Many projects are incorrectly scheduled or structured, resulting in wasted effort, missed requirements and even project failure. A properly scheduled and structured digital marketing project drastically increases the probability of the project to succeed. This problem applies to many digital marketing projects, including websites, apps, email campaigns and more.

So what does a properly structured and scheduled digital marketing project look like? A cake! Much like a delicious cake, a well structured and well scheduled digital marketing project has multiple layers. These layers all work together to create something great, in this case, an excellent digital marketing project delivery.

This structure ensures consistency throughout the project, ensures all viewpoints are considered and helps to reduce problems in transitioning between phases.

Project Lifecycle

So how do the layers of a project change during the project lifecycle?

First, we start out with a heavy dash of creative. At the same time, technical implementation, analytics and optimization experts are available and consulted to ensure the creative output is feasible to implement, will be possible to measure and is optimized to consumer habits and SEO best practices.

Next when the creative team transitions to the technical team, they have a leg up, as the technical team was actively represented and already had exposure to the assumptions, decisions and recommendations the creative team had when developing their deliverables. By keeping representation from the creative team on throughout the implementation, the creative team can fix the inevitable issues that occur when their designs meet reality.

During the technical implementation, the analytics and optimization teams will be working with the stakeholders to understand KPIs and requirements as well as working with the technical teams to ensure the foundation to their work is laid into the project. As the technical team begins to produce deliverables, the analytics and optimization teams will work with the technical team to integrate tracking and targeting.

Spotting a Poorly Structured Project

So how you spot that a project may fall flat or burn up? Here are some common signs:

• Fiefdoms - no communication between teams
• Different teams from different, competing vendors
• Teams rolling on or off too early or too late
• The current team isn’t aware of previous team’s work

Recognizing these signs will help you to know when to take corrective action, however, prevention is far better. To make sure your Digital Marketing Project remains balanced, remember the cake principal and ensure you have consistency and the correct ingredients for every part of you project implementation.

And remember!