Discussing Remote Work with XSplit’s CMO John Howe-Marshall

Marketing any product is a science, throw remote work into the mix, with your team all working from home, and it could be made even harder! We sat down (over a video call) with and spoke to our Chief Marketing Officer, John Howe-Marshall, about the challenges and unexpected benefits remote work has bought to him and his team.

Hi John, what do you do at SplitmediaLabs?
As CMO it is my responsibility to define the overall marketing plan for all of our consumer products. This includes XSplit and Player.me. This requires me to work directly with our global marketing team, as well as coordinate closely with our product, web, and development teams on the promotion and communications around all of our applications.

How long have you been a Chief Marketing Officer?
I was SplitmediaLabs’ first dedicated marketing hire back in 2013 and was promoted to the role of Chief Marketing Officer in 2016.

What changes have your team had to make working from home?
The adjustment has been relatively smooth since our organization already uses a suite of tools that accommodate remote work (such as Slack, Microsoft Teams & Zoom). Prior to lockdown, and our entire team transitioning to a work from home schedule, we also had remote employees across the world, so in a way, we were well prepared for this transition.

What challenges have your team seen working from home?
Overall the team has adapted well to these changes, of course, everyone’s home situation is slightly different so some team members are facing additional challenges if they also have small children or dependents.

Have there been any unexpected benefits?
Since our company offers flexi-time, I think in general some of the benefits I have noticed is better accountability across teams. There is a lot more focus on ensuring plans and strategies are defined and executed in writing as opposed to just ad-hoc meetings, which allow for team members with slightly different work schedules to still feel in the loop of developing projects. 

Has this affected your approach to marketing the products?
Because of these huge global changes, many of our team are now encouraged to use our applications for all manners of work. This keeps the team constantly thinking about how better to market our products as well as provide crucial insights to the product development team. I think some of these changes will become more apparent over the next few months. 

How do you think live streaming can be added to a company’s workflow?
For many companies (ourselves included), streaming and conference calls have become essential tools for team members to organize and coordinate. In particular, we use streaming to host our end-of-month company updates which are attended by all employees from around the world. These types of initiatives help bridge the distance and keep camaraderie and team morale high, not to mention it’s fun just to catch up with everyone too. In general, though I believe live streaming, as well as video-based communication and collaboration, is already defining the future of how we work.

How does VCam fit into this?
XSplit VCam in particular is a fantastic tool for improving the quality of presentations and conference calls whether among small groups or large teams. The added options for background removal ensure privacy, as well as providing a general increase to the production quality of your broadcast without the need for complex lighting and camera setups.

Thanks for talking with us today, John!

As you can tell, remote work and marketing can be tough, but with team cohesion and the right tools, you can find new systems to help guide your team and you through it. You can find John Marshall on the internet at johnhowemarshall.com