Marketing Systems for Tiny Marketing Departments

Even 1-person marketing departments can win.

Blog Highlights: Marketing Systems

• Learn how to create a marketing workflow.
• Choose the right project management tool for your team.
• Create templates to streamline your repeating marketing tasks.

I remember sitting in my cubicle, a one-person marketing department for a seven-company group, feeling overwhelmed and unsure of what to do.?

One day, I did something about it. I created a system to streamline, systematize, automate, and batch their marketing. This way, my companies would consistently show up, add value, and build trust with their clients.

I also wanted my systems to give me the freedom to take on spur-of-the-moment projects and lead the marketing chair for our EOS team.?

Soon, I realized that the system I built for that company could work for others too. That’s when I launched Tiny Marketing. Every company can do big things; they just need the systems in place to get them done.?

So, how do?tiny teams? systematize marketing to have an effective marketing system?

Table of Contents?Show

Create Marketing Workflows

Business owners, if you want an efficient marketing department, you need to nail the marketing workflow.

What is a marketing workflow?

A marketing workflow is your business’s marketing process to organization your marketing tasks. It explains your team's steps to complete your marketing and organizes your team’s operations.

An effective marketing?workflow should cover your overall marketing goals and the tasks that make up the bigger picture. This makes it easy for your team to follow through on your marketing plan. This workflow includes your team’s marketing campaigns, content plan, and marketing funnel.

Components of a workflow

Every marketing workflow has three primary components that do not change, regardless of the type of workflow: triggers, activities, and results.

1.Triggers: marketing automation starts with a trigger. A trigger can be as simple as choosing between two options about your operations.?

For example, a workflow could start when a project request comes in, and you need to decide if you will approve or reject the request.

Your options may be “create a new project,” “add to the project,” or “reject request.”

Note: if the trigger event occurs, you choose an option, begin the workflow, and perform the defined actions.

Trust me when I say that randomly choosing projects is risky. I have compiled a list of to-dos to help you decide which tasks you should work on:?

• Set priorities — let your big-picture goals, company values, and strategic planning guide you in choosing the right projects.
• Create a project selection criteria — your projects should have characteristics that align and are strategic with your company’s vision. Go for projects with higher returns on investment.
• Make informed decisions — including asking for advice or having a committee that debates whether the project fits.
• Say ‘no’ — you know the projects your company should never do - simply say no to them.?

2. Activities/ Actions: after choosing what to do, you perform different activities to complete those tasks. This may include planning, gathering resources, compiling data, and more.

From the above example, your proposed actions could be “create a task list,” “assign tasks,” and “add resources.” Note: Automate this through templates with the right project management tool.

3. Results: don’t we all love completed work? Especially when you have done it on time and produced quality results. I particularly love the moment I change tasks from “due” to “completed.”?

Defining your Marketing Workflow

Understand your objective and project scope

According to Forbes , people with well-defined goals are ten times more likely to succeed. Believe me when I say this also applies to entities like companies and businesses. And you don’t have to worry as long as you have a well-thought-out project scope and objectives.?

Your project scope should give you every detail about the marketing activity you need to deliver. This may involve the project’s deliverables, deadlines, goals, tasks, team members, and milestones. In other terms, your project’s scope is your roadmap, showing how you will accomplish your mission.

In comparison, when planning for a project, you predetermine the results your project should give you at the end. These end results are your project’s objectives.?

For example, if you are planning a webinar, choose a registration benchmark to gauge its success ahead of time. Then, set up the tech to measure your goals.

Once we have outlined the objectives and scope, choose the resources for the project. This process involves asking questions: what tools do we need? Do we need experts? What team members do we need?

Meet as needed

Meetings are another important aspect of letting your team members understand the project's scope and objectives. For example, we hold one stand-up meeting a week to share adjustments, changes, and progress. Work as a team to find a cadence that will work for your marketing department and drive projects to completion.

Start meetings by listing all the marketing tasks with a clear scope. Then divide these tasks into smaller tasks for team members to complete in order of priority. Discussing the following aspects of your project is crucial:

• Do you have repetitive projects ? These may include tasks that recur monthly, quarterly, or annually.
• What are your upcoming projects? Jot down the estimated hours and resources needed.
• What are the expectations?
• How can you meet the proposed deadlines for all upcoming projects?
• Identify and prioritize available tasks.

Estimate Time

I time every task I do to estimate the time investment for the next project. Once you know the time to finish one project, you can accurately estimate your timelines. You can also use a time management technique called time boxing.

When time boxing, you give your tasks a fixed and maximum time within which you should finish the job. For instance:

• Client work — 8:00 to 10:30 a.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Content marketing — 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. on weekdays?
• Proposals and invoicing — 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. on Mondays?

Delegate responsibility

Delegating tasks is the best part of my day because I constantly bond with my team members. This way, I know their strengths, weaknesses, and skill sets. I also know “who” can perform “what” best.

However, my team doesn’t always have the skills needed for a project. In these cases, I call in some technical support from the outside.?

I had a project that needed the services of a web designer, and I didn’t have one on my team. I hired a freelance web designer and assigned a project manager to monitor the workflow. The project manager supplied resources and managed timelines and workflows. The technical expert did the work. Win-win.

Review your workflow...

Continue reading the article!

P.S. If you liked this, you'll LOVE my weekly newsletter, where I give you actionable advice that even the tiniest team can implement. Sign up for the newsletter here.