Overview
If you’re involved in any aspect of the marketing campaign process, you understand that time is one of the most precious resources you have, and any improvement that can help you optimize your workflow is worth its weight in gold!
What is the benefit to optimizing campaign build times?
Campaign builds can become a major time suck if not handled properly. Have you ever felt the pain of constant back and forth because items needed to start production weren’t included in the original request? Imagine how much time you could save by implementing a consistent process that would ensure that you receive all the minimum requirements no matter who is making the request!
Why should companies optimize the campaign request process?
With the right project management strategies, you can optimize your campaign build times and improve your overall efficiency. When you optimize your campaign build times with these PM tool functions below, you can eliminate inefficiencies, ramp up volume and scale for future projects.
The end result should follow this workflow. But…how do we get there?
How should a company optimize this process in their PM tool?
1. Create Templates
One of the simplest ways to optimize your campaign build times is to use templates. Templates can help you create campaigns quickly and efficiently, reducing the time spent on repetitive tasks. Many PM tools offer pre-built templates for various types of campaigns which can help you save even more time! Setting up great templates takes a good amount of pre-planning to identify exactly what is needed for each campaign. Start with organizing the needs for each campaign type and potential fields to include in your templates. Be sure to consider the subtasks, SLAs, dependencies and owners of each aspect of the campaign that can be automatically populated in the templates. Then, take all of those details and templatize a request form with required fields that will allow the marketing team to start working on tasks with minimal questions.
2. Communicate in Real-Time
Once you have templates set up on the front end, it’s collaboration time! Real-time collaboration is another essential feature that can help you optimize your campaign build times. Most PM tools allow team members to comment and tag each other in real-time. This helps streamline the process and reduce the time spent on back-and-forth communication. With real-time collaboration, team members can work together to identify and resolve issues quickly, reducing delays and guiding the campaign to an on time delivery.
3. Set Milestones and Deadlines
Setting milestones and deadlines is critical to managing campaign build times effectively. A project management tool that allows you to set milestones and deadlines can help you stay on track and ensure that you are meeting your goals. With milestones and deadlines in place, you can identify potential blockers early and take steps to address them before they become major issues.
4. Automate Repetitive Tasks
Another way to optimize campaign build times is to automate repetitive tasks. Pinpoint manual tasks that could use automation, and see if your PM tool offers the right triggers, conditions and actions necessary to help you save time and reduce errors. For example, you can use workflow automation to update a task’s status, generate reports or send out emails, freeing up your team’s time to focus on more critical tasks.
5. Track Progress
Tracking progress is essential to optimizing campaign build times. A PM tool that offers progress tracking or time tracking can help you monitor your team’s progress and highlight areas where improvements are needed. Ideally, you want to start with a benchmark for how much time certain tasks and campaigns are taking without any optimizations in place. With progress tracking, you can then review the difference in time needed or campaigns completed and make further adjustments to meet your goals.
Who should execute a campaign demand center?
Generally, the marketing or marketing operations team will plan and build the ideal campaign demand center to ensure a clear intake process, intuitive automations and straightforward roles and responsibilities.
When it comes to getting input on the process, it’s critical to consider the feedback from all teams that will play a part. The overall process needs to be built with both the campaign requestor and the campaign builder in mind. Once the process is established, education is key. It’s vital that every person who will touch this process knows exactly what’s expected of each team member and how they can ensure the smoothest process possible.
Remember to create training materials and documentation for any new team members that may jump on the project and update as the process evolves.
When should a company optimize their marketing campaign process?
When the marketing campaign monster at any organization grows in complexity and stakeholder involvement, it’s critical to establish a centralized process to tame it. It’s best to have well-defined campaign needs to guide your development stages. Once you have the details you need, you can tackle this project head on.
Conclusion
Optimizing campaign build times is critical to achieving success in your projects. By using a project management tool that offers templates, real-time communication, milestones and deadlines, automation, and progress tracking, you can streamline your workflow and improve your efficiency. With the right process in place, you can focus on delivering high-quality campaigns on time and on budget.
If the idea of optimizing your campaign build process sounds amazing but your team just doesn’t have the bandwidth to execute, Etumos offers marketing operations support packages to amp up your campaign production process and scale to your team’s precise needs!
This article is a post from the Etumos insights series. You can read the rest of the series on our revenue operations insights blog to learn how you can scale and optimize your marketing efforts through marketing technology.
