The Marketer who called Urgent!

"Yesterday." That's what many of our clients say when we ask them the ETA for a new project. They're usually not joking. But the "need it yesterday" era is burning out the creatives at digital marketing agencies, and burning creativity out of the content.

We all know that urgent projects come up, especially in B2B marketing. In fact, at GDS we schedule our days, weeks, and quarters to ensure we can quickly pivot for those 24-hour turnarounds. But if you spend every day pivoting, you'll never have time to slow down, do some deep work, and come up with truly great ideas (like awesome video products and projects) that propel business growth.

GDS Founder + Creative Director Caroline Petersen's latest Forbes article address this very issue and shares 5 big ideas to overcome urgency and harness your team's focus:

1. Understand what is truly urgent

2. Prioritize

3. Leverage technology

4. Communicate priorities and processes

5. Truly embrace the agile mindset

Let's dive into Tip #2: Prioritize.

Distinguish between high- and low-production projects. Those needle-moving content pieces that propel business growth, like an explainer video on your homepage? They should get more attention. Other projects, like the occasional organic social media post, can be low-production tasks. Something that I've found very helpful is actually extracting micro-content pieces from higher production content in order to keep up with content volume (social media, for example).

At GDS, we use the rule of top three: Prioritize every day/week/quarter what the top three content tasks or themes will be. This can really help you cut the fluff and only focus on what matters.

But to create great B2B marketing content that breaks down easily, you need a plan. When our team begins a high-production project, we're already thinking of the micro-content that might be extracted.

First, our copywriter focuses on ensuring the scripts or messages can be easily chopped or snipped with little to no changes. Next, our designer ensures that the visuals and layouts are consistent with the look and feel of other micro-content, so when we do need to clip something, it will clearly be from the same design family as other small pieces of content. Lastly, our animator ensures that the transitions they use and the visuals that are included are in a common or easily converted format. Knowing that the end result needs to be more than a single video empowers our team to create great content that is easily and thoughtfully repurposed.

It's easier to address urgency from a process and mindset standpoint. When you lift the brick of urgency off of your creative designers, you give your design team space to blossom and truly reach greatness. 

Read the fully published Forbes article here.