How to set up a project management tool for a marketing agency

How do you set up a project management tool for a marketing agency?

Set it up in order: build the structure first, then the templates, then move live work in. Doing it the other way round means rebuilding things you've already moved.

These steps assume the tool is already picked. For choosing project software, see how to choose agency project management software.

1. Make one list or board for each retainer client, and one for each campaign or one-off project.
2. Build a task template for every job you repeat, such as a monthly report or a blog post, with each step written out.
3. Set statuses that match how work moves, for example to do, in progress, in review, waiting on client and done.
4. Give every task one owner and one due date.
5. Decide what clients can see, and keep internal notes and costs out of their view.
6. Move live work in first, and leave finished work where it is.
7. Pick a date when the old lists stop being used, and tell everyone.

The task templates do the heavy lifting here. DeskTeam360's view is that you write a task's steps down once and let the software repeat them, so the work runs without the owner in every detail. That written list of steps is often called an SOP, short for standard operating procedure.

What should a digital marketing agency see in its project tool each day?

Each day, your team needs to see today's tasks, the work waiting on review and anything that's late. Your clients need to see where their work stands and which files are waiting for their yes.

What the team sees

• Tasks due today and tomorrow, sorted by person.
• Work waiting on an internal check.
• Work waiting on the client.
• Anything past its due date.

What the client sees

• The status of each job.
• Files waiting for their review.
• Dates for what's coming next.

If DeskTeam360 does some of your work, its North American account manager decides who takes each task, keeps it on schedule and reviews it before it comes back to you. Its team works in your project tool or in DeskTeam360's own, whichever you pick, so nothing has to move and no time goes into switching. You'd still send each new task by email or on DeskTeam360's request form.

A daily view is easier to trust when each job moves the same way every time. For one job from brief to delivery, see how a marketing agency workflow runs.