Marketing teams and agencies balance a mountain of tasks that inevitably grow with each new creative request or cross-functional stakeholder. When you’re juggling a million priorities at once and trying to align team members around deadlines and objectives, a campaign can start to feel more like a circus.
How marketing project management can set your team up for success
Meredith
6
min read
Aug 28, 2023
Marketing project management is a critical tool for helping you make sense of whatever creative requests and campaign deadlines are thrown your team's way. With the right creative collaboration software and execution, marketing project management can rein in the chaos to make your entire approach to marketing more efficient and effective.
This Article Contains:
Why marketing project management?
Project management in marketing is increasingly important to marketing teams and agencies of all sizes, especially as the media landscape continues to evolve. Consider the recent introduction of Meta’s Threads. If you’re pulling together a campaign in order to stand out on Threads, you’ll need to know how to execute. Who will own what, which creative assets will you develop, and when is the final deadline?
Marketing agency project management software is a surefire way to align your working team around common objectives and priorities while keeping everyone on task, no matter what type of marketing project you’re working on – be it video ads, event promotion, or product launch. So, if you’re tasked with launching a new campaign on Threads, for instance, you can use project management software for creatives to track team members, deliverables, tasks and deadlines in one spot.
With over 70% of high-performing project teams using project management software, it’s no wonder marketing teams and agencies are increasingly adopting marketing project management solutions to meet their needs. Using today's technology, it's finally possible to streamline creative operations for even the largest marketing teams and advertising agencies.
What is marketing project management?
To put it simply, marketing project management is defined as a standardized approach to planning, tracking, and delivering marketing campaigns and projects. This type of project management typically involves several phases, which can vary depending on the team, project and business objective. Below are six key phases your team should consider in order to set your campaign – and team – up for success:
- Kick off – Prior to the start of a campaign or project, a marketing team or agency will likely host a kickoff meeting with everyone involved to align on the campaign’s core objectives, target audience, deliverables, deadlines and more. The team will also discuss who will be involved in the campaign and the overall scope of the project.
- Planning – Once the high-level strategy is agreed upon, the team will begin creative project planning for the campaign. Often, a dedicated creative project manager will oversee this process. They will map out a project plan that includes timelines, team members, roles and responsibilities, and any other key factors that would impact the campaign, such as budget.
- Implementation – Next, the team will start putting the plan into action. Team members will begin working on their assigned tasks while keeping the team updated on the status of their respective workstreams.
- Tracking – As the campaign progresses, team members will be held accountable for their tasks. The creative project manager overseeing the campaign will likely monitor how all workflows are progressing to ensure nothing is falling behind. Often, adjustments to team member roles and responsibilities are made to ensure everything stays on track.
- Review and approval – Once the early version of deliverables are ready, they will most likely be routed through review and approval by the marketing team, often to cross-functional stakeholders for feedback. This process can be cumbersome, especially if tackled manually. An all-in-one creative project management platform like StreamWork can help teams manage campaigns in one place, as well as collect creative feedback and approvals quickly.
- Delivery – First and foremost, the team should take a moment to celebrate this final phase of any marketing campaign or project. Once the champagne glasses are stowed away, teams will often collect and assess performance metrics to understand how the campaign is tracking. They may also host a recap meeting to understand how the project management process went and how to improve upon it in the future.
How does marketing project management drive value for your team?
It’s no surprise that marketing teams and agencies are busy. You’re dealing with competing priorities, limited resources and a seemingly unending list of tasks to get done quickly. Creative project management software enables you to make the most of your team and resources so you can drive value for the broader business and your department. Among the value drivers are:
- Enhanced efficiency – Keep your team aligned on tasks and priorities to win back time and execute faster.
- Better collaboration – Make it easy for each team member, internal or external, to stay informed on the progress of each deliverable, all in one spot.
- Improved team management – Assign team members to the roles where they will drive the most impact to increase speed to market and optimize costs.
- Easier deadline tracking – Maintain realistic and predictable deadlines throughout the campaign to ensure the team completes work on schedule.
- Higher client satisfaction – Deliver quality creative assets on spec and on time to bolster your referral engine and keep your clients happy.
Manage your marketing and creative projects with StreamWork
To get the most out of project management, you’ll want to invest in the right platform for your team. A creative workflow management platform like StreamWork can make it easy to onboard vendors, contractors or freelancers instantly to a centralized hub where all campaigns and creative can be tracked.
Control who has access to what; send creative assets out for review instantly; and ensure everyone stays on the same page when it comes to deadlines, tasks and priorities. Start using StreamWork for free today, and transform how you approach your next campaign.
Marketing project management frequently asked questions
Does creative project management software like StreamWork help you manage creative teams more effectively?
Yes! StreamWork is an all-in-one creative collaboration platform that allows for streamlined feedback through our artwork approval system.
How does StreamWork’s artwork approval system work?
StreamWork allows project leads to comment and assign specific feedback on creative assets keeping client reviews to a minimum and streamlining stakeholder approval. It includes automated approval routing so you can set approval deadlines, as well as sequences for which stakeholder should approve when.
What makes StreamWork different from other marketing project management tools?
StreamWork is your go-to creative workflow management software made for marketing teams and agencies who want a state-of-the-art design collaboration tool. Automated approval routing and easy tracking of asset versions are just a few of our most popular features today.
Author
Meredith
Meredith is the Founder and CEO of StreamWork, a creative workflow management platform built for teams who work on creative. Meredith has 12+ years experience working as a marketer at Apple, Google, YouTube and Warner Bros., and has worked on hundreds of creative assets with teams large and small. Her mission is to simplify the way teams work on creative.