Why You Need an Online Spreadsheet Solution for Your Marketing Team?

When you think of marketing, the images that spring to mind are probably of brainstorming sessions, slogan creation and design. Those are key parts of the role and there is no doubt that every successful marketing manager needs an element of creativity in them. But it’s one of the most competitive industries on the planet and creativity is not enough.

Data and analytics may see a world away from planning and design, but they are what points the best marketing managers in the direction of their most successful campaigns. And the digital transformation has made it possible to combine creativity and data to drive high-quality marketing campaigns that deliver results.

Why You Need an Online Spreadsheet

Traditional spreadsheets are not fit for purpose in the modern workplace. They slow down operations, are very quickly out of date, and are prone to errors. Add in the fact that they require you to employ extra analysts or pay marketing professionals to sift through data, and their ROI is at best questionable.

CRMs such as Hubspot are often far more complicated than many small business owners need. This is because they have multiple functions that you would never use but that make the dashboard and navigation quite busy.

Arguably, the first iteration of ‘intelligent spreadsheets’ was Google Sheets. Launched in 2006, it was free, user-friendly, and had offline capability. At the time, it was new and unique. But 16 years is a long time in technology and Google Sheets has failed to move with the times.

Google Sheets falls down in its ability to handle complex formulas. While the collaborative nature of the product set it apart from Excel, Microsoft maintained the upper hand in the spreadsheet market because their product was of more use. Both are now out of date.

Online spreadsheet solutions such as those offered by Retable, enable real-time collaboration and a range of presentation options to suit each stage of the marketing process. The reason that real, actionable data is so late to the marketing party is simply that traditional storage methods rendered so much of it inaccessible.

As a Marketing Manager, your role is to connect, convince and convert. But do you apply the same principles to your team as you do to your target market? After all, they are the first people you need to connect with.

Online spreadsheets allow you to send the right message to the right people at the right time. The information and data each team or individual requires to do their job is accessible to them without effort, so they get what they want from their role – the chance to create engaging and successful marketing campaigns.

Social Media Planning

One of the keys to marketing success is to reach your audience when they have their guard down. Social media is the place to do that. But you need to know which platforms to use, when to post and what sort of content generates engagement, leads and sales.

You can’t get away with firing off a tweet or posting on Instagram when you get a chance. Without a clear strategy and a way of recording and analysing each post, you will simply be another wave in an ocean of social.

When you use Retable to plan your social strategy and review results, you will start to see data patterns. You can then tweak your social media marketing strategy to hone it and make it work for you. Once you start to gain traction and drive engagement, those dreaded algorithms begin to prioritise your posts and show them to more people. And once you’ve cracked social media marketing, your organic reach quickly extends at a rate that can exceed many paid ad strategies.

Email Marketing

Email is still the most successful marketing strategy out there. With good quality data capture strategies, you’re connecting with those most likely to buy. The trick is to deliver emails that entice them. It may be key insights, special offers or just something to entertain. The challenge is in sending enough emails so that you remain relevant and add value without becoming an annoyance.

With a clear email marketing plan, you are in complete control of what goes to who and when. Tie emails in with specific events such as Bank Holidays or Black Friday and give yourself time to be proactive rather than your team scrambling to create engaging emails when it dawns on you that a key date is around the corner.

Event Planning

Event planning is one of the biggest logistical challenges that marketing teams face. Significant time, effort and money goes into events and it’s vital that you get adequate return for it all. But with so many facets to any event, managing the project has often been a major challenge.

Trying to keep on top of things through multiple channels (email, phone, I person, texts, etc) leaves far too much scope for delays, repetition, and lost memos.

With everything in one place and online you can quickly and easily see the status of each aspect of your event planning. Assign tasks, receive notifications, chase up replies and send out communications using Retable to make sure everybody that needs information is given it in real-time.

Understanding the key components of your event, ensuring you have an event plan, and creating lists to help you check off all of those last-minute details is a template event planners use to ensure success.

Use Retable Marketing Templates

There is no doubt that Retable is the best online spreadsheet for marketing teams in SMEs. It is FREE, simple and a great collaborative working tool. But if you’re worried that you’re ‘techy’ enough to create spreadsheets, fear not. We’ve done the leg work for you.

Our range of marketing templates are easy to use and perfect for social media planning, event planning, and conducting a SWOT analysis.

They are ready to go and all you need to do is fill in the boxes, give access and get to work.

Marketing teams don’t generally need all the bells and whistles that some CRM products provide. Retable’s free subscription includes:

• Data sharing
• To-do tracking
• Social media calendar
• Event planning
• Project management templates

Sign up today and see how your marketing team could be made more efficient and collaborative with Retable.

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