Why Marketing Teams Need Project Management Training

Marketing has rapidly evolved in the past decade, and this development was supported by new technologies and software. The digitalization of marketing and the internet itself might just be the most important factors in this process of evolution. An average marketing team today is loaded with work around the clock. On top of that, they are required to coordinate with different teams and still manage to deliver results.

Participating in project management training and using marketing project management software presents itself as a necessity if marketing teams want to increase productivity. Behaving and thinking as experienced project managers is the ultimate goal here. Supported by project management tools, this behavior can lead to increased efficiency and productivity.

With that in mind, let’s see how project management training can improve the productivity of a marketing team.

Learn What Exactly Marketing Project Is

In order to become more effective in project management, marketing teams have to get familiar with all the details and learn about the building blocks that form the backbone of every marketing project. This is simply because, if anywhere, it is in marketing that one can find a lot of task dependencies. Here are the main components of a marketing strategy project:

-  Market research (customer profile, product/service requirements)

-  Getting informed about designs and building products or services (requires collaboration with lead engineers and designers)

-  Marketing Budget (requires collaboration with stakeholders and financial managers)

- Learning all about the service delivery processes (ordering, shipping, billing, etc.)

-  Sales plan and Sales Process (requires collaboration with sales teams)

-  Identifying primary marketing channels (social media, outdoor marketing, TV, Radio)

- Choosing marketing methods and materials (requires collaboration with social media managers, graphic designers, videographers, etc.)

-  Working out of the public strategy

Each one of these components is consisted of tasks and every task has to be delivered with limited access to resources and assets and still be able to end with satisfying deliverables. Vendors of marketing project management software have designed their products so that they can be used for the most complex projects. A marketing team that knows the ins and outs of any marketing project will have no problem creating a project with this tool.

Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities

One of the imperatives of project management training is learning how to define roles and responsibilities. Which is another good thing about project management software. It allows manages to assign roles and responsibilities for each marketing team member. Marketing teams that undergo training are completely capable to work inside pre-set boundaries while feeling comfortable to place complete trust in their colleagues.

Of course, sometimes there are troubles and the completion of redundant and dependent tasks gets delayed. Managing a team under these circumstances can be very stressful. Fortunately, PM software allows managers to reschedule tasks with one simple mouse drag after which every team member gets notified about deadline updates.

Keeping Track of Project Documentation

Project documentation is something that tends to pile up over time as the project progresses. Sending it via email or sharing it with a USB sticks can cause a lot of confusion in terms of the latest viable version of the document. Especially if some of the documents have to be used when creating a report or an invoice. Marketing teams have to learn how to keep their documents updated and keep them somewhere where they can be accessed at all times.

PM software’s document sharing feature meets the needs of marketing teams really well. The documents are stored on the cloud so that anyone with the right permission can access, view, or edit it accordingly. On top of that, project management tools are mobile friendly. This makes documents accessible on the go and from any device.

Collaboration, the Recipe for Success

The marketing department is probably the only department the success of which is directly connected with the success of other departments and its ability to actively collaborate with them. During project management training, team members learn how to reap the benefits of efficient collaboration. And PM software is what makes all this possible.

When creating a project using this software, you can invite anyone to participate, not only members of the marketing team. When you have everyone on board starting from product designers down to the latest sales person in the organization's chain, you can be sure that the marketing project is set on its course to success.

ROI, Finances and Clients

Every marketing campaign is an investment into product promotion. Marketing teams have to be able to know to calculate the expenses of their marketing efforts and to make estimates in terms of strategy effectiveness. Going over the budget doesn’t make anyone happy.

Now, while training can enable the marketing teams to learn how to do this, it still takes up too much valuable time. This has a negative effect on the team’s productivity.

Marketing PM software has built in reports and invoice generating features. Basing your calculations on the exact time spent for each task, the resources spent, and the assets involved, this software is completely capable of generating detailed reports that will make clients happy.

While project management training equips marketing teams with a wide specter of skills, only with PM software and by using a time tracking tool can you identify the weak spots in your team. Once you know which tasks take up more time than necessary, you can organize training for the employees in order to make them better marketers and project managers.

Modern marketing project management software has all the features to enable marketing teams to become more agile and productive. This software tool helps marketing teams by completely streamlining important marketing processes. Starting with full control of project planning and execution to collaboration and reporting, marketing teams can focus more on the core actions of marketing strategies. This does not only lead to better results, but it also increases the overall productivity of marketing teams.