Marketing workflow: 3 tips to help you succeed
| January 12, 2021
A marketing workflow reduces stress and saves an abundance of time. It acts as a guide for teams to follow when beginning a campaign and includes goals, deadlines, stakeholders and all associated tasks. Here we’ll take a closer look at what marketing workflow is and provide three tips that will work for your business.
What is a marketing workflow?
Marketing workflow outlines the steps a business needs to take in order to make a campaign or project shine. Workflows allow team leaders to oversee tasks and implement strategies that ensure the correct procedures are in place. A key focus of workflows is to optimize your business functions and ensure efficiency and productivity are on peak form.
Assistance tools such as workflow software help with the reduction of manual tasks through automation, and as a result remove a large percentage of human error. Good marketing workflow procedures give project transparency and your team accountability by outlining stakeholders and defining goals.
A marketing workflow sets up a step-by-step process to follow from the inception of a campaign or project through to completion. A good example of how a marketing workflow can assist your team is looking at creative requests. Establish your workflow to ensure key information is shared efficiently by teams and ownership is taken.
A creative request workflow example:
- Hold a team briefing
- Establish a unified goal
- Create working guidelines
- Establish timeframes and allocate roles
- Provide a template submission process
If you want to create an effective marketing workflow then there are a few different methods that can help your team shine when used consistently. Here are three tips for you to keep in mind when implementing your workflow process.
Use data to optimize team productivity
Workflows provide data on a given project. They give your business the ability to track the progress of tasks and how long they took to complete. They also deliver detailed reports once a project or campaign is complete – advanced versions have KPI dashboards. All of this helps teams work more efficiently and provides a business with storable information they can use with future tasks.
3 data workflow benefits:
- MarTech data transfer capabilities
- Notifications and alerts sent automatically
- Team performance reports provided
Automation is another perk of well-used data. If looking to launch a dynamic email campaign via Mailchimp for example, you can utilize data and have your latest newsletter sent to multiple territories at the perfect time with data analysis. Data allows your business to see what does and doesn’t work on a marketing project.
Set goals from the outset
Before creating or expanding an existing workflow you need to have a clear marketing goal. The better communicated a goal is the increased chance you have of delivering a project on time. Hold briefings or create design sprints that ensure your content team understands what is expected. Part of any clearly outlined goal is task distribution. Ensure team members are assigned the correct role and provide transparency when discussing what is expected from them. Well understood goals keep workflows moving consistently in the right direction.
Embrace industry change
With the continuous advancement of technology comes new marketing strategies that speak to the needs of a customer. The use of software within a marketing department means how your MarTech stack evolves will heavily influence the way your business approaches a task. At the start of a new project or campaign take time to assess previous work and consider what may have changed in the industry. Of course, an iterative approach to certain best practices exists within all departments. Be flexible and adapt to new marketing processes.
A marketing workflow is essential to success. It gives teams clear rules and requirements and ensures they understand tasks with the ultimate goal in mind. Produce a high-quality result with a workflow process that is transparent and easy for an entire marketing department to grasp.