Here at AFV, we are always on the lookout for new and unique ways to manage and share marketing campaigns that our partners can leverage. Recently, while speaking with Eden Reid from LookingPoint, I learned all about how she has started using Trello, a task management tool typically used by her engineers to track projects, as a way to organize and share her marketing campaigns.
Using a task management tool like Trello allows partners to have a clearly laid out plan that is easy to view and easy to share with both internal and external stakeholders. Because of the ease of sharing, both PMMs and partners can push for additional visibility within the manufacturer organization, potentially leading to additional funding opportunities since they now know what the plan is and how it will be executed.
Too often, I see partners ask for more funding but then struggle to spend it when it is given because they failed to prepare a detailed plan. Implementing the use of a digital task management tool, like Trello, helps to break down the barrier of communication between partner and manufacturer marketing, and serves as a tool to take a partner’s marketing to the next level by allowing them to build and track thought out plans with their team.
The use case:
Prior to using Trello to organize herself, Eden came up with the idea for Collaboration & Security campaigns and used a white erase board in her office to write them down- complete with different colored markers and post its showing where she saw gaps in each. This organization tactic, which worked to get her ideas down, still required WebEx calls with video to be able to show anyone outside of her office, and prevented her from digitally sharing her updates without many versions of emailed pictures.
Eden ended up using Boards on Trello to break up her projects and separate out her campaigns, creating one for Collaboration and another for Security. She then created new lists on each board for each stage in the buying funnel – Awareness, Research, Evaluate, & Decide. Finally, she created cards for each piece of content that she already has which aligns to each stage – eBooks, videos, blogs & infographics, just to name a few.
Trello allows users to categorize the cards they create with labels and give each label a different color. Eden decided to use this function to show different types of content, allowing her to visually display what content she has available and what needs to be created in order to successfully launch the campaign. Within each card, she was able to assign due dates for the pieces of content that needed to be created by her team.
She also used different colors to tag which content is manufacturer vs internal LookingPoint content and the Calls to Action (CTAs) for each stage of the campaign. This is beneficial because it allows users to visually see everything that they have available to them, determine where it fits best in the campaign, and decide what needs to be created prior to launching a campaign.
Using Trello not only gave Eden the same creative freedom and organization of her whiteboard, but also effectively connected her to her colleagues. Do you use a tool to create and share your marketing campaigns? We’d love to hear which one, and how you are using it – reach out to us directly or tell us about it in the comments below!