Working together with your team to implement open communication is the best way to stay on top of production no matter what your industry. But when it comes to marketing production, try using these strategies to see how quickly your production levels rise.
- Have a solid, reliable project manager. Once projects have been assigned to team members, project managers must look at all employee workloads and prioritize tasks based on what projects are “hot” and need attention immediately. Projects can be moved up or down on priority lists every day, sometimes hourly depending on work schedules and needs.
- Use colors. We like the stop light method—red means the project is on hold for reasons like needing more information, waiting on pieces from external team members, etc. Yellow means the project is currently in production, and green means the project is good to review.
- Your timeline is your best friend. We try to make timelines that create deadlines well in advance of the actual deadline so we can stay ahead of any edits or last-minute surprises that may come our way. Those few days or months of grace definitely come in handy when you need a couple extra days to work with ahead of the deadline.
- Give yourself a break. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not always possible to come in early on task completion. Sometimes there are just too many projects and tasks on your plate that are due on the same day, and we simply can’t get it done when we want it to. That’s okay, too. As long as you’re still meeting the original deadline, that’s ultimately what is important.
- Know how to delegate. Each staff member has strengths and weaknesses. They also prefer to work on some tasks more than other tasks. If you can match tasks with each person’s strengths and which jobs they like to work on, typically that team member is going to be able to finish their tasks in a much quicker manner. Knowing your team and being able to delegate this way just goes a step further in aiding streamlined processes.
- Know when to outsource. For example, we have a web team that handles complicated web coding tasks, because our internal team isn’t well versed in coding. Rather than spending a ton of time or research on how to code, our Project Manager sends out the task to be completed. That manager then also knows when it’s time to follow up with the external team to check on progress and ensure we’ll still hit the due date.
- Have a champion for each project. While the project manager is responsible for ensuring each piece of the project is assigned to a team member and the deadlines are being met, we like to assign a champion to ensure the end product is up to par.
It takes time and organization to ensure your marketing production takes a streamlined approach to the finish line. Take time this month to look at your own team’s production and evaluate where you can implement these strategies and improve overall.
Keep it disciplined.