The best marketing project managers will tell you that their success is highly dependent on a few things: good communication, good data, and good tools that make it all possible. With new SaaS startups popping up daily, choosing the best marketing project manager tools can pose a challenge: Which solution is the best fit for each of the many “hats” a marketing project manager wears?
The simplest solution to the ever-growing matrix of subscription services and their rising costs might just be choosing one system with a solution to every challenge. To find the best project management system for marketing, there are a few things every marketing project manager should look for.
Read on for five non-negotiable marketing project manager tools:
Vendor Management
Creating content, managing social media campaigns and working with vendors and agencies for social media or PR can be stressful. When the little details aren’t all captured in the same system, crucial items can get lost in the shuffle, and the budget can get lost with it.
An enterprise vendor management tool can connect formerly siloed teams and groups so they can coordinate efforts and simplify the approval process. This means you can get your campaign up and running as soon as possible.
Task Automation
In every marketing project, there is a selection of tasks that must get done. Automation can standardize processes––such as project intake––to make sure your resources are utilized based on the new incoming demand.
In this regard, some of the best marketing project manager tools don’t necessarily seem like project management tools at first blush, but rather are specialized for specific marketing tasks. That includes:
- Social media tools for planning social calendars and scheduling posts
- Content calendar tools for creating publishing schedules
- …and anything that helps you reduce repetitive or frequent marketing work
Data analytics tools
Data is key for project managers to know how a marketing project is progressing as well as how well it accomplishes its key KPIs. Real-time analytics during the project can help project managers define bottlenecks and vendors who might need a bit more attention.
There are plenty of paid and free analytics tools, including Google Analytics, that marketing project managers – from content marketing to SEO – swear by in order to monitor the success of their marketing efforts.
SEO Tools
There’s hardly a marketing manager these days whose job doesn’t involve content marketing, and that means SEO. SEO tools help you leverage data about users’ search behavior to:
- Give readers content they want
- Optimize your website for usability
- …and generally improve your digital presence
Keyword research tools, data scrapers and content aggregators are just a few of the many SEO tools marketing project managers rely on to make sure they keep their finger on the pulse of their audiences’ pain points and deliver real value. Some of these tools overlap with the analytics tools mentioned above, while others are more specialized.
Cloud Access
Whether you have a jam-packed travel schedule based on trade shows and global stakeholder meetings, or you’re simply looking for the flexibility of working at home or from the office, having cloud access is an absolute must-have for today’s marketing project manager.
A full-service project management system for marketing should make it easy to access your project information from anywhere, whether you’re using the secure web application on your laptop, a native mobile app, or through an integration with your other business software solutions.
Team Collaboration
Between cross-functional internal stakeholders, aligning marketing and sales teams on business and budget objectives and managing external collaborators, a marketing project manager tool must have team collaboration that keeps everyone aligned.
A collaboration tool like Planview AdaptiveWork makes it easy for all collaborators to communicate within a single platform to keep everyone informed and on-task.
Best Project Management System for Marketing
Many marketing project managers will find themselves working with a homebrewed collection of tools designed for specific tasks, and there’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. The best project management system for marketing – even an all-in-one system – will not necessarily account for every single marketing task. That’s where specialized tools for content creation, social media and more come into play.
But like all projects, marketing projects depend on good collaboration and efficient workflows. That’s where solutions like Planview AdaptiveWork come in. To find out how Planview AdaptiveWork can help your marketing projects soar, schedule a live demo today.
