Creative Operations, Marketing Workflow, Marketing Project Managment

There’s little doubt that technology exists to make our lives easier. But in today’s environment there is also a level of complexity that exists when multiple technologies are used within an organization. A case in point is your marketing agency; you’ll most likely use a number of systems, anywhere from three to 10, to help your teams deliver on client campaigns. Everything from digital asset management and usage rights management, to distribution and campaign management and tracking.

With every new project comes the task of who is available to work on it on time, on task and on budget. Resource allocation applications may be the magic wand you need to wrangle in your projects.  Resource allocation tools help you understand the team, their availability (any vacations coming up?) and their current and projected workload. 

As companies have more options for SaaS based solutions, it becomes more important that they evaluate these options and how they will be accessed. In order to stay competitive, businesses must select the right solution.

This blog form Heather Hurst, Corporate Marketing Director at Workfront recently appeared on the WorkFront Work & Project Management Blog, and we think our readers will find it useful. To keep up with the competition, business leaders are pushed more than ever to create diverse, skilled, and large teams. But, without an eye toward collaboration, the very things that make this type of team the best qualified to tackle some of your organization's biggest challenges can cause your teamwork, trust, and productivity to fall apart at the seams.

I recently became the first ever Customer Success Manager (CSM) at IO Integration. This means it is now officially my job to make sure that IOI customers stay IOI customers.  It means making sure our clients have solutions, technologies, and services that are aligned with their desired outcomes. Fortunately, I have a team of smart, driven, innovative, and customer-minded individuals to help me help our customers. When marketing and creative operations leaders come to us for advice on making technology decisions, I know we have the expertise and experience to guide them to the best solutions to meet their needs.  But, I also know that a great CSM possesses a quality that is more than a line item on a resume, and that is a passion for helping customers. I now have a role where I get to focus that passion and enthusiasm into continuously sharing information and advising customers on ways their companies can achieve long-term success with their marketing and creative operations technology investments. 

Understanding why accurate metadata is essential to your organization can make the difference between success and failure. One of the most basic functions of a proper metadata structure is to directly help with the searching and finding of assets quickly and easily, it sounds simple, but you wouldn’t believe how many organizations struggle with this very fundamental issue. Also, making sure you are entering correct metadata is crucial, one simple mistake can effectively render hundreds of assets to be inaccurate. An example would be that you or your client are merely embarrassed by using an incorrect image. Imagine you have a campaign with multiple professional athletes, and in an ad that references Kyrie Irving, there is a photo of Kevin Durant. Not the end of the world, but a definite knock on your credibility to accurately use the correct image.  But there can also be much more severe and costly consequences as we get into rights management and having the proper license to use a specific photograph or image. Running a national advertisement without rights to a particular image could cost your company serious $$$$ in fines and legal fees!