The Frontier Of Marketing Project Management
Why are other business functions such as finance, fulfilment and operations more organized than marketing?
With today’s business efficiencies, the marketing function probably represents the greatest leverage opportunity for overall business growth and company performance.
And the marketing people feel the pressure – yet overwhelmed by promising new fads and genuine new tactics such as affiliate marketing, social media, Facebook advertising…
But it’s no one’s fault. Business has to mature to absorb marketing as a centre piece of modern strategy, rather than leaving it silo’d. Only then can the marketing function truly shine as it should.
“Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two-and only two-basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business.” – Peter Drucker
And what is the most glaringly obvious opportunity for marketing to improve by? Marketing Project Management.
Training in MPM can come from books on project management… or it can extend into formalised academic project management (most of which I would not recommend), or a comprehensive study and implementation of critical chain project management which is way ahead of standard project management techniques.
The Way Into Marketing Project Management
No matter how you approach developing marketing project management, or the scale of MPM required in your company, here is a 6-part model for MPM.
1. Preparation – Customer focus orientation, productivity training
2. Research – Customer insight, product insight, internal capabilities audits, etc.
3. Development – Web presence, product development contribution, team development, etc.
4. Conversion – Campaign management, website management, email marketing, sales pipeline, etc
5. Traffic – SEO, affiliate marketing, email marketing, social media marketing.
6. Tracking – Web tracking, ROI analysis, etc.
Those six categories of practical MPM are unlocked by the trialectic of management:
1. Outcome – Get clear on what results are possible and are required for high marketing results.
2. Process – Understand the constraints and how to mitigate them.
3. Performance – Controlling daily activity and overall ROI of all marketing campaigns.
With these outlines a marketing manager can begin building a tailored approach to marketing project management.
Take hold of your marketing project management and learn about teamwork training.