Almost one in four marketers need to follow the mantra of working smarter, not harder, according to research from AtTask.
AtTask – the provider of cloud-based Enterprise Work Management solutions – has announced the results of a study that looks at a day in the life of a marketer. Among the findings, long hours and lots of disruptions from external sources show that marketers need better structure and tools to get more from their workdays.
The survey found that nearly one in four marketing professionals works ten or more hours on an average day. Thirty-six per cent of respondents said interruptions were a major distraction to their workdays, while more than a third said they spend three to four hours a day on email.
Other key findings from the survey include:
- Multitasking machines—Multitasking is the norm, with 41 per cent of marketers saying they frequently multitask in meetings. Not all are proud of it, though—43 per cent of those who said they often multitask also said they do so reluctantly.
- Time suckers—40 per cent of marketers blame manual tasks, unexpected projects and rework as primary sources of lost productivity.
- Application overload—Opening, closing and switching between applications can cause a big drain on a marketer’s day. Eighty-two per cent of respondents said they typically have at least six different applications or tools open on their desktop.
- Lunch break? What’s that?—Desktop meals are standard for marketers, with 56 per cent of respondents saying they eat lunch at their desks. Much smaller numbers of marketers eat in the office break room, outside or at local eateries.
- Artists at heart—When asked about what they’d do if not working in marketing, one in three respondents named a career in the arts. Among the specific dream jobs mentioned were writer, singer, actor, designer, floral designer and various facets of fashion and filmmaking. Interestingly, 16 per cent of respondents dreamed of a career shift to a more left-brained field like business, law or engineering.
AtTask chief marketing officer, Joe Staples, Said: “In a fast-paced marketing environment, efficiency is everything.
“This survey validates what we know to be true—that marketers can’t expect mythical extra hours to be added to their workday, even while all of the interruptions and distractions push them into overtime to finish projects. Instead, they need to do more with the time they have, and that can happen with better collaboration, visibility and communication. Marketers lose too much time to problems that could be avoided or resolved with the right structure and tools.”
AtTask partnered with MarketingProfs to conduct the survey online, with almost 800 marketing professionals answering the questions on MarketingProfs’s website. Survey respondents varied in job type, career level and/or leadership position and age.