Blog for marketers and marketing teams

Excel is the most widely used tool within marketing teams to visually create a marketing calendar. This sounds logical because Excel is easy to use and can be fully customised with a horizontal timeline and a vertical project structure, then within this setup coloured cubes for communication actions, marketing milestones or marketing campaigns. Excel as the ultimate marketing calendar tool then? “Yes, but … “ is always my answer. The right answer depends entirely on the simplicity (or complexity) of your marketing calendar, on the number of marketing calendars you need and on the number of marketers who need to work with the marketing calendar(s).

The bigger your marketing team, the more need for clear and workable processes to plan marketing actions and marketing campaigns. Those who fail to do so risk misunderstandings and wasted time within the team. In this article, I describe which 5 crucial decisions you need to consider if you want to set up a complete and successful marketing planning process. After all, it is insufficient to set up a marketing planning process in Excel if your ambition is to optimise the planning processes within your team. What you need is a holistic view of marketing planning that covers all the different aspects of the planning process. I have translated these 5 crucial decisions into 5 concrete tips.

Marketing planning is becoming increasingly challenging. The marketing team has to be short on time for marketing campaigns, marketing promotions or media campaigns and not infrequently has to plan this across different teams and team members to launch a successful omnichannel campaign. The biggest pain point for many marketing teams is the lack of oversight that arises because the various schedules are no longer aligned in Excel. The bigger the team, the more Excels, the greater the lack of overview among those responsible for planning campaigns and campaigns. While each individual marketer may feel comfortable in his or her Excel, media planners, campaign planners, marketing managers or marketing directors struggle with the planning overview. The result? Lost time, misunderstandings and mistakes when launching campaigns.

The solution is to merge all Excel schedules. In doing so, we have to reconcile 2 worlds. The individual marketer likes to keep the simplicity and insight into his or her planning, while those responsible at a higher planning level need the overview of all planning. In this article I describe – using 7 concrete examples – how to combine the simplicity of Excel with the flexibility and overview of a specialised marketing planning tool.

The marketing profession is more exciting than ever, thanks to the many new (digital) techniques marketers are given to communicate with customers and prospects. However, there is a flip side to the coin.

Many marketers use (or abuse) Excel for everything: task lists, budget monitoring, page distribution of publications and also for planning their projects. Excel is without a doubt the global market leader for marketing planning tools. Doesn’t that sound crazy? A spreadsheet used by marketers as the tool for marketing planning?

A marketing manager must be able to look ahead, as well as look back and keep an eye on the details. On the one hand, they have to see the overall picture, but on the other hand, they have to make sure that everything proceeds without a hitch and make adjustments if necessary.

Strategic marketing choices belong in a written marketing plan, probably the most important document for every marketer who wants to work consistently and professionally. But how do you start with a strategic marketing plan?