Tips for Effective Collaboration Between Marketing and Compliance Teams

In today’s fast-paced information-sharing landscape, the partnership between marketing and compliance teams has become vital. Marketing compliance is a team effort, and both teams play a critical role in growing the business while mitigating risk. 

Here’s why effective collaboration between marketing and compliance teams is essential for your company’s marketing compliance efforts and our 10 best tips for working together efficiently.

Why is it important for marketing and compliance teams to collaborate?

To ensure success and adherence to regulations, each team plays a critical part in reviewing an organization’s marketing practices.

The marketing team is responsible for promoting and advertising your company’s products or services and should assume the role of being the first line of evaluation for compliance. 

Your marketing team has a deep market and brand understanding that positions them as the strongest initial defense. They grasp your customer’s perceptions, which lets them stop potential misunderstandings and misconceptions about your company’s products and services before compliance issues emerge. 

For the compliance team, their role is ensuring that marketing efforts follow legal and regulatory guidelines to prevent violations. They have a strong understanding of the regulatory landscape and have a keen eye for catching and remediating any potential compliance issues before they become something bigger.  

There are several benefits of collaboration and including marketing teams in the overall compliance process, including:

• Reduced bottlenecks: Arming marketing teams with compliance expertise relieves reliance on the compliance team for minor reviews
• Faster turnaround times: Creating marketing materials that are compliant upfront reduces the time needed for compliance teams to review and approve, getting content out the door faster
• Consistency and brand protection: A combined approach ensures consistency in marketing messages and brand protection, preventing any unintentional non-compliant actions that could harm the company’s image

10 tips for marketing and compliance teams to work together efficiently

Establish a Culture of Compliance

Collaboration works best with a common goal. Set a shared commitment to compliance within both teams to create a shared sense of responsibility.

Keep everyone informed on the culture and expectations of this commitment, and aim to keep it positive and collaborative. 

To learn more about establishing a culture of compliance, check out this podcast. 

Create a Shared Space for Collaboration

Communication is key! Utilize your company’s internal communication channels such as Slack, Mircosoft Teams, or Google Chat. Encourage your teams to have real-time discussions in-person and through these platforms. 

These tools can streamline quick and seamless information exchange between teams. 

Prioritize consistent and transparent communication between the marketing and compliance teams. This prompts an environment where open dialogue about questions and concerns is actively encouraged and managed. 

Appoint a Designated Liaison 

Appoint one person from each team who is responsible for primary communication between the teams. This will ensure that people are clear on who to ask for what, and eliminates any possibilities for confusion or misunderstandings. 

Develop Clear Compliance Guidelines

Most of the time, marketing teams are not experts on all compliance requirements. Have the compliance team create comprehensive and accessible guidelines as a resource for marketing teams. These guidelines should provide clear instructions and best practices to ensure compliance when drafting content and materials.

Build a Centralized Resource Hub

The essence of collaboration lies in leveraging resources from both teams to enhance efficiency. To do this, develop a centralized repository with resources, guidelines, and illustrative examples relevant to compliance. 

By ensuring accessibility for both teams, the comprehensive hub will serve as a go-to source for clarifications and insights. Its availability will facilitate efficient decision-making and alignment between the marketing and compliance teams.

Develop a Content Library of Pre-Approved Materials

Like the centralized hub, create a repository for marketing teams to use filled with pre-approved materials and copies. This may be a part of your centralized hub or separate based on your organization’s operations. 

This will reduce the need for constant reviews and approvals from compliance teams, enabling faster deployment of marketing campaigns. This can also help marketing teams get a piece of content out quickly when they’re in a pinch.

Conduct Regular Training Sessions

Training sessions can be scheduled on a monthly, quarterly, or bi-annual basis, whatever works best for your team. In industries subject to significant regulatory scrutiny and fluid changes, having more frequent sessions may be more beneficial. 

Base your training content on your organization’s needs. This can encompass the latest updates and changes in regulations, or this can involve updates about new or proposed marketing channels for collaborative input. 

These trainings may also include a review of recent trends that need to be addressed. For example, if the compliance team is regularly correcting the same issues in marketing materials, training can include updated guidance around these issues.

Hold Regular Compliance-Marketing Meetings

Or, instead of frequent formal training, your organization could choose to do monthly meetings involving crucial stakeholders from both teams. 

Take this time to deliberate upcoming campaigns, materials, and potential compliance matters. This approach helps complete the feedback cycle and guarantees all teams are well-informed about priorities and initiatives.

Leverage Technology for Compliance Review and Approval 

Integrate the power of collaboration tools and compliance technology in your review and approval process. This strategic move empowers your teams to streamline these processes and make them more efficient. 

Take advantage of innovative solutions like PerformLine’s Document Review that streamlines and simplifies the content approval process. 

For insight on how PerformLine can empower collaboration between marketing and compliance teams and streamline compliance review and approvals, read more here about our success story with Stride Bank. 

Celebrate Wins and Show Gratitude 

Lastly, take the time to recognize and celebrate successful collaborative efforts. A touch of acknowledgment and heartfelt appreciation can significantly contribute to cultivating a positive work culture between your compliance and marketing teams. 

Collaborate Effectively and Ensure Compliance with PerformLine

In today’s regulatory environment, collaboration between marketing and compliance teams is a strategic necessity for achieving success while adhering to regulations.

And, armed with PerformLine’s Document Review, marketing and compliance teams can work as efficiently as ever with streamlined compliance review, feedback, and approvals.

Learn more about how you can streamline and automate the compliance review and approval process of marketing materials to increase efficiency, reduce risk, and eliminate bottlenecks. Request a demo of PerformLine today.

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