Get More Out of Your Marketing Programs

Marketing managers are challenged daily to execute the projects in their marketing calendar on-time, on-budget and with the right quality, so they deliver the results they expect.

The war stories of last minute fire-drills to create collateral for a trade show, missing the deadline of a lead generation campaign because the creative and content were delayed, or the distribution of an email campaign for an online seminar was too late to deliver the attendance are all too common. Most marketing teams suffer from such issues consistently and on an on-going basis, leading to wastage in marketing spend and a gap between plans and results. Is there anything marketing can do to improve results by creating a better discipline around execution? It is not only possible, it is easy to do. Below are some of the issues marketing managers face.

Issue #1: Is there a project plan?

Most marketing projects require multiple people collaborating to make the project happen. For example, in order to create a product brochure, the brand product manager creates a message, the copy editor proofs and improves the copy, the creative editor designs the layout and inserts the copy, the team reviews the drafts to ensure they like the look and feel of the brochure, the creative editor makes any revisions and gets approval and the product team prints the brochure. All of these steps have to be well choreographed to ensure the brochure is produced on time, contains the right message for the audience it targets and has the look and feel consistent with the brand.

Now imagine dozens of such projects – lead generation campaigns, webinar invites and webinars, online and print advertisements, trade shows, brochures, data sheets, website updates, podcasts, speaking opportunities, press releases etc. – all needing to be pushed through a team of limited capacity, with each team member working on multiple projects simultaneously. Without a clearly defined project plan, tasks are likely to slip through the cracks and delay projects.

Issue #2: Is the execution against project plan being tracked and managed?

A good project plan is a starting point. However success in a project is derived 20 percent from good planning and 80 percent from solid execution. Most marketing projects are likely to have internal employees working with external consultants from a design or PR agency. A good project manager requires visibility into the status of each team member’s tasks to track its current status. If there are any surprises, the manager creates a revised plan and communicates the new plan, schedule, dependencies and due dates to team members. This process alone can become a huge drain on time, especially when it is repeated on multiple projects and takes time away from other responsibilities. As a result, most marketing managers take short cuts in tracking and managing to project plan - resulting in delays and last minute surprises.

Issue #3: Is the team on the same page?

One of the biggest reasons that marketing projects are delayed is because team members are not on the same page. The project manager must ensure that each team member clearly understands their tasks, schedules and dependencies and that they are on the same page with respect to project specifications, revisions and assumptions. It is also critical that it be possible for a new member of the team to come up to speed on all these very quickly and understand the context for some of the decisions that were made in the past.

Only when everyone is on the same page and executing appropriately do the odds of projects being completed on-time and increase significantly. The traditional project management tools are weak in ensuring everyone is on the same page. In most organizations, content, such as project specifications and revisions, and context, such as assumptions and acceptable shortcuts, are stored in different places, like personal email and file folders on laptops. A team member has to take the initiative themselves to ensure that their assumptions are not incorrect while working on a task. This significantly increases the risk of a chasm between the plan and actuals.

Issue #4: Does your project management tool map to your requirements?

A desktop-based project management system is not well equipped to drive flawless execution. For beginners, such a system is designed for full-time program managers and its complexity can be frustrating for line-of-business managers, where managing projects is only one of things they do on a daily basis.

These tools were designed in a pre-Internet era, to be used by the project manager on their laptop or desktop. They do not have the capability to automatically query team members in the background and capture the status of their tasks. The ability to always view an up-to-date report on the status of the project frees many hours every week from a project manager’s schedule for higher value-added tasks. These tools also do not have any mechanisms for team collaboration – a key requirement for success when multiple people are working simultaneously on more than one project, all with tight deadlines.

The Next Generation of Project Management Systems

The convergence of SaaS and Enterprise 2.0-based collaboration technologies has brought the next generation of project management applications to the forefront. They are designed to specifically address the project team execution problems and enable teams to successfully execute their projects.

Enterprise 2.0 and SaaS based project management systems leverage email as a mechanism to automatically query team members to get the status of their tasks and update the plan – all without the involvement of the project manager. As a result, project tracking becomes automatic, providing instant updates and highlights to allow managers to stay on top of a project’s ever changing status and proactively address potential issues. As a result, these systems significantly reduce unpleasant surprises.

These solutions also leverage team sharing technology to share documents, notes and discussion threads with each work item. This provides team members with an easy way to share knowledge, be in sync and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Taking advantage of the SaaS delivery model, the always-on Internet access ensures that any team member can access their project plans, task schedules and associated documents anytime – regardless of their geographic location, or the organization they belong to, or their business travel schedule. This makes it easy for the team to both work together and integrate new team members into the project.

In marketing projects, where on-time completion can be the source of competitive advantage in a crowded market, team execution is a key ingredient for successful completion. By leveraging Enterprise 2.0 technologies such as team collaboration and a SaaS delivery model, the next generation of project systems provides a significant advantage for companies in completing their portfolio of marketing projects on time and increasing their competitive edge.