Why You Need a Marketing Project Manager
Today’s line-up of marketing roles includes some pretty interesting job titles: Brand Evangelist, New Media Guru, and Customer Engagement Architect, for example. But here at McKinley Marketing Partners, we’re more excited than ever about an old-school title: Project Manager.
A Project Manager may not have the most glamorous title, but their role within the marketing function is essential. McKinley has been consistently receiving more requests for candidates with project management expertise (and, in some cases, the PMP certification) over the past two years.
Why is this role becoming more and more important? The increase in demand for Project Managers (PMs) is the result of the increasingly multi-faceted nature of marketing campaigns. Executing a marketing campaign across multiple platforms—social media, digital, print, etc.—is now standard operating procedure. A Project Manager is particularly beneficial for multi-channel marketing campaigns for a number of reasons:
Project Managers Can Speak Everyone’s Language
Effective marketing campaigns require the involvement of a number of different teams: graphic designers, IT staff, copywriters, data analysts, among others. A Project Manager can communicate with diverse groups and can “translate” technical jargon for creative team members, and vice versa.
Project Managers Manage the Forest So The Rest of the Team Can Focus on The Trees
A skilled Project Manager will handle budgets and timelines, enforce deadlines, schedule and lead meetings, and ensure that all teams are delivering quality work. While the PM focuses on the big picture, individual contributors can concentrate on their component of the project, leading to more efficient execution.
Project Managers Provide an Objective Perspective
Many companies turn to outside consultants for project management in an effort to bring a fresh, unbiased perspective to a marketing initiative. This strategy can be highly effective, as an experienced PM can assess a project, develop a business case for or against it, and measure its performance against important metrics, without the risk of previous marketing campaigns or internal politics influencing their analysis.
If your 2015 marketing plan involves marketing initiatives that require company-wide collaboration or cross-platform distribution, we recommend you consider investing in a qualified project manager.
