Crystal Clear Communications Blog

Have you ever worked on a marketing project, only to see it languish and never get completed? It’s frustrating when something you worked on for hours never sees the light of day.

Often, it’s not the fault of any one person. Company priorities may change, the project gets stuck in review and forgotten about, or the budget gets cut.

I’ve seen this happen many times. Marketers work hard on a project that supports company goals, and for one reason or another, it never gets launched. Here are some things marketers can do to ensure marketing project success:

• Stick to your Message Map and Content Marketing Strategy.
• Establish an agreed-on review process.
• Use metrics that clearly tie to company and business goals.

Create and stick to a Message Map and Content Marketing Strategy

One of the best ways to ensure marketing project success is to create and use both a Message Map and Content Marketing Strategy.

When you co-create both items with key stakeholders, everyone is on the same page before the marketing project begins. Executives become invested in the messaging because they helped create it. When you send a marketing project for review that reflects that approved messaging, it’s more likely to get approved.

Your Content Marketing Strategy should tie your marketing objectives directly to the goals of the business. This helps ensure that executives see the value of each marketing project. Don’t have a Content Marketing Strategy? Download our free template.

Establish a review process to ensure marketing project success

Most marketing projects get stuck in the review process. Our team will partner with a client on a project, only to see it languish for months without approval.

An agreed-on review process that executives sign off on helps ensure a quicker, smoother review process. This works especially well if you can get your executives to agree that you can move forward if you don’t hear back from them within a certain number of days.

For more on making your marketing project approval process easier, see this blog.

Use marketing metrics that support overall organizational goals

While your marketing department needs to track detailed metrics such as open and click-through rates, website traffic, and content downloads, your executives likely don’t care. Avoid metrics that are too complex and not meaningful to executives.

To ensure marketing project success, find metrics that show your executives how the project contributes to leads, pipelines, and revenue.

For more on marketing measurement, see this blog by my business partner George Stenitzer.

It’s too easy for marketing projects to fall by the wayside. Ensure marketing project success by sticking to a Message Map, using an agreed-on approval process, and clearly showing how the project supports business goals.

For assistance with marketing or communications needs, email me at ariana@crystalclearcomms.com.