By Randy Mitchell

 

It can crush budgets, trample timelines and smash strategies.

 

It has a nasty habit of monopolizing planning meetings, status calls and your lunch hour.

 

It packs about 13,000 pounds of angst, and it just landed squarely on your shoulders.

 

What is it? The marketing elephant in the room.

 

Every B2B marketer has one. I’m talking about the massive program that gets assigned to you as coworkers sigh audibly and avoid your glance. From that day forward, your pachyderm of a project will follow you around the office, onto the bus, and sometimes, it even comes home with you.

 

Maybe your elephant is a social media program. It can be a beast to develop and manage. But you can’t ignore social media because 84% of B2B decision makers use it to make their purchasing decisions.*

 

Or it could be generating qualified leads. In that case you’re not alone. 61% of B2B marketers rank lead generation as their number one challenge.*

 

It might even be an old elephant; a program that has lurked in the company for months before finding its way to you.

 

No matter what shape your marketing elephant takes, one thing is clear. You have to tame that bellowing beast or it will squash you.

 

Which brings us to the ultimate question.

 

How do you tame a marketing elephant?

 

To find the answer, I went on a safari of sorts. I asked marketing colleagues from around the industry in all disciplines how they tamed their massive projects.

 

R.L., Senior Programmer

“I don’t like to meet about huge projects unless I can jump right on them. I don’t see the point of talking in circles and raising everyone’s anxiety levels. My philosophy is, I’ll code it when it comes to me.”

 

S.F., Small Business Owner

“I used to take on the monster projects by myself. And they always took much longer to complete. Now, I delegate almost everything.”

 

K.R., Creative Director

“Get everyone together in one room. Bring plenty of caffeine. Turn off the cell phones. And knock that bad boy out.”

 

D.S., Designer

“I live by five letters: D-A-L-A-P. Do as little as possible.”

 

J.B., Product Manager

“Around here, every project is a big project. At least it’s not boring.”

 

C.P., Account Supervisor

“When a project is consuming you, never be afraid to ask for help.”

 

K.E., Marketing Director

“Work with positive, fearless people. They don’t get intimidated by the unknown. In fact, they see major challenges as learning experiences.”

 

Now, what about you? How do you go about taming your elephant?

 

Listen, if you need a little help with that beast you will definitely appreciate this.

 

Boomm has collected some of our most popular marketing best practices in one place. You can download helpful ebooks on social media and lead generation, along with case studies and other informative resources. They’re all designed to turn jumbo migraines into manageable projects.

 

I’ll close with one last insight. This one made me smile.

 

R.P., Research Director

“I actually look forward to the hard projects, and here’s why. You have to push yourself…you always discover something new…and it feels so ridiculously good when you finally wrap it up.”

 

*2021 Hubspot B2B Marketing Analytics Report.