Creative Project Management
Creative project management means managing marketing services groups, running in-house agencies, overseeing marketing communications projects, and coordinating with other marketing resources, contractors, and agencies. A significant portion of creative project management work is managing the graphic design and copy that is portrayed through collateral, advertisements, websites, emails, and other communications vehicles.
Executive Challenges
Marketing managers, directors, and VPs showcase their results to increase revenues while keeping a tight handle on the bottom line expenses. Often times, it is not easy to show how every ounce of creative work helps the company increase revenues, market share, or customer loyalty.
When market growth slows, many executives look to improve operational efficiency in every department including productivity in the area of creative project management.
Companies experience cycles of expansion and consolidation – departments often centralize, consolidate, and re-organize the people, process, and technology within marketing to help the company improve financial performance.
The Creative Project Manager's View
As one customer stated, "the creative project management process relies on email for every step. We send emails and attachments for everything.” This includes emails for:
Budgeting discussions and project kick-offs
Passing around background documents, creative briefs, and research
Checking availability, assigning, and coordinating resources
Getting resources up to speed, assigning work, and checking on deadlines
Gathering feedback on designs as well as approval on final versions
Checking status and sending reminders
Transferring the final digital asset to another team member and launching work
Requesting information about the results and sharing them
What is the outcome for most companies? The creative project management process misses the potential for better productivity. Those involved cannot easily report on the number projects completed each month or quarter. CMOs and Marketing VPs push to improve accountability without tools to help make it easier for those involved in the process.
Key Functionality for Creative Project Management
Marketing resource management applications (such as Marketing Central) help create streamlined processes, improve visibility, and increase accountability for "creative project management." Key functionality includes:
Plannging, Budgeting, and Budget Tracking
Workflow, Traffic, and Scheduling
Online Proofing & Approval
Digital Asset Management
As an example, Marketing Central users can create a marketing project in seconds using a template, a simple wizard, or a job request form.
Customer Example – Reorganizing for Creative Project Management
Philips is a brand known around the world for its design and creative acumen. Click below to view a Philips web seminar recording where Philips covers how they re-organized the global marketing communications team and used Marketing Central to help enable the new organization.
Web Seminar Outline:
Unica summarizes "marketing operations" as a concept. This includes a common definition, the importance of marketing operations, comparisons of marketing operations software to other types of business software, and a short background on Unica and MarketingCentral.
Philips Healthcare provides an overview of their marketing operations including challenges, goals, key benefits, and approach to transforming a department of over 500 employees as part of a global reorganization of people, process, and technology. (Note: This is a shorter version of our panel web seminar recording.)
Please know that the online demonstration has been removed from this version of the presentation. Please contact us for this information.
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