The misspelling of a URL in a PPC campaign. A brochure printed on a $99 printer sloppily folded and distributed to meeting attendees. A line card with low-resolution, grainy supplier logos. Broken website links (404 Page Not Found).
Oh, the agony. It happens. It’s painful.
We all make mistakes, and these are the top five sources of mistakes in marketing:
Negligence (sloppiness, apathy and forgetfulness): The more common include outside distractions, cutting corners to meet unrealistic deadlines and unfortunate life events that consume our minds.
Lack of experience (little knowledge of best practices, industry standards and norms): We’ve all been here and have paid our proverbial dues.
Lack of skills (not understanding proper grammar, poor eye for design, minimal knowledge of technology): This is typical when people are placed in or even expected to fill roles they are not yet ready to take on.
Incompetent trainer or minimal training (passing on bad habits, lack of clarity): Unfortunately, too many companies don’t prioritize training due to time and cost. But, as we all know, it takes more time and costs more to fix mistakes – even the small ones.
By no fault (poor communication, no process, no sets of standards): People don’t know what they don’t know.
Mistakes are not 100% avoidable. However, with the right structures and systems in place, mistakes in your marketing function can certainly be significantly minimized.
Five ways to improve quality and accuracy within your marketing department
The marketing project brief
This is a crucial document that serves multiple purposes, one of which is acting as a quality management tool within marketing departments. It ensures all details of projects are covered to provide project clarity and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. With a robust and thorough marketing brief, your projects will stay on task and on budget.
Project management tools
Project management tools are cloud-based systems designed to help marketing teams plan, manage and execute their projects efficiently and effectively. From overseeing the launch of new products to managing marketing campaigns and projects, PMTs ensure the marketing function runs smoothly, with no potholes, bumps, roadblocks or hiccups.
Although PMTs have been around for quite a few years, many people still rely on email to manage their projects. The fact is that email was never designed or intended to be a marketing PMT. The worst shortcoming is that it takes enormous amounts of time to hunt down emails containing critical information, and even when you get the information, it’s impossible to verify that it is the latest information.
Proofreading
As tempting as it may be, relying solely on Grammarly.com or other alien intelligence text proofing and editing tools can be disastrous. In my experience, these tools do not always make correct suggestions, primarily because AI does not yet understand context. My recommendation is to use a reputable proofreading service like bulletproofonline.com. Also keep in mind that proofing isn’t just for copy – it’s also for so many different components of a project.
Brand standards
Every company needs a brand standards manual. A brand standards manual, also known as brand guidelines, style guide or brand book, is a comprehensive document specifying how an organization’s brand will be communicated across various mediums.
Restricting access to logins
How many people have usernames and passwords to your website, social media accounts, email server and software/productivity accounts? And how many have administrative access? And my final question: how many are ex-employees, employees from former marketing agencies, consultants and so on? The more people with access, the more vulnerable your company is to irreversible damage and nefarious activity.
What now?
What is your most urgent need? Where is the greatest weakness in your marketing function? Start there. Then, strongly consider launching a quality initiative in your marketing department and replicating it within other areas of your organization. Once you’re on your way, you’ll start to notice immediate improvements not only in quality but also in collaboration, teamwork and efficiency.
