If you don’t take control of a project from the start, things can get messy. Any given marketing campaign has too many moving parts and people involved — from copywriters to designers — to leave to chance. Yet that’s basically what you’re doing without proper project management.
Your official job title may not be “Project Manager,” but that’s what a lot of marketer’s jobs come down to. They get the people together. They plan the campaigns. They make sure everything is operating in sync and on-brand.
It’s not an easy job. But the right tools can make it simpler.
Experienced marketers know that creating the elements of a campaign is one thing; managing that campaign is something else entirely. It’s good to have all the pieces, but they must be synchronized for a project to succeed. That’s where project management software comes in.
Different types of project management software will provide you with different features. There are three types of software tools commonly used for project management, each with its own purpose:
A truly excellent software solution will put all of these features at your disposal in one place. Make that happen, and the results will speak for themselves. These are the six areas where good project management software can aid your business:
The first and most obvious way that project management software helps is by supporting collaboration. Good software has tools for messaging and communication or works with apps like Slack to foster team cooperation.
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Instant messaging, the ability to manage groups of people, and open “digital whiteboard” spaces are all great ways to get your team coordinating — both with each other and with other departments.
Collaborative features also offer your team the chance to send and receive feedback in one place, where everyone can access it and it won’t be lost in an email thread. Tracking feedback keeps everyone on target and allows the team to adjust benchmarks as needed while a project is ongoing.
Project managers and marketers can use good software to track activity and monitor everyone’s progress. It’s also possible to see what processes different members of your team are using to complete their tasks.
This ability to see the big picture lets you identify patterns, so you can determine what’s working and what isn’t. If a particular team is doing amazingly well, maybe other departments can follow their lead. If there’s a potential bottleneck somewhere, you can address it before it develops into a crisis.
Seeing the big picture also allows you to coordinate everyone and everything involved with a project. With most people still working from home, effectively managing coordination is more important than ever.
The right software will give you a holistic overview of every deliverable and goal you have for a project, allowing you to schedule every element of that marketing campaign or product launch at the optimal time. You can coordinate your people, your tasks, and your timeline all in one place.
Marketing project management software tracks your goals, deliverables, and your team all in the same place, ensuring that you stay organized. You can maintain efficiency and productivity much better than the chaotic method of using a combination of spreadsheets, Google docs, and who knows what else.
A good project management tool will keep everyone on task with a clear idea of what’s happening next.
Alerts, reminders, and built-in calendars keep everyone aware of important deadlines. Project management software will often sync with a variety of calendar apps to automatically add events or reminders. So no matter what your team uses, from Outlook to iCal, they’ll know what’s going on.
Marketing resource management is a vital aspect of any good software tool. Storing assets like brand logos, video files, PDFs, and other relevant elements of your campaign in the same place makes it easier for any team member to access what they need.
That access also cuts down on back-and-forth messaging between team members trying to find a specific file they need or get permission to access that file. Everyone has access to the same asset pool and can pull from it at will, so you don’t waste time and money making duplicates if things get lost.
Even if you’re already automating one aspect of your marketing operations, chances are there’s something that could run more smoothly. That’s where we can help.
Accelo uses software solutions to assist small businesses to work smarter and run more agile campaigns. Whether it’s automation, analytics, billing, or sales, you’ll find what you need to help your brand thrive. Don’t just take our word for it, listen to the companies we’ve helped.
When 3 Media Web was bogged down trying to manage their company through multiple platforms, they came to us. Running spreadsheets, billing solutions, and time tracking separately was hurting their productivity. Now, this award-winning agency relies on Accelo to run all of its operations and save on average 20 hours a week to focus on more meaningful work.
Previously, all project management tasks were done with Excel sheets. Invoicing was done with different software and time tracking was monitored elsewhere. Now, we use Accelo for all of these trackable and billable items, so we're now able to monitor, act on, and make decisions based on our team's Accelo usage.
- Marc Avila CEO and Founder of 3 Media Web
Check out what our marketing project management software can do for your team on our website, or click here to start your free trial today!
