Marketing Project Prioritization: How to Prioritize When Everything Feels Urgent

Because not everything can be priority #1.

If you’re leading or working inside an in-house marketing team, you’ve probably felt it: Every project feels urgent. Every request feels critical. And the backlog just keeps growing.

Campaigns. Launches. Sales asks. Leadership requests. Social posts. Website updates.

When everything feels like a priority, it’s easy to fall into reactive mode—bouncing between tasks, burning out your team, and still not getting the results you want.

Prioritization frameworks can help in determining and agreeing on priorities, ensuring that your team focuses on what truly matters.

At July Grey, we work alongside busy in-house teams to help them get clarity and make progress. Here’s a simple way to start prioritizing your marketing projects—even when the pressure is on.

Introduction to Marketing Strategy

A well-planned marketing strategy is essential for any business to succeed in today’s competitive market. It involves identifying the target audience, understanding their needs, and developing a plan to reach and engage with them. A marketing strategy should align with the company’s overall business objectives and be flexible enough to adapt to changing market trends. In-house marketing teams play a crucial role in developing and implementing marketing strategies, and they must be equipped with the right tools and skills to prioritize marketing ideas and initiatives effectively. By leveraging smart tools and technologies, marketing teams can streamline their workflows, reduce time-consuming tasks, and focus on high-priority projects that drive business growth.

1. Align With Business Goals First

Start by asking: What actually moves the business forward right now?

Marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum—it supports sales, growth, product, and leadership priorities, aligning with the company's strategic objectives. So if you’re choosing between a new landing page and a full brand refresh, ask:

What does the business need to hit revenue or retention targets this quarter?
What can we do that aligns directly with our KPIs?
What will make the biggest impact, fastest?

This shifts prioritization from “who’s shouting the loudest” to “what drives results.”

2. Use the Impact vs. Effort Matrix

This simple 2x2 tool can change everything. Plot your current projects on a grid:

	Low Effort	High Effort
High Impact	Do Now	Plan + Resource
Low Impact	Delegate	Deprioritize

In the context of the Impact vs. Effort Matrix, consider using the 'two effort criteria' from the LICE method. This involves scoring two effort criteria alongside other factors like lead quality and impact, using a uniform scale such as 1-10 or T-shirt sizes, to facilitate decision-making in a streamlined manner.

It’s not about saying no—it’s about saying “yes, later” to the things that will suck time without strong ROI.

3. Create Buckets, Then Rank Within Them

Separate requests by category (e.g., lead gen, sales support, brand awareness, retention) and align them with the stages of the marketing funnel. Then prioritize within each bucket instead of comparing across them.

Example:

Lead Gen → Prioritize the highest-converting channel
Sales Support → Prioritize what closes deals this month
Brand → Schedule around revenue-generating work

Now your strategy has layers—and your team isn’t stuck debating one-off tasks in a vacuum.

Role of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is a vital component of any marketing strategy. It helps businesses understand their target audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points, and make informed decisions about their marketing initiatives. In-house marketing teams should prioritize collecting and analyzing customer feedback to identify areas for improvement and optimize their marketing efforts. This can be done through various channels, such as social media, surveys, focus groups, and reviews. By listening to customer feedback and incorporating it into their marketing strategy, businesses can improve customer satisfaction, increase loyalty, and ultimately drive revenue growth. Additionally, customer feedback can help businesses identify new revenue streams and stay ahead of the competition.

Using Data to Inform Decisions

Data-driven decision-making is critical in marketing, and in-house marketing teams should use data to inform their decisions about marketing initiatives and priorities. This involves collecting and analyzing data from various sources, such as website analytics, social media metrics, and customer feedback. By using data to prioritize marketing ideas and initiatives, businesses can ensure that they are allocating their resources effectively and maximizing their return on investment (ROI). A prioritization framework, such as the weighted scoring method or market prioritization matrix, can help marketing teams evaluate and prioritize their initiatives based on business value criteria, such as lead generation, revenue growth, and customer satisfaction. By leveraging data and smart tools, marketing teams can make informed decisions, reduce the risk of missed deadlines, and drive business success.

Get Buy-In on What Won’t Happen

This is the step most teams skip—and it’s why marketing teams stay overwhelmed.

Once you’ve prioritized, communicate what won’t get done (yet) to stakeholders to ensure everyone is on the same page. This builds trust, sets expectations, and keeps your team out of perpetual scramble mode.

Pro tip: Show people the matrix or roadmap. Visuals make tradeoffs easier to accept.

Know When to Bring in Support

Sometimes, everything really is important—but your team doesn’t have the bandwidth to execute it all. That’s when bringing in external help isn’t a luxury—it’s a solution.

At July Grey, we partner with in-house teams and creative agencies to handle content production, campaign buildouts, design, and messaging—so you can stay focused on the big picture without burning out.

Align With Business Goals and Business Value Criteria First

You’re not alone. Prioritization is one of the biggest struggles we see inside growing marketing teams. The good news? You don’t have to choose between progress and sanity.

By effectively prioritizing your marketing projects, you can gain a competitive edge and ensure your team is working on the most impactful initiatives.

Use these frameworks. Be clear about your capacity. And when you’re ready to offload execution—we’re here to help.

👉 Let’s talk about boosting your team’s bandwidth