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From marketing operations best practices to industry insights, the Simple blog delves into all things relating to managing marketing projects, brand assets and technology.

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How to avoid burnout in your Creative Marketing Team

With increasing pressure to create and deliver standout marketing campaigns with tighter turnarounds and always having to be on, working in the marketing industry can be high-octane. Creative teams need to have some measures in place to ensure they take care of their health. While burnout isn't new, its prevalence across a range of industries appears to be on the rise in 2022. Or are we just talking about it more? Either way, we're beginning to understand the toll on both the individual and business.

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Defence Force Recruiting guaranteed security with admation

Earlierthis year, VMLYR won the Defence Force Recruiting (DFR) account. The agency is now responsible for all of DFR's creative communications and digital services. A specific tender requirement set out by DFR was that the successful agency had to have a project management solution implemented that enabled all data to be stored on a server in Australia

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Software Suggest awards admation with Best Value & Trending Software

The Software Suggest Recognition Awards 2019 recently awarded admation with two gongs forBest Value Software and Trending Software. It's always nice to have our project management software recognised in the industry as it shines a light on the hard work we do and the value we offer our customers.

Tourism Australia select admation as its preferred management software

We?re thrilled that Tourism Australia has nominated admation to help its in-house studio team rework a range of digital and print content. Admation will also assist the team with managing Tourism Australia?s content hubs spread across different locations and countries. Once the studio team has fully integrated their processes with admation and are proficient with the tool, they will leverage an agency partner.

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What's the difference - task, process and project management software

The tools that marketers use to produce marketing content can differ from brand to brand. Depending on the size of your business and the complexity of your projects, your marketing team may comprise of just a few people or a large number of staff. This is an important distinction because, while there are various solutions that can help streamline the production cycle, you want to select the one that is right for your needs. There are literally hundreds of marketing management solutions available in the marketplace, but today we?ll be looking at task management, process management and project management software. So how do you know which know the difference between them and know which solution is best for managing your creative projects?

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Project Management Hacks #4: The chicken and the egg in collaboration.

Q: I?m new to my role as a traffic manager in a digital agency where I manage a crazy amount of creative projects. I?ve already discovered a few bad habits while managing approvals. For example, my designer is sometimes cc?d in on email feedback and asked by certain stakeholders to make changes beforethe approval round is completed. The idea is to ?save time? but it has the opposite effect of driving up artwork changes if the feedback is later contradicted. There have also been several instances where a team member has been working on a project only to be told to start on a more urgent one ? without my knowledge. I?m continually updating and sending out a progress report to keep my team in the loop. Not confusing at all (yes it is!). How can I improve collaboration to avoid our projects stalling? Traffic Jam Manager

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Tips to Optimise your MRM Software Investment

According to the 2017 Global CMO Study, 41% of respondents expected to implement marketing resource management (MRM) software in the near future. And while the benefits of investing in this tool are manifold, as we've discussed previously you need to ensure you select the right MRM software for your business. Once the selection process is completed, there are a few things you can do to optimise your investment.

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Best Practices for Starting a Successful Marketing Project

Creative marketing projects. They can go so right. And so wrong. You probably know that feeling of waking at 4am wondering if you?ll ever make that deadline. So how do you mitigate the risks, even turn it around? There are many elements that contribute to the success of a project. How you start a project, though, probably says a lot about how you?ll finish it. With this, here are our best practices for starting a marketing project on the right foot.

Wishing for More Time to Be Creative. More Time to Binge on Netflix

The Dilemma and The Fix Series - Part 5

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Supercharge Team Collaboration To Enhance Your Creative Projects

In a Stanford University study published a few years back, researchers found that collaboration fosters motivation and transforms 'work into play'. In other words, collaboration has the ability to create a dynamic environment where people can cross-pollenate and create, a space known to inspire great ideas and work. Still, many teams collaborating on creative projects are caught up in a groundhog day of outdated attitudes, approval workflow processes and tools. So how do you inspire your team to collaborate in way that is both gratifying for them and productive for your projects? img src="https://20878613.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/20878613/Imported_Blog_Media/AdobeStock_122840178.jpeg" alt="AdobeStock_122840178" width="5616" height="3744" style="width: 5616px;"

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Tips to consider before selecting a small ad agency

If you?re a brand looking to hire a boutique or small ad agency, like any first time relationship it?s important to think carefully about your selection process. To ensure your relationship is a successful one, here?s some questions to think about when selecting a small agency for your marketing projects.

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nib selects admation to help manage its marketing approval workflow

Introduction to the Client: Nib, a renowned Australian health insurer, has been a valued client since 2018. They offer financial, health, and insurance solutions to a customer base exceeding 500,000 individuals. With a presence in over 50 locations across Australia, Nib is committed to enhancing the lives of its customers through value-driven banking services.

Email approvals: an ancient practice akin to the horse and cart?

As a freelance copywriter, I write articles about best practices and tips for better managing creative projects. I?m a bit of an efficiency nerd, so I genuinely get a kick out of brainstorming, ?how can we do this better?? While Google is my go to for research, I draw inspiration from my in-house studio role as a copywriter and editor in trade publishing. That means I get to experience it too - the good, the bad and, sometimes, the ugly.

Have More Visibility Over Your Marketing Projects Without Losing Your Head

The Dilemma and The Fix Series - Part 4: The DilemmaJames is Head of Marketing and currently doing the annual budget for his department. Since ramping up operations, he has no idea how much time is being spent on projects. He checks the Marketing Resources Calendar saved on the server, but finds there are five indistinct versions. With the clock ticking, he?s tempted to go ?eeny meenyminy mo?, but he?s fairly certain this is not a sound strategy. He calls his Marketing Manager instead, only to find none of the spreadsheets is current. She?ll email an updated version in twenty minutes but two hours later, with no update, James is losinghis head.When the email finally arrives, he discovers a project has fallen off the calendar. He also notices that while some resources are overloaded others appear to be enjoying a daily siesta. James, meanwhile, has developed a major headache.

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Connect your workflow and finance software for greater ease and agility

Software solutions are becoming a critical part of streamlining operations in ad agencies. Still, technology can pose its own challenges. For example, the disconnect between specialised tools is placing more pressure on teams who spend precious creative time moving data across platforms. In today?s technology-driven world, it shouldn?t be this difficult.

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4 Ways to Effectively Scale Your Marketing and Creative Teams

If you?re thinking about scaling your team, then it?s obviously time to invest in more talent to meet an increasing demand. It?s also the perfect time to review your current operations to ensure that growth delivers a return for your business. For example, if your approval workflow process is barely cutting it with a small team, then it?s only going to get worse with a larger team. The good news is you can plan for growth and succeed by making sure you have the right tools and processes in place.

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Why are Ancient Marketing Practices Still in Place?

Today, marketers are under ever-increasing pressure to push out more projects, faster, to feed a range of hungry marketing channels. If there ever was a good time for brands to rethink their marketing practices, it would be now. Still, a recent Content Marketing Institute report showed that only 40% of Australian marketers ?are delivering content consistently? compared to the previous year.

Take the Angst Out of Managing Your Brand Assets

The Dilemma The Fix Series - Part 1: The DilemmaSerena is a Brand Manager for a global business with stores in five countries and an online sales portal. It?s only morning time but she has a good feeling about today which is forecasted to be bright and sunny. She?s already received news that the latest product catalogue has been printed and is ready to be dispatched. Sure it?s the same catalogue that went through endless rounds of changes and is nearly two months overdue, but it?s all good now. Suddenly one of her team members appears at her door looking anxious ? Errr ? there?s been an oversight. Somehow the wrong logo ended up on the front cover of the catalogue. In the previous catalogue, it was the wrong CMYK colour! Last month, the wrong tagline on an ad campaign! Seriously, what could go wrong next? Serena's day just went from bright to very gloomy. Like Serena, are you tired, perplexed, at your wit?s end about the wrong branding being used across a range of marketing campaigns? Seeking an easy fix for this never-ending dilemma?

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4 strategies to improve your marketing team's efficiency

You?ve done the preliminary work in getting the right people onboard, so now your creative team should be operating like a well-oiled machine. Right? Well, not exactly. Even if you?ve got the best people on the job, they still need to be supported by effective processes, an organised project framework, transparent communications and schedules that allow them to be at their creative best. Here are four strategies that will enhance your team?s performance:

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Is juggling multiple project management tools good for business?

Something is multiplying at a rate of knots and it?s not the number of hours that marketers are being freed up each work day. Not only are marketers feeling the pressure to perform across multiple platforms, now they?re managing their creative projects with more than one marketing tool. According to Winterberry Group?s research report , 55.1% of marketers are using five to ten different marketing tools to manage data and advertising campaigns, with 27.3% juggling up to 20 tools. Aside from marketing automation tools, these figures include marketing project management tools such as time tracking, collaboration, file management, resource management, online proofing tools and asset storage.

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Is your agency project management software too feature rich and complex?

The internet ? no training required? Think about it for a moment, you use the interne t every day to do some amazing things. You check your email (probably too often), search for and locate almost anything, book flights and holidays to anywhere in the world, buy and sell any product you need, watch and listen to literally anything you want. But how did you get to this point?How much training were you required to take before you were let loose on the web? The answer is almost certainly none. And yet look at what you can achieve with no training. The power at your fingertips is staggering. So why is it that this feeling of empowerment is often missing when using agencyproject management softwaresupposedly designed to help you to be more productive?

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Which Software is Right? Understanding Marketing Software Categories.

The role of the marketer has evolved over time to keep up with technological advancements and business demands. Today, not only do you have to be a jack of all trades, you also have to be a master of one pulling together a range of media streams and marketing management strategies to achieve one crucial objective: ROI for your business. It's comes as no surprise then that marketers today are turning to technology tools to help automate and streamline many aspects of their role. img src="https://20878613.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/20878613/Imported_Blog_Media/AdobeStock_99618674.jpeg" alt="AdobeStock_99618674.jpeg" width="803" height="515" class=""

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Is less really more when it comes to agency project management software?

Today we welcome back our guest blogger, Dave Ewers, who is reviewing admation?s user-friendly interface that combines a number of project management, resource management and approval workflowfeatures.

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Debunking common misconceptions about project management software

Managing your creative projects is no easy feat. Not only do you have multiple jobs on the go, you also have to resource tasks, chase feedback and approvals, brief changes, stay on budget, and meet deadlines, among other tasks. For this reason, more brands are turning to marketing project management software to take back control of their projects. However, while some businesses have caught on to the benefits, there are still many marketers that trudging through their work day without an effective tool. According to the 2017 In-House Creative Industry Report, 71% of those surveyed said they didn't use a tool to streamline their project management. So what's holding them back?

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Questions to ask before investing in ad agency management software

Juggling multiple tools to manage your ad agency projects? Tired of endless email trails and scrambled audit trails? Difficultly ascertaining where your jobs are at any given moment? More ad agencies are implementing agency management software for greater transparency over their creative projects. Nonetheless, it?s easy to invest in the wrong agency management software. Here are ten questions to ask before investing in ad agency project management software to ensure you select the right tool for your ad agency.

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Best Practices S3: How Small Digital Agencies Punch above their Weight

In the rapidly evolving landscape of 2023, small digital agencies face a fundamental question: how can they effectively compete with larger agencies? As brands increasingly bring tasks in-house, the competition becomes even fiercer for start-ups and small businesses. Establishing a strong foothold and outshining their larger counterparts requires strategic thinking and innovative approaches.