Marketing is all about more, more, more. More graphic designs, more blog articles and press releases, more banner ads, more social media posts; marketing is “more!” ad nauseum. Even if you have assembled a marketing team of superstars, the industry shifts and presents challenges to marketers at a breakneck pace. Even with the greatest marketing team in the universe, managers are going to face challenges from changes in public opinion, market trends, issues with product quality, all while trying to wrangle a team of those pesky “creative types”.
There are more challenges for marketing managers than you can shake a stick at. So, being that we don’t keep you here reading this post for hours, we’ve chosen the main (and frequently hidden) marketing challenges managers and their teams face today, and how cloud-based project management software like Easy Projects comes to the rescue and can solve them.
1. Lack of rapid-fire, real-time marketing team communication
If your marketing team is operating at maximum capacity you should be reeling in new business like nobody’s business, and leaving behind a sea of successful campaigns in your wake. However, at maximum capacity your team is also potentially cooking up a pot of the industry-famous Chaos Stew.
Every company wants to achieve the most with the least resources, but taking this modus operandi too far will cripple your team’s ability to be efficient and reliable. Collaborative communication between management, content, and design staff needs to be seamless in order to avoid the pitfalls of marketing mayhem.
Cohesive communication between the marketing and sales departments is a no brainer for any business enterprise, but do not get ahead of yourself. First, as the marketing manager, you need ensure that your own house is in order.
Especially when you have a combination of on-site and outsourced/remote marketing staff, details can be neglected and ideas can be lost. When operating at optimal capacity there is a flurry of ideas being exchanged, projects being reviewed, new marketing directions coming down from up top, etc. It’s more than a lot to manage, and too often during frenetic chapters in a marketing team’s history, vital communicaes can fall through the cracks.
The Easy Projects Solution: Communication between each member of the marketing team is online, and developments are shared in real-time. Our cloud PM software allows for transparency for the entire department, so novel ideas and approaches can be shared between each staff member, bolstering efficiency and saving time on individually conducted research.
2. “Dude, where’s my spreadsheet?”
If you are managing a successful marketing department there should be more than a few things going on at once, hopefully dozens of activities every working hour of every day. However, operating at a frenzy is not desirable. Without proper measures and systems in place, project documents and files can easily become disorganized.
If a single member of the marketing team loses their blog draft or a customer’s contact info it can bring the whole team to a grinding halt. Even if for only an hour or two, that is precious time that could have otherwise been saved.
As your marketing department grows in line with the success of the company, you will often be taking on more work before you can hire more staff to handle it. Without a robust informational system in place you are basically begging for a disaster.
The Easy Projects Solution: With our PM software for marketing managers, all of the project information is collected and stored in one place, safely in the cloud. After implementing Easy Projects for your marketing department, you will notice that never again is any information lost, and that it is accessible from anywhere at anytime.
3. Veering off course: are you giving the client what they want?
A marketing manager is practically a baby sitter, teacher, tour guide and judge all rolled into one; the job is a lot for anybody to handle effectively. As the manager, you are responsible not solely for your team’s performance, but also accountable for communicating with and servicing the clients and stakeholders.
The challenge here is split in two: if you focus too much on managing your team, you can lose track of what the client wants you to do for them. On the flipside, if you spend too much of your time and effort on communicating with clients and stakeholders, well, you know what happens when the cat is away...
There is little worse of a feeling than the dread that comes after spending months on a marketing plan, presenting it to the client only to hear “Yeah, that seems great for an ABC company, but we’re an XYZ.” Not only were resources wasted, but missing the mark is embarrassing for the company.
So, how can a manager service both the client and supervise their marketing department simultaneously, without losing track of the project purpose?
The Easy Projects Solution: What better way to stay on track with your client’s vision than to have them on board with your progress every step of the marketing process? With Easy Projects clients and stakeholders are welcome to observe each creative development, from proposed blog post titles being bandied about to graphic design options.
4. Muddied task assignment and accountability
Unless you are managing a marketing team of two people, accountability during campaign development and execution is a major challenge for dynamic teams. In line with the aforementioned marketing challenges we mentioned, high-output marketing teams are the ones most at risk for confusion, distraction, and neglect of detail.
Further, the larger and more complex a team is the greater the opportunity for errors, and also the greater the challenge is for the manager to track who was responsible for what.
For example, if you hear from a client that an unsatisfactory blog post was submitted on their behalf, and you have a team of six writers, how do you know who to hold accountable for their work? If you are the lone manager, you are also swamped with managing the other members of your team. Getting to the bottom of the issue is time consuming and stressful.
The Easy Projects Solution: Using our software allows for rigid accountability for all work performed. Never again will a manager run into a he said/she said scenario. Also, if shoddy work is performed, it is easy to trace the party responsible and hold them accountable. The software solves the guessing game and hours of investigation, as all work is time-stamped and employees are tagged in each assignment.
Easy Projects, easy management
While Easy Projects will not solve every challenge a marketing manager may face (sorry, we can’t help you if you’re trying to market ice during a blizzard), our software alleviates many of the major headaches that come along with managing a large and dynamic marketing team. Increased internal and external communication, team accountability, and information security are streamlined, affording for managers to devote time and energy to what matters most for them: developing the finest marketing strategies with their teams.