#5: Ask for Regular Status Updates

Regular follow-up visits help both parties stay on track and maintain the flow of communication between them so there are no roadblocks along the way. If your team members know you expect regular updates from them, they’ll keep you in the loop as well so there are no surprises.

Related 👉 7 Innovative Approaches To Leverage Community-Based Marketing

#6: Be a Mentor Who Helps Employees Grow Into Their Roles as Leaders

When you help your employees learn new skills, they gain confidence and become more valuable to your team in the long run.

#7: Delegate at Every Level

Delegate not just lower levels of an organization but also at the executive level. These could include projects like PR or even internal communications initiatives that help with employee engagement or business development efforts.

#8: Set Clear Metrics

Set clear metrics so everyone is on the same page when it comes to goals and objectives. Make sure they have access to the tools they need (technology and training) to complete the task. And set deadlines so there’s no excuse for not meeting them!

#9: Don’t Micromanage

Don’t micromanage! Give your employees as much autonomy as possible when it comes to completing tasks and projects independently.

This allows them to develop good judgment over time while making independent decisions without having to wait for approval from above every step of the way before achieving their goals.

The best leaders I’ve known are those who hire people who know more about certain areas than they do & let them do what they know.

Alan Gosiker, specialist in Recruiting and Talent Acquisition for startups

#10: Understand Everyone’s Different!

Last but not least, the best way to effectively delegate marketing tasks is to understand how each team member works best. Some people like structure and deadlines. While others prefer flexibility and working at their own pace. Some people like to work alone, while others thrive in a team environment.

As a leader, you’re responsible for setting the tone. You’re also responsible for delegating and motivating your team to get the job done.

But how do you do that? The first step is understanding what motivates each individual on your team. What drives people and gets them excited about their roles? Once you know what makes each person tick, you can create a plan that works for them and gives them the freedom to succeed! 🚀

This post was originally published in Unita.co on July 25, 2022.

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Victoria Mortimer

Multimedia journalist, writer, and editor from Buenos Aires based in New York. Currently: Studio 20: Digital First at NYU.