Pain points Project Manager's face within Marketing Campaign Execution

Let's be real... 

As a marketing manager, what are the actual key pain points you face every day? 

Monday.com, Asana, Trello, etc. all throw their stories in their marketing at you - but does it feel like they get you and your struggles within Marketing Campaign Execution? I certainly don't feel like they do... 

Here's the key pain points on my list, maybe you as a fellow marketing manager can relate? 

• Keeping track of all campaigns from initial brief, launch to reporting 
• Internal and external transparency on all digital project progression 
• Scope monitoring and managing from all collaborator activity on project tasks
• Centralised communication and preventing information, feedback and crucial details from being lost across multiple platforms (i.e. email, chat, meetings, etc.) 
• Timeline management and communication

To really emphasise this, watch this video of me down below, in a "slightly" exaggerated showcase of me struggling to keep track of every task, from every project, while everyone (client’s and internal) is communicating frantically across multiple platforms. 

So... probably a good thing we rewound time back to that 9am Monday morning, as I want to show you a bit more of the closer reality as to how my days usually go. This of course comes after years of process building, advanced digital marketing training, trial and error, etc. Asana is where we're at right now, and hopefully will continue to accomodate our company campaign and project management endeavours for many years to come.

As opening up my emails and seeing all communications condensed from Asana only is just a dream.. 

As per the video above, you can clearly see the answers to these points below to take your marketing practices to the next level ...  

Keeping track of all campaigns from initial brief, launch to reporting 

• New projects should be initiated by simply cloning from pre-built project templates within your project management system
• Updating the deliverables, setting times and dates to each to fit within the overall project scope (over the next weeks, months, or years of engagement) should be simple and straight forward
• Adding in milestones for each phase of your projects, from brief, to set-up, to launch, to ongoing reporting, should be added and be obvious to your team and the client 
• Have a program that allows for an overall project timeline, and note the milestone dates within that timeline
• Always explain in detail to your clients how you use your project management platform, and how the tasks and timeline features work visually 

Internal and external transparency on all digital project progression 

• Everyone on tasks set within the collaborative environment should see everything that happens, and be notified about it
• Historic notes within the program are important, so the deliverables are kept clear and on track, despite updates and changes to the tasks desired outcomes 
• Keep all your marketing, sales and other campaigns and projects separate and segmented with appropriate and clear sections 
• Make your tasks flow from top to bottom, so everyone in the platform can see one flows into the other 
• Be sure to make it clear if one task is reliant on another 

Scope monitoring and managing from all collaborator activity on project tasks

• Create a collaborative environment, whereby if a request is made, you can measure immediately if it's within scope against the project tasks themselves 
• Simply creating additional tasks to create the strategy and brief details within the same project (i.e. creating subtasks off main tasks) and adding other tasks for your team to actually complete the work itself 
• Assigning the resource to complete this task immediately, to determine the cost associated with the tasks outlined

Centralised communication and preventing information, feedback and crucial details from being lost across multiple platforms

• Responding in one location, so everyone sees it and knows what’s happening
• Tagging contributors, so they’re always a part of the conversation
• Assigning the final person to review and sign off on campaign and project tasks
• In times of COVID-19 it's critical to keep up communication while working from home, and a central platform of comms is the best answer

Timeline management and communication

• Your teams (not just you) sharing any steps needed, so less back and forth 
• Although you may not be able to answer a technical question in the greatest of detail, if your colleague can, they should be able to in the context of the project for the client directly
• Invite every relevant team member from your company, as well as all the client’s that need to be across the project
• Always add an agenda to the description, and any supporting files, documents, links, other task links, etc. that are coming up after the tasks specified, and for meetings be sure to then copy across the link to that task into the calendar invite, so it can be viewed before hand by your clients 

In the end, what did we learn and would love to share with all of you? That using a platform like Asana, especially when conducting Hubspot Inbound Marketing Solutions, helps with:

• Keeping Track of Projects 
• Project Transparency
• Avoid Scope Creep
• Centralising Communication, and
• Maintaining Timelines

Ask us how we do it so well!