Digital Marketing Project Manager

Who is a digital marketing project manager?

The digital marketing project manager ensures marketing campaigns and activities run on schedule and budget. They manage timelines and liaise with the project owner, marketing team, and collaborators. 

Although not all companies require a marketing project manager, those handling multiple complex marketing projects and campaigns benefit from having one. A marketing project manager is responsible for overseeing marketing projects and activities and bringing them to a successful conclusion. 

While the responsibilities of a digital marketing project manager may overlap with a digital marketer's, there is a distinction between them: A marketing project manager oversees marketing projects or teams. In contrast, a digital marketer focuses on executing marketing activities.

The skills required to perform successfully as a digital marketing project manager depend on each manager's job responsibilities. One who works on social media projects must have engaging copywriting skills and an eye for graphic design. Another may organize product launches and events, organizing projects that bring people together. 

Regardless of their daily responsibilities, a digital marketing project manager needs scheduling and organizational skills to handle managing several projects at once.

Job responsibilities of a digital marketing project manager

What's included in a digital marketing project manager job description? To succeed as a digital marketing project manager, you must understand your responsibilities and key metrics. Let's look at some tasks and responsibilities of a digital marketing project manager, which can include:

• Gathering project requirements from stakeholders
• Organizing user stories to prioritize customer requests
• Conducting marketing campaign reviews and gathering customer feedback
• Keeping track of project timelines and budgets
• Assigning tasks to team members
• Planning, scheduling, and executing new marketing campaigns and projects
• Codifying marketing workflows to increase team efficiency
• Enhancing collaboration between cross-functional teams and marketing team members 
• Ensuring resources are well allocated for successful project delivery
• Developing and implementing change management in digital marketing projects
• Assessing, managing, and mitigating digital marketing risks

Tips for digital marketing project managers

A digital marketing project manager works with many teams, stakeholders, and external collaborators. Good digital marketing project managers should: 

• Ensure they have teams' and stakeholders' contact information to communicate updates about project progress 
• Be proactive and schedule meetings and tasks ahead of time to avoid emergencies or schedule conflicts
• Keep teams updated on the project to foster trust and improve transparency and engagement
• Manage expectations between stakeholders and represent each party's interests to the best of your abilities

Before deciding to become a digital marketing project manager, narrow down on your niche. Are you a social media project manager, a digital event marketing project manager, or a content marketing project manager? 

A social media project manager manages social media campaigns and calendars. In contrast, a content marketing project manager oversees content marketing plans — for example, managing a remote content team to create blog content.

Your company’s industry and niche inform the kind of projects you plan. Asking yourself these questions will help you determine what kind of digital marketing project manager you should be.

Is the digital marketing project manager role necessary?

Marketing department responsibilities are divided into strategic and tactical duties. The project manager in digital marketing oversees tactical projects – these are activities with defined goals and deliverables, such as launching a new product or redesigning the company website. 

If you run small marketing projects and have robust systems and workflows, your team can be self-organizing, eliminating the need for a digital marketing project manager in your company. However, if you run multiple marketing projects concurrently, it's advisable to recruit digital marketing project managers to improve efficiency, collaboration, and chances of success for each marketing project. 

Your digital marketing project manager may be from the existing marketing team or a skilled digital marketing project manager who comes in as a consultant. Ensure that your digital marketing project manager has the right skills for the digital marketing activities you'll be focusing on, e.g., social media, blog content, or press release distribution.

The digital marketing project manager may apply Agile methodologies or other project management frameworks to deliver results. Monitoring and reviewing digital marketing KPIs and workflows is crucial for digital marketing project managers to ensure projects are completed on time and achieve the desired goal.