How to Make a Business Case for Marketing Project Management Software
For many in-house marketing departments, the concept of having a quality marketing project management solution in place is a no-brainer. After all, what marketing team wouldn’t want a platform that allows them to collaborate with fellow team members, get better visibility and control of projects and automate key processes to deliver a more consistent and quality output? More often than not however, it’s not the marketing department or even the Head of Marketing who has the power to make that all important, game-changing purchase – it’s “the business”.
And that’s a problem, because “the business” thinks the marketing department is just fine the way it is. They see a team that already gets a lot of money to deliver marketing campaigns, and as far as they are aware, those marketing campaigns are doing exactly what they were supposed to. So why would they give you more money… particularly for marketing project management software? They’ve already footed the bill for expensive graphic design and video packages. Then there’s the social media and email marketing platforms and don’t forget that all important CRM tool. Marketing project management software seems a bit…well…overkill doesn’t it?
Of course, that’s not the case and the challenge for you if you’re the head of the marketing department is to convince “the business” otherwise and if you want to do that, you’ll need to create a business case to show how your new marketing project management solution will add value…but where do you start?
Well the key thing you need to know about “the business”, is that its primary concern is for the balance sheet. If the business is going to give you $10,000 for example, towards your shiny new project management software, what are they going to get in return? What’s the return on their investment (ROI)? Now that might sound like a tricky question. After all, this isn’t some fancy self-serving electronic till that’s going to process customer puchases down at the local Sainsburys. This is project management software for your marketing department but that doesn’t mean it can’t deliver a return to the business. So if you do want “the business” to get on board and give you the budget to buy your new marketing project management software, here’s three things you need to communicate.
Increased productivity – You can be sure that the implementation of a marketing project management system at your organization will bring about an increase in productivity. Your team will now be working in a more streamlined way – digitizing processes means that the right people will be involved at the right time, increased visibility means bottlenecks can be identified before they become an issue, and of course, less time spent on project planning, means more time spent on doing actual ‘real’ work.
{{cta(‘d8597bda-5296-4b2a-b5b5-ce106f63d566’)}}
Better budget management – Yes in an ironic twist to the business, spending money on marketing project management software will actually save the business money long-term. Why? Well, with better visibility and control, managers will be able to identify and eliminate problems with a project proactively. That means there’ll be less time and money wasted across the board. Immediate cost-savings are also a likelihood, using an integrated marketing project management system like Screendragon eliminates the need to rely on multiple applications – it manages everything in one place so you don’t have to move between applications. Importantly, this also means that you only need to invest in one solution to effectively manage your entire marketing operations – that equals serious cost-savings!
More creativity & better campaigns – With the workload nicely balanced between team members, a collaborative environment to work on projects and better end-to-end visibility of the project, more energy and time can be focused on the creative. Without project management software, everything can seem like a bit of a rush job, but with it your team can take a more considered approach and that will inevitably have a positive impact on what is delivered. Better campaigns gain more attention and ultimately deliver more sales and it won’t take a genius to communicate back to the business why that makes a difference.
So there’s three good reasons to help you make the business case for marketing project management software in your organization and we’ve only just scratched the surface. If you would like a more in-depth look at how to evaluate your business case for a marketing project management system like Screendragon, download our ROI guidebook here.
