The job of a marketing project manager is to make sure everything and everyone is on track, so your marketing projects get delivered successfully – on time and on budget. But managing multiple projects can be highly stressful – particularly if you don’t have a structured, sensible approach.
Here are some of my top tips for successful marketing project management in a busy marketing environment.
1. Open your lines of communication
There’s probably nothing more important than communication. Right from the outset, project communication needs to flow easily between everyone involved, whether that’s setting clear objectives to ensuring a streamlined final handover or launch.
Beyond giving your team the support and resource they need, communication with all stakeholders is a key part of a successful project. With complete transparency, you can gain trust and keep people in the loop, particularly if there are issues or delays. Open communication with all stakeholders is key to the success of projects and managing expectations.
2. Keep it real
It’s always tempting to say things that make stakeholders happy. But nobody wants to be sold an idea that isn’t possible to deliver within the constraints of the budget and the agreed time-scales. If expectations aren’t realistic, a happy stakeholder now is a frustrated one later.
Set realistic milestones, project timings and completion dates that you can comfortably deliver on – and leave space for unexpected issues and delays.
3. Be personally organised
Keeping a team and a project organised begins with you. Personal organisation and file management makes the life of a project manager much easier.
There are a range of online platforms, workflow tools, and project management systems that can help you organise resources. With that kind of support in place, you can be a constant source of information for your team – the person that makes sure everything is always where it should be and accessible to those who need it.
We use Wrike as our project management system, but there is a long list of applications to choose from. Find one that is right for you and your marketing projects.
4. Lead and support your team
The role of a project manager is to keep things organised and to support your resources. Being on top of your team management should be your daily priority. Routinely check the progress of projects and make sure milestones are met. If not, be an ever-present figure to provide extra support as required.
5. Always have a backup
Finally, there is never an excuse for not having a backup or a contingency plan. Project managers need to react fast as projects progress and change, and they rarely follow the predictable path you expect. Always make sure you can access extra development resource, or you have another copywriter up your sleeve. It’s the only way to alleviate those last-minute episodes of ‘house flooded’ or ‘computer died’, which will always try to catch you out and keep you on your toes.
The biggest obstacle to managing projects successfully is juggling project management with everything else you have to do. Instead, why not leave your project management to a team that’s experienced in delivering streamlined workflows end-to-end?
We’ll help you improve your communication, keep your team productive, and deliver projects that exceed customer expectations. If you’d like to find out more about how we could help with your marketing project management, fill out the form below.
