Running a digital marketing campaign can be like walking a tightrope. There are always some risks and one wrong move can mean it’s the end. Whether you’re launching a PPC campaign, rebranding a product, or trying to break into new markets, sometimes you’ll wish there was a safety net to catch you when you fall. Here are 5 Tips for Better Digital Marketing Project Management.
However, with most things in life, it’s always best to go in with a plan. And in order to know when it’s safe to step or how to rebalance yourself on the swaying rope – well that all comes down to how well you’ve planned for each scenario. And how confident you are once you make your first move.
That’s where project management comes into digital marketing. Not only is it the number one factor that predicts your project’s success, but it will also help everything run smoothly and prevent any missteps along the way. So you can go into your next project with confidence and a clear plan of action.
Sometimes it seems like you need to have a degree in project management to keep everything on track, but you don’t. Here are 5 tips to incorporate into your workflow. These are guaranteed hacks to improve your next project, ensuring that you don’t miss any deadlines or fail to reach your goals.
What is Project Management in Marketing?
Marketing project management is a lot of work, but it’s also exciting.
When you engage in any kind of project management it means you’re part of a team that’s working together to turn an idea into reality. So the process is really about taking the time to think about what needs to get done, what resources are available, and how you can use them most efficiently.
Most digital marketers don’t really think of themselves as project managers. But just because it doesn’t say “project manager” on your LinkedIn profile doesn’t mean that’s not what you’re doing! In fact many of the tools and techniques used on a daily basis are taken from project management. Including:
- Scheduling realistic project start and end dates and milestones
- Campaign budgeting and tracking
- Planning out and allocating project tasks across teams
- Executing the plan and monitoring KPIs throughout
- Redistributing workloads when plans get delayed, or the team becomes unbalanced
- Wrapping up finished projects and reporting on its success
So while it might seem like an intimidating role at first, once you get used to it, it’ll feel like second nature. Plus, with a plan in place now, your future projects are guaranteed to succeed.
5 Tips for Smoother Project Management in Digital Marketing
Good project management is the difference between a successful campaign and a failure. And a factor between meeting your goals and missing them by a mile. Here are 4 tips to keep in mind before executing your next campaign.
Set Clear Goals
Setting clear goals and timelines is a crucial step in any project management process. Without them, you’ll be left wandering aimlessly through the vast expanse that is your project – lacking any direction or purpose.
But when you do set goals, make sure they are specific and measurable. For example, “connect with new potential clients” is fine, but having something like “get featured on 4 new product lists” is a lot more specific and easy to measure. So taking the time to think through the goals will make it easier to know once you hit them.
On top of that, it’s important to ensure that everyone involved is made aware of these goals. That way you’ll know that everyone is working to achieve the same thing. This can help prevent confusion down the line when discussing results with stakeholders and clients.
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Here’s some tips to help:
- Compile your list of resources. Who’s available, who’s not. What are some people better suited for and what’s an area another person may struggle?
- Create a project timeline and keep track if you’re hitting those milestones along the way. This is an easy KPI to measure and will help in planning future projects.
- Celebrate milestones once you hit them. It’s an easy way to recognize your team’s hard work and keeps them motivated to finish the job.
Create a Realistic Timeline
In addition to being clear about goals, you also need to keep in mind the timeframes. Time, like all resources, is not unlimited. And that, there are many activities involving digital marketing that may be time sensitive. Or at the very least require that a certain order of events happen before the next phase can begin.
For example, if you’re starting a new eCommerce ad campaign, you’ll need images, copy, and a landing page for the ad to link to. That means every aspect of those tasks must be executed first.
And if you’re doing all this right, then you should also be evaluating the results each step along the way. And making changes as needed.
Here are a few things that will help from the get-go:
- Outline all your projects and tasks. See which tasks are dependent on others, creating a basic work breakdown structure of the project.
- One project management technique is called dependencies, these show the lines between tasks, indicating the order in which they need to be completed.
- Use a calendar or some other visual tool to track progress. That will make it easier to see upcoming deadlines.
Designate a Project Leader
Marketing in project management is all about thinking ahead and making sure that everyone has everything they need to succeed. It’s not just about writing things down – it’s also about thinking critically about what your goals are before you even start planning. That way when everyone else starts asking questions, you’ve got answers ready.
That’s why one of the most important aspects of project management is having a designated project manager. And with that a clear chain of command. In order to ensure success, it’s crucial that you find someone who has experience managing digital marketing projects. As well as someone who can lead your team in creating an effective plan and making decisions on the fly.
While it’s true that anyone can be made into a project manager – that doesn’t mean everyone will succeed at the job. For example, if someone doesn’t understand what makes a realistic digital marketing milestone. Or if they lack the ability to formulate a clear strategy, then they may fail in their role, despite their best intentions.
On top of this, there are certain qualities that make for good project managers:
- They know how to break down tasks into manageable chunks. That way each individual task is simple enough for anyone on the team (including those who don’t have any previous experience) but still contributes towards achieving overall goals;
- They listen carefully before responding;
- They’re open-minded about new ideas. If someone suggests something different than what was originally planned out, then they’ll consider changing direction instead of saying “no” right away without thinking things through first.
Use the Right Software and Tools
As a digital marketer, you already know that your job is never done. Every day brings new tasks and challenges that need to be tackled—and this is why it’s important to have all the right tools at your disposal.
The software can do a lot of the heavy lifting and remove some of that mental burden from the project management process. Instead of keeping all that information floating around your head, everything is recorded and tracked with the tools your team uses. This also adds a level of transparency to the whole process, because everyone will know what’s going on and it keeps accountability up across the team.
Because marketing is such a specific job with lots of different components, the best thing to do is use different pieces of software for each piece of the process. Multitools are great, but you aren’t going to use that to cut a steak, right? For that, you need a knife.
In the same vein, it can be better to use software made for one purpose, as opposed to going the “one size fits all approach.” Here we can suggest some of the best ones:
- Project management software (like Asana) can help manage all aspects of your project, from tracking task progress to monitoring KPIs and managing budgets.
- Marketing automation software (like HubSpot) helps marketers find leads, generate traffic and nurture potential customers through targeted email campaigns.
- Resource management tools (like Ganttic) help manage your team’s time and activities more effectively by keeping track of who’s working on what so they’re not overburdened with too many projects at once.
- Content management systems (like WordPress or Drupal) allow you to quickly create blog posts from templates without having any coding knowledge at all!
Communicate with Your Project Team
If you want to ensure that your campaign is a success, you need to manage all the different aspects of your marketing plan, from brainstorming ideas to executing them. So that means holding regular communication exchanges with your team that will help you work out all the details.
Whether you’re working on a large project or a small one, regular meetings will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that nothing important slips through the cracks.
If your team is distributed across multiple time zones, it may be challenging to schedule regular meetings in person. However, there are plenty of tools out there that allow remote team members to connect via video call and share their screens with each other. Even if you’re unable to meet face-to-face regularly due to geographical constraints or other factors, keeping up with weekly status updates via email can go a long way toward maintaining good communication within your team.
But at the end of the day, no matter what kind of plan you’ve created, it’s your team members that are going to make your project successful. Here are a few tips for ensuring that communication goes smoothly.
- Identify the roles you want each member of the team to fulfill (for example, graphic designer, content writer, and social media manager).
- Assign different people with specific responsibilities for each role. For example: “Sandy will take care of creating graphics,” and “Joel can handle social media.” That way jobs don’t overlap and you know who to turn to with questions.
- Make sure everyone understands their role and what needs to be done before starting work on the project. This way everyone has an idea of what they are responsible for and how they fit into the bigger picture.
Conclusion
There are many ways to improve your digital marketing project management. By incorporating these strategies into your workflow, you will have a much more efficient process and reduce the risk of failure. Just keep in mind:
- Set goals and timelines. The best way to manage projects is to have a plan in place, and stick with it. By setting goals and timelines for your team, you can make sure everyone’s working together toward the same goal.
- Designate a project leader and establish a chain of command for the project. If you’re working on multiple projects at once, having someone who’s responsible for overseeing all of them can make things run much more smoothly – and ensure that each one gets finished when it should.
- Use the right software/tools for managing digital marketing projects. These tools will help keep everything organized from start to finish so everyone knows what they need to do next without getting stuck behind any snags along the way!
