What it’s about
In this interview, Patrick and I discuss some methods marketing teams can use to avoid scope creep, what we believe can help teams stay focused on their metrics, and the most efficient way to finish multiple marketing projects within a short deadline.
Takeaways
Assign someone to keep track of your metrics
Marketing is a fast paced industry that has lots of moving cogs to keep projects going. It’s easy for projects to get off the rails and for scope creep to happen because different projects can pull focus from everyone working toward a common goal.
To avoid scope creep as much as possible, assign one person to be the project manager, chief marketing officer, director of marketing, head strategist, or whatever you want to call them, to be in charge of assigning projects and deadlines.
You might have a leader that makes decisions on how a team moves forward, but you don’t need to have a ton of structure. You just need to break down projects for teams so you can get prioritized tasks done, and keep working toward your North Star Metric.
Know your North Star Metric
What is your North Star Metric, you say? A North Star Metric is a metric that best captures the core values of your business. That could be conversion, that could be traffic, it could be leads, but whatever it is, it is clearly defined. Whatever your North Star metric is, it should define how you spend your time.
Say you’ve made a conscious decision, because of your North Star Metric, that you want to get more readers who are sales people. You then start writing more sales-related content, which is a business decision that can then be implemented in shorter sprints, or deadlines, to produce content, to push that information.
Defining those sprints (short 2 week cycles) to see how much you can get done in that two week period keeps the team focused on the core values of your business.
Dedicate smaller teams to projects
Scope creep can happen in any business. You have ideas that you start working on, but then something else gets in the way, so timelines get pushed and the project at hand starts losing focus. To avoid it, dedicate smaller teams to work on specific projects.
Breaking projects out into smaller pieces can make it easier to manage a team since everyone is working toward the same end-goal. It will be harder the bigger your team gets, and the more things you’re trying to do, but try to break projects down into smaller, more digestible chunks so you can get more stuff out the door.
"Break projects down into smaller, more digestible chunks so you can get more stuff out the door.”
Show notes
