As a manager, one of your biggest fears is setting a realistic deadline in which all of the tasks and assignments related to content marketing can be created by the creative team.
But that road never turns out to be as smooth as we hope for.
We see every day that the managers working in the creative industry push back their deadlines because of the subpar work being done by the creative team due to deadline conflicts.
The blame can’t be out on either side as there are always issues on both sides of the aisle that lead to decreased productivity.
But we need to understand that, although pushing back deadlines is an effective temporary solution, eventually you are going to run out of a content marketing strategy to execute.
Content, like anything, must be created and delivered on time, because of the hunger that you have created in your audience, your boss demanding immediate submissions and your job crucially depending on it.
So, if you have a problem hitting deadlines, and you want to know the right work habits and processes that will help you always hit every single deadline, stick around because, in this article, we are going to help you master the art of setting and hitting deadlines, and be more productive.
Establishing Clear Guidelines and Goals for Your Projects
You need to make sure that before starting any new project, you establish clear goals for your team members so that they have all the information and guiding principles to help them complete their quest.
Here are some examples of what reasonable project goals are.
- The first goal that you need to set for your team is that they have to build the organization’s reputation as a trusted source of information in your industry, which can be approached by anyone in need
- You need to create original material to publish to social media outlets so that you can tell people what you are doing without copying anyone
- One other goal is to increase organic traffic that is coming to your websites as part of a comprehensive content marketing campaign
- Connect with potential customers to have an impact on them and secure a future business proposition with them if they seem interested in your business
Once you have created some broad goals, the next step is to have some very specific guidelines for your creative and development team, so that they don’t mess up the vision of what the company wants to do.
Here are some of those specific guidelines that you can set for your team.
- You need to make sure that the team generates demand for your product or service so that all of that hard work doesn’t get wasted and you have a product that people want
- Collect leads or email subscribers to make sure that the product or service that you are marketing gets the proper audience and traction it deserves
- Raise awareness about a cause, so that people can understand that you are a caring and empathetic company and team
- Build trust with your audience and make good on it
- Connect with customers consistently so that they understand that you are available whenever they want to do business with you
- Inform your community about pressing issues and make sure to use effective language in your marketing campaign, so that the people relate to them and do something
Go for Shipping, Not for Perfection
One thing you need to understand is that the market is quite fast and you won’t ever have enough time to launch a product or service when it is perfect from all aspects.
So, what you need to do is to follow this strategy of shooting for shipping and not for perfection, so that the customers can get the service or product quickly without waiting for you or getting it from your competitors.
Here are some of the things that you need to do to make sure that the order is completed, processed, and shipped quickly for maximum profitability.
- The first thing that you have to do is to write down your deadline and make sure that you publish this date whether it is perfect or not. You just need to put it out there for the team and it’s their headache how they are going to get stuff done.
- The second step is to make sure that you have all of the information you and your team need to complete the project, and for that, you need to gather everyone’s ideas on how to complete the project and satisfy the client.
- After you have gathered all of the different ideas from the team and other stakeholders, the next step is to share all of these valuable ideas in a way that they can be seen by everyone, and if they don’t see the information and dates in time, you don’t need to publish any new updates.
- The fourth step is to collect all of these different ideas and draft a blueprint so that you can have a rough idea of what it will turn out to be in the future.
- The next step is to get the upper management and the high-profile stakeholders interested in your project and the strategy you want to implement to complete the project, because without their approval you won’t get far with any blueprint.
- When you get the approval from the big cats, you need to ask them about whether or not they are going to ship the project or product if you finish it on time and within budget.
- As a good manager, you need to badger the upper management until they say yes to the previous question because that’s what makes you a good leader and a good employee because of how badly you want to bring value to the company.
Make Sure Everyone Knows Their Position or Role
Most of the projects that are being performed in the organizational paradigm right now require diverse teams working in a collaborative environment.
So, when so many different people are working on the same project, you as a manager need to make sure that everyone knows their roles and the limitations to each of those roles.
This helps to spread out all of the talents into clear view, and no one is overburdened with a task or an assignment because that task can be divided among multiple people.
Here are some of the roles that we see in the content paradigm every day.
- The first one is the Project Manager that is responsible for assigning all of the tasks to the team members and setting all of the deadlines for the project team
- The second is the Topic and Keyword Generator which is responsible for finding the blog topics that are most likely to bring traffic to the website and researching the best keywords to support the content piece in terms of SEO
- The third is the Content Writer. Arguably the most important role in the whole shebang, the content writer is the one responsible for writing all of the tasks and assignments and adding all of the ideas, keywords, and other support items into the mix to make it more value-generating for the company
- The next role is the Content Editor. This person is responsible for editing all of the grammatical and structural mistakes that the content writer has made in the content piece before the article or the piece is published
- Image Researcher and Blog Publisher is the one who has to research royalty-free graphics and images that the content writer can use in their article to make it more relatable and presentable to the audience, and also, they have to publish the article on the web
- A promoter is a digital marketeer or a person in charge of promoting the content that has been published by the webmaster so that the required audience can be hooked and the content piece doesn’t disappear into the internet abyss
Let’s now take a look at how you can set reasonable deadlines as a manager so that your team won’t feel burdened with the work that they have to do.
Setting Reasonable Deadlines for Your Team
Now you are at the point where all of the things that you have done so far like setting goals, roles, and guidelines, are going to be used to make a productive and achievable deadline for your team.
Once every single member of the team knows about what they have to do, you as a manager need to set different deadlines to make sure that all of the tasks and processes that you are assigning to the team members are completed promptly.
If you are not sure about how you can create a deadline for your team without listing all of the different tasks and processes and monitoring them in a Gantt chart or a Kanban board, then you should use the task/ project management tool called nTask.
The application is an incredible tool that allows you to have all of your tasks and processes in a single interface, which you can then view in a Kanban or a Gantt chart for a better view to strategize.
Smaller Deadlines within Your Bigger Deadlines
As a manager, you need to have smaller deadlines so that your team can easily finish their work one day at a time, and for that, here are some useful tips that can help you break bigger deadlines into smaller ones.
- The first step is to look at the bigger picture and create a roadmap or a strategy to map out everything that you need to do
- Create an outline that labels everything that has to be done and when
- Make sure to separate all of the different tasks, so everyone knows what they have to do
- Delegate different tasks according to the experience of the team members and then fill all of the remaining gaps with the tasks that have no time limitations and can be done whenever
Conclusion
This was a short guide on how to master the art of setting realistic deadlines and how your team can be more productive. If you have something to add to this piece, then write to us and we will get back to you ASAP.
More Resources For You:
- Learn About the Project Evaluation Process and Its Importance
- People Management – What is it, and what are its Best Practices
- Go Big with the 8 Best Apps for Realtors
- Top 5 Performance Management Tools In Guide
- How To Avoid Task Switching as A Project Manager or A Team Lead?
- Step Up Your Game With Agile Performance Management
