Blog
28th November 2019

Why is project management so important in event marketing?

Marketing an event is a complex process. The end deadline is immoveable, multiple channels must be kept aligned and firing at optimal times, the product evolves daily with new speakers, updated sessions and new features and customer data must be continually updated to ensure marketing messages hit the right people, at the right time.

With all this complexity, it isn’t surprising when event marketers struggle to meet deadlines, or sometimes don’t achieve or demonstrate a good return-on-investment in their marketing efforts

A high-performance event marketing function relies on strong project management.

Without effective project management, you’re missing key campaign opportunities and limiting the return on investment you get from your marketing function.

In this blog post we outline best practice in project management for event marketing campaigns, and how you can ensure that your marketing team has the right skills, support and tools to deliver high performance marketing campaigns – on time, every time.


What does good project management for event marketing look like?

  1. The marketing manager is given full ownership of project management to enable their campaigns
  2. The wider event team – content producers, sponsorship salespeople etc. – are encouraged to support the marketers as project managers
  3. The marketing manager always works to a solid campaign plan, with key deadlines and tasks – visible to the whole team
  4. The marketing manager takes responsibility for coordinating the campaign contributions of all stakeholders
  5. The marketing manager works well ahead to build in all the steps needed to develop and deliver strong marketing collateral and campaigns – incorporating the contributions of various stakeholders.
  6. The marketing manager breaks down project elements into individual project tasks, with a clear brief and deadline for each task.
    Top tip: invest in a project management solution for your marketing team. These are not expensive and are highly effective in driving efficiency and effectiveness into your marketing – when used correctly. We use ClickUp, which has been game-changing for MPG !
  7. The marketing manager runs a weekly project meeting, for each event, for all key internal stakeholders – usually the event director (P&L holder), content producer and head of sales. Ahead of this meeting (ideally the day before), the marketing manager should circulate a report on event performance and an agenda of key points to discuss to ensure marketing stays on track.

If you put these essential ingredients of good marketing project management in place, you will start seeing results.


But do be mindful of the top three things that could prevent your marketers from being effective projects managers:

1. They’re not fully supported or enabled by senior management or the wider team
2. They don’t have the skills or experience needed to create a strong event marketing plan, or run complex campaigns effectively
3. They lack the confidence and/or gravitas to lead a project team

Well-supported, rigorous and disciplined project management can make all the difference to the performance of your events. Enabling your marketers as project managers helps them gain the support and input they need from other team members to deliver effective campaigns. They will be able to hit deadlines and manage their workloads effectively across multiple events.

By ensuring your event marketers are also good projects managers, you’ll improve marketing productivity while also preventing marketers from burning out. It’s the best (and possibly the only) way to improve your return-on-investment from marketing and to ensure you retain your best event marketers!

About the author

Helen has over 2 decades’ experience in the B2B events space. She is now the proud CEO and Founder of two high-performance marketing agencies – MPG – designed to address the most pressing exhibition and conference marketing challenges facing organisations today.

Excellent project management: a game-changer in event marketing

Blog
28th November 2019
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