Once upon a time, the madmen of marketing would sit in smoke-filled rooms with whiskey tumblers in their hands and brainstorm about the next ad campaign.
Today’s marketing effort is more complex. It requires forethought, metric analysis, task management, operational planning, competitive research, and keyword development.
Modern marketers also deal with a larger landscape that extends to the cloud. We’ve moved beyond just print and broadcast media ads. Advertisers need to think about social media administration, website management, online pay-per-click campaigns, and search engine optimization.
You are not just coming up with a marketing concept. You are creating a project that needs efficient management to achieve success. It takes marketing project management to fit all of the pieces together.
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What Is Marketing Project Management?
It is a methodology that businesses can use to control the marketing process throughout the project life cycle. Marketing project management provides clarity to everyone involved, including team members and stakeholders.
Marketers aim to take customers on a journey that starts at the top of the sales funnel and ends with conversion. A well-crafted campaign does so seamlessly. It involves several specific objectives and tasks.
The process of developing a marketing project follows many of the same principles as traditional project management with one critical difference. It requires a marketing strategy that includes data analysis and research.
The results of these tasks help steer the project through each phase.
The Role of a Marketing Project Manager
As the name suggests, a marketing project manager oversees all tasks associated with a campaign from start to finish. They organize and assign various tasks, set timelines, manage the budget, and establish goals.
As the project progresses, the marketing project manager ensures that everyone stays on task and follows the protocols established for the campaign. Someone in this role might also make changes based on data analysis or variables that pop up.
The responsibilities of a marketing project manager include:
- Work with stakeholders to develop a campaign strategy and set goals
- Build a project timeline that includes multiple phases
- Collaborate with team members such as graphic designers and content writers
- Keep both internal and external team members informed of the project’s progress
- Analyze and report results based on metrics
A successful marketing project manager must have basic marketing skills, good time management, and stellar organization. They should also be able to make evidence-based decisions that keep the campaign on track.
5 Processes for Effective Marketing Project Management
Control is the ultimate goal of any project manager. Consider these five processes that will help you direct a campaign:
Applying agile methodology
The agile methodology encourages flexibility among team members. Effective marketing tactics must include the ability to make changes in response to feedback. That feedback may come from internal sources like executives or others working on the project. It might also be provided by external sources, such as data analysis, focus groups, or clients.
When developing a project structure, it’s important to break it down into bite-sized pieces. This allows you to perfect each stage before moving on with the campaign. You learn as you go, so the next phase is better tweaked than the last one.
Managing risks and challenges in marketing projects
Every marketing project comes with a number of unknown variables. It is impossible to predict the risks until they pop up unexpectedly. To keep the campaign on track, you must be prepared to mitigate the challenges as they appear.
A marketing strategy should anticipate certain risks, such as:
- Technical issues like service outages or security events
- Organizational issues, including lack of communication
- Market shifts
Adequate planning will mitigate many of these potential challenges.
Another common issue in marketing projects is scope creep. This means that the project expands outside of its initial goals. Setting project objectives and discussing them with everyone involved in the campaign can help prevent scope creep.
Ensuring effective team collaboration and communication
Poor communication and a lack of collaboration within a project team can lead to:
- Inconsistencies
- Poor team morale
- Exceeding the budget
- Duplication of effort
This is one of the biggest risks that marketing teams face. One solution is to give them the tools necessary to communicate effectively, like marketing project management software. The right software platform will not just enable communication but stimulate it.
Programs such as The Content Studio put everyone on the same page so that they can collaborate openly. This helps to ensure alignment and consistency from start to finish. You can see what tasks are at risk of missing a deadline and step in to prevent problems that could affect the campaign’s success.
Tracking progress and performance measurement
This is another area where project management software enables you to shine. Substantial progress and performance metrics tools at your fingertips will make crunching the numbers more manageable. That can help you stop catastrophes before they happen.
Project metrics allow you to monitor the most critical aspects like productivity, scope, and performance. When necessary, you can make changes to steer the campaign toward success.
Continuous improvement and post-project evaluation
By figuring out what went right and wrong in each project, you can achieve better results in your next campaign. Continuous improvement enables you to make those essential tweaks and thoroughly analyze the project’s ups and downs. You can apply that knowledge to a future project to improve the outcome.
You should take your evaluation beyond just team members, too. Gain insight from customers and stakeholders. Ask them what they thought of the campaign’s outcome and what, in hindsight, they might like to do differently.
Collate this information into a report that you and the team members can study in an effort to improve the process.
Wrap-Up
Efficient marketing project management is a team effort that requires constant assessment and creative collaboration. You also need the right tools. Find out how your team can overcome collaboration barriers by trying Studio today.
