WHAT DOES A DIGITAL PRODUCER DO?
Published: Nov 28, 2024 – The Digital Producer plans and executes effective delivery of creative and technical work within available resources and time, ensuring stakeholders are kept informed and expectations are proactively managed. This position identifies and addresses emergent issues on client accounts, and ensures projects are delivered on time and within budget while improving project management processes and developing new tools and procedures. The producer also monitors resource capacity, manages multiple suppliers and clients, and facilitates post-project reviews to continuously improve outcomes.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Digital Producer
1. Digital Producer Responsibilities
- Digital Production Management: Manage and deliver a continual flow of digital production tasks.
- Web Development: Create website sections, page templates, and other integrations using the CMS (EpiServer) and other publishing tools within the technology stack.
- Task Prioritization: Prioritise tasks and manage content delivery schedule, keeping team and stakeholders notified.
- Project Management: Ensure projects are launched on time and meet initial project requirements.
- Quality Control: Conduct thorough testing of new production work to ensure quality control.
- Collaboration: Collaborate with team members across Product, Content, Tech, Marketing, and the broader business.
- Best Practices Implementation: Utilise industry best practices and techniques and maintain the production processes and standards for the NRL Digital network.
- User Support: Provide first-level support through the digital request platform, including solving user issues and managing requests for general CMS support and production.
- SEO Support: Support in the monitoring and optimizing of network search engine performance.
- Product Team Support: Support Product team operations and processes, performing operational tasks.
2. Digital Producer Job Summary
- Digital Product Expertise: Develop an expert understanding of the suite of digital products and in-house technology solutions.
- Collaboration: Work with designers, developers, and clients to ensure smooth process flow and successful development of new product initiatives.
- Project Management: Manage all aspects of assigned projects, working with designated clients.
- Documentation Management: Create and manage project documentation for client projects, e.g. scope and timelines.
- Client Communication: Manage the communication between the clients and the company's development and QA teams when developing digital and social platform applications.
- Client Support: On-call when necessary and meet client live show demands and expectations.
- Application Monitoring: Monitor the performance of the applications during project launch and evaluate and escalate issues where needed.
- Operational Support: Support client issues from operations and technical perspectives.
- Reporting: Prepare operational documentation, statuses, and reports.
- Creative Production Management: Monitor and manage creative development and production.
- Profitability Management: Follow internal procedures to ensure profitability from the proposal stage to billing.
- Communication: Proficiently write internal/external communication.
- Client Business Understanding: Take the initiative to learn the client’s business and category.
- Trend Research: Help evolve the overall project management team by researching emerging trends and best practices.
3. Digital Producer Accountabilities
- Team Management: Manage the day-to-day running of multidisciplinary (creative and technical) project teams.
- Resource Management: Ensure resource availability and allocation including weekly tracking, updates, and reporting on project utilizations and budget burns.
- Project Planning: Create, manage, and oversee detailed project plans and documentation.
- Risk Management: Minimize and manage exposure to risk by identifying potential scope creep.
- Project Performance Measurement: Measure project performance using appropriate systems, tools, and techniques.
- Quality Assurance: Manage and participate in testing and quality assurance for all deliverables.
- Subject Matter Expertise: Contribute relevant subject matter expertise in the project area (e.g. film production, web design, and development, interactive application user experience, exhibition delivery).
- Client Communication: Serve as one of the primary points of communication with the clients, vendor teams, and/or subcontractors.
- Client Relationship Management: Create and maintain thriving client relationships.
- Business Development Support: Support business development initiatives through the preparation of estimations, project plans, and proposal writing.
4. Digital Producer Job Description
- Client Project Management: Take on client project responsibilities as assigned by Makers EPs, ensuring great program delivery end-to-end from both a final product perspective and from a relationship perspective.
- Collaboration: Work collaboratively with EP, act as day-to-day Producer overseeing pre-production and production stages as a point of contact with the client (and/or their agencies).
- Client-Centered Approach: Put the client’s needs at the center of the production approach and daily work decisions while providing an environment that nurtures and respects staff’s needs.
- Client Communication: Provide clients with ballparks and rough schedules when considering working with us.
- Vendor Selection: Select a range of production solutions to present to clients by sourcing unique and innovative vendors (which other Producers wouldn’t think of) for clients to work with.
- Pitch Development: Build decks to pitch production approaches on projects including concept art, team structure, project schedules, budgets, previous work/credentials, and references.
- SOW and Bid Sheet Creation: Build robust SOWs and Bid Sheets for client approval that ensure we are financially sound and legally secure while being clear and concise for clients to approve and value the detail.
- Vendor Onboarding: Ensure all proper protocols are followed for onboarding vendors for productions including guiding them to use all invoicing systems.
- Financial Accountability: Take financial accountability for clients and projects, and deliver a minimum of 20% margin while helping guide Producers in their construction of project bids.
- Project Financial Closure: Either in tandem with assigned Associate Producers or individually taking financial accountability at the end of projects to ensure they are wrapped swiftly and in conjunction with the Finance team.
5. Digital Producer Role Purpose
- Project Planning: Plan out the most effective way to deliver outstanding creative and technical work with the resources and time you have available.
- Stakeholder Communication: Keep stakeholders informed of project progress at all times and manage expectations proactively.
- Technical Understanding: Build up a technical understanding of growth marketing projects and help guide clients on key issues affecting project delivery.
- Status Reporting: Report weekly on project/campaign status to The Delivery Lead highlighting possible budget or timing overruns before they occur.
- Scope Definition: Thoroughly define the monthly scope of work for each client and ensure projects are delivered within this agreed scope.
- Problem-Solving: Devise effective solutions to emergent issues on client accounts, so we always deliver on time and within budget.
- Process Improvement: Identify ways to improve project management processes and prototype new standard operating procedures, tools, and templates to pitch in ideas and gain buy-in from the Management Team and internal specialists.
- Resource Allocation: Book the right specialist resource against the project or campaign plan so that we can effectively monitor resource capacity.
- Resource Monitoring: Monitor resource capacity against workload and highlight possible issues with staffing projects or accounts to avoid delays and bottlenecks.
- Supplier and Client Management: Successfully manage multiple suppliers, partners, and clients to ensure the best outcome for the Growth curve and clients.
- Estimation: Work with internal specialists to accurately compile an estimate for an agreed scope of work.
- Post-Project Review: Set up and facilitate post-project reviews ensuring learnings are recorded in a well-structured way so they can inform future projects and help us deliver better outcomes each time.
- Client and Project Balance: Balance specific client demands with project realities and reliably close the loop on all open issues on time.