Anyone that is in the marketing business, especially online marketing, understands that there are many moving parts that are all constantly changing and evolving. It’s hard to make existing project management platforms match marketing needs. Basecamp, Asana, Monday – are great platforms in their own right, but don’t take into consideration the specific needs of marketers. With many simultaneous processes, marketers need workflow automation software designed for marketing professionals.
This software needs to feel like a seamless fit, it shouldn’t need heavy adjustments or numerous management systems in order to meet marketing firms needs. Ideally, project management software for marketers would feel natural to use and automate many of the processes that are currently being performed manually. Ideally, it should also be integrated into reporting systems and allow for marketing teams to meet deadlines, client expectations, and deliverables.
What Should Marketing Project Management Software Include?
Marketing requires automated processes to handle the different types of repetitive tasks that marketers have. It’s vitally important to have a platform that works like marketers do – not the other way around. Therefore, it should already include these aspects:
- Content Creation
- Public Relations
- Blogger Outreach
When using standard project management systems, marketers have had to adapt generic platforms to try to get them to work for them. However, in many cases, this actually results in the marketing team changing how they work to fit the platform. This is wrong, as digital marketing works best when marketers are able to work in a way that feels natural and comfortable. They should not need to be concerned about how the project management system works, or even worried about if things are actually working properly.
Software used for marketing project management has to be fast, dynamic, and able to allow teams to rapidly adapt to growth and changes. It has to allow for multiple branches of projects to grow and progress independently, as marketing campaigns have numerous outreaches. This is also vital to efficiency, as if things can’t progress side-by-side, a lot of time gets wasted. With Gryffin, marketers have a platform that was designed by marketers for marketers, and that adapts to the specific needs of marketing teams, agencies, and freelancers.
Features That Fit Marketers Perfectly
For a team to work effectively, there are certain features required. However, when designed for marketing, there are features that can improve and optimize processes beyond current levels.
Customizable Projects – Templates help to get things set up properly and quickly. In digital marketing, there are various processes that are repeated time and time again. However, these are not always exactly the same. Sometimes a client wants some adjustments, and sometimes projects need to be adjusted because of external forces such as search engine updates. Being able to edit and apply templates of projects saves man hours and reduces workloads.
Fully Integrated Task Management – Task management is one thing, but integrated task management designed for marketing teams is a totally different beast. By integrating with a calendar and project templates, tasks can be automated to new levels.
Actions can be set up to trigger other actions, which in turn can drive task completion. This means that people no longer need to think about who to assign the next step of a project, once the ball starts rolling, every completion of a task triggers the next. This should then all link into easy to manage dashboards so that a clear overview of project branches and entire projects is easy to access and manage.
Cloud Systems – Cloud Storage and office suite applications make collaboration easier. Files can be uploaded and shared with team members. Numerous team members can work on individual documents, separately or even at the same time. This interconnectivity and communication allows everyone to work well together, no matter their location.
Communication from Within – When running projects, the team should never need to leave the application in order to set tasks, send emails, or update progress. Messaging systems built into the system allow for chats inside tasks, email notifications, and more. This means that the focus remains on the work at hand, instead of the need for collaboration causing team members to get sidetracked by email in-box distractions.
Scalable – This may be the last of this section, but it is also one of the most important. Marketing companies can find that they grow far faster than originally anticipated. It is nice to have affordable software at the beginning, but it is equally as important that the software and features can expand with the company.
Is Your Marketing Business Expanding?
If you or someone you know is running a marketing company, then it is best to get things set up well at the beginning. Marketing companies often start out small and easily managed without software, but the thing to consider is how far can a business expand if everything is done manually. By using marketing project management software that’s designed to help automate standard tasks from the beginning, it gives the company the ability to expand. After all, if a business is well setup, automated and optimized … the potential of the business is maximized.