We see it happen a lot. Business owners try to take on the work of a project management professional to handle their digital marketing efforts. Oftentimes attempting to fulfill the entire marketing strategy themselves. This may be doable in the early stages when their business is just starting to get off the ground but, as the business grows, it starts taking up too much of their time. And that’s when problems arise. The kind of problems that limit growth. Exactly the kind of problems that need to be avoided.
1. Project Management Professionals Have A Specialized Set Of Skills, Just Like Digital Marketers
Project management professionals have a very specialized set of skills that fall outside the realms of business management. Many of which go unnoticed simply because a good project manager makes their job look easy. However, that doesn’t mean they aren’t employing an assortment of tactics and techniques all designed to keep your digital marketing strategy on track.
The truth of the matter is it takes a lot of work hours and experience to be an effective project manager. For example, here at RoboWP, we assign a dedicated account manager to each our clients. This allows individual members of our digital marketing team to focus on what their area of expertise is while leaving the orchestration of the strategy in the hands of a project management professional. Someone whose number one priority is to keep the digital marketing projects organized and moving forward as planned. Which brings us to the next point…
2. So You Can Stick To What You’re Good At
Even if you’re pretty good at project management and digital marketing, chances are you’re a whole lot better at doing something else within your business. Depending on what your business is, this could be any number of things–product development, sales, support, there are so many things that need to be done to keep a business running.
As you know, one of the keys to successful business management is being able to delegate tasks accordingly. This includes knowing who is best at certain tasks and assigning those projects to them to maximize time efficiency and quality of the end result. Don’t make the mistake of excluding yourself from this process. If you’re putting too much time and effort into doing something outside of your skill set, other aspects of your business are going to suffer. Plain and simple.
Example
Our team at RoboWP is compiled of expert marketers, designers, SEO ninjas, developers, project managers, and several other specialized roles. If we see a large increase in our web development projects, we’re not going to call in, say, one of our sales experts to help pick up the slack. We’d hire another developer who has already proven themselves as an expert in that field. Sure, the sales expert may be a smart employee who could almost certainly learn a few things about web development as he went, but is that fair to anyone?
It’s just not worth the risk of letting another department suffer to patch a production issue in another. The negative effects of that would trickle down and, before long, the entire business would be suffering as a result.
It would create undue stress for the employee who has suddenly had to learn a new skill, it would slow down the existing web development team who now must correct the mistakes made by the sales expert struggling to learn web development as he went, and it would add pressure to the remaining sales team who would now be missing an expert. There are no winners in that situation.
Now, plug yourself into that situation. If you find yourself spending 15 hours a week studying the latest digital marketing trends and project management techniques, where are those 15 hours coming from? What and who is being neglected as result?
Thus, focus on the tasks you excel at. The tasks you’ve been doing that helped your business grow into what it is today. Leave your digital marketing to a professional who can manage the project with ease so you can continue to champion the rest of your business.
3. Reduce Your Workload
I understand why a DIY mindset is so popular when it comes to project management, especially regarding digital marketing. There’s a wealth of information on the internet just waiting to teach us “how to be an expert marketer”. Don’t get me wrong, continuing education is a great thing—everyone should consider it. But, considering 30% of small business owners already work 50-59 hours per week, with an additional 19% working 60+ hours per week, how much more can you reasonably pile on and still be able to give 100%?
Time is money: If we don’t use our working time to earn money, we are in effect losing money.
– The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
How many hours a week are you losing to learning digital marketing? It might be time to ask yourself if those are those hours you would prefer to spend with your family and friends. Or, are they truly best spend eating dinners alone in front a computer screen reading blogs and attending webinars?
That’s the beauty of the services we provide at RoboWP. The dedicated project management professional we’ll assign to your business will eliminate the need for you to miss any more family dinners just so you can attend a one-time only webinar that ultimately won’t deliver what it promised. We’ve got all your digital marketing needs covered so you don’t have to lift a finger.
Is Hiring A Project Management Professional To Handle Digital Marketing Worth the Money?
I know, I know… Outsourcing your digital marketing sounds costly. This is one of the biggest concerns we hear from prospective clients. This is almost always addressed in the free consultation (sign up for yours here) we offer prospective clients. Once they hear all the ways we’re immediately prepared to improve their digital presence without any effort on their behalf, it’s not hard to see the impressive return on investment. (Of course, our money back guarantee doesn’t hurt either.)
At the end of the day, remember, your end goal isn’t to prove you can do all sorts of tasks. It’s to run a business that operates efficiently and produces high-quality services or products that return a profit. Growing a business isn’t about your ego, it’s about running a business. That means leaving certain specialty tasks, like digital marketing to a professional.
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