Managing all those marketing assets is challenging. Get a headstart on your next marketing project by using these 19 free marketing templates for Excel and Word. They’ll help you from the planning stage and budgeting to tracking your campaign to ensure you stay on schedule and within your budget. We have dozens of free project management templates to choose from. Here’s a selection of marketing-related templates covering everything from planning and budgeting to competitive analysis and customer journey mapping.

1. Marketing Plan Template

Organize the phases of your marketing plan by downloading our free marketing plan template for Word. Our free marketing plan template gives you a place to define your strategy and how you intend to implement it over the month, quarter or year.

You can use the marketing plan template to highlight your goals and current position in the market. Use it to schedule tasks over a timeline with start and end dates, track KPIs and much more. A marketing plan offers a high-level view of the marketing campaign and helps you market your brand, product or service more effectively.

Use our free template to build a framework for your marketing plan within the context of the potential customers you want to target. It helps you reduce risk and increase the chances that your marketing will be successful.

2. Marketing Budget Template

Marketing costs money, but you don’t have unlimited funds. That’s why you need our free marketing budget template for Excel. It ensures you get a good return on your investment and don’t overspend on your marketing campaign.

The free marketing budget template outlines the financial investments related to your marketing project broken up by year or quarter. It helps you collect your costs, from paid advertising and sponsored web content to marketing personnel, software and more.

Using a marketing budget template goes hand-in-glove with the marketing plan, as it’s an integral part of the larger marketing plan. It helps you forecast what you need to spend to deliver a successful marketing campaign.

3. Marketing Campaign Template

Using our free marketing campaign template will help you plan how you introduce your product or service across multiple platforms. The template helps you use market research to better map out a product or service launch and communicate the plan to everyone on your marketing team.

You can use the template to organize everything you need for a successful marketing campaign including the goals of the marketing campaign, who you’re going to target, the media plan and how you’ll execute it. Not only that, but you have the tools to keep track of the marketing campaign, including collecting key performance indicators (KPIs).

Use our free marketing campaign template when the product or service you created is done but hasn’t launched. Our free marketing campaign template will help you successfully promote the product or service, connecting with your target audience. See your plan on our kanban board, which visualizes the workflow and gives marketing managers visibility into their team’s process. If they see issues, they can quickly reallocate resources to keep work moving forward uninterrupted. Teams can manage their backlog and collaboratively plan sprints.

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Marketing Campaign Template

Use this free Marketing Campaign Template to manage your projects better.

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4. Marketing Action Items Template

We’ve talked a lot about planning for campaigns or events, but we haven’t covered how you’ll go about accomplishing your goals. Our free action items template for Excel will help you outline the steps you have to take to successfully complete that marketing plan.

Action items are the steps you have to take to implement your marketing plan. In other words, they’re the activities or tasks that’ll carry the project over the finish line in time. This helps you figure out how you’re going to get the marketing project work done.

Once you have the action items laid out, you can then begin to assign them to the marketing team. Without first knowing what the action items for the marketing project are, it would be impossible to fully plan for either a small or larger project.

5. Marketing Project Timeline Template

All marketing initiatives have a deadline that you have to align with a product launch or campaign. Whatever the marketing project is, without a schedule you’ll never get it done in time. You can quickly schedule your marketing push with our free project timeline template for Excel.

A timeline is a visual tool to see your entire marketing campaign in one place. It helps you see when tasks need to be completed, which in turn can make you allocate resources more wisely. It’s also the backbone of any thorough marketing schedule.

When you’re done filling out our free project timeline template, you’ll see where your major deliverables and milestones are and have a better idea of how much the project will cost and the resources you’ll need to complete it.

6. Marketing Media Plan Template

Marketing campaigns work best when every message knows where it’s going and why. A media plan template maps out the channels, timing and budget needed to reach the right audience with the right content. It considers goals, demographics and performance metrics to ensure money isn’t wasted on low-impact placements. With a clear implementation plan in place, teams coordinate seamlessly and make smarter decisions about which tactics will drive the greatest ROI.

This media plan template brings every element of campaign planning into one structured document. Traditional media like TV, radio and print are organized alongside digital channels such as SEO, paid search, email and social. Fields for audience targeting, dates, spend, and key metrics support accurate forecasting and ongoing optimization. By aligning investments with performance data, this template helps marketers stay focused on results and maintain full visibility into campaign effectiveness.

7. Strategic Roadmap for Marketing Template

Marketing firms and teams must keep strategy in mind. All campaigns and tactics should feed into a higher goal. That’s where the free strategic roadmap template for Excel comes in. It allows for the long view, which is often how businesses stay in business.

A strategic roadmap template visually communicates the strategy of a marketing firm as well as those steps that will be taken to achieve its long-term goals and objectives. This marketing template is a powerful tool for ensuring that everyone from leaders to marketing team members are on the same page when it comes to why the firm is doing what it’s doing.

The strategic roadmap template has a timeline that gives a bird’s-eye view of where the firm currently is and where it wants to be in the next five to 10 years. This is an essential tool to prepare and disseminate strategy throughout the organization.

8. Marketing Project & Task Tracker Template

Of course, all of this planning and scheduling is for nothing if you’re unable to track the work as your marketing team is executing it. That’s why you need the free project task tracker template for Excel to know if your actual progress is keeping up with your planned progress.

Having a project task tracker template means you have the tools to see if you’re keeping to your schedule. If you’re not, then you have the opportunity to get back on track before it’s too late. Best of all, you can follow the task throughout the marketing project life cycle, from planning through execution.

Our free project task tracker lets you list all your tasks and describe them. You can add any dependent tasks that need to be done before, after or during. Plus, you can add the marketing team members assigned to that task. Then add priority, start and end dates, the actual end date and whether the status is opened or closed to keep track of your tasks.

9. Marketing Event Plan Template

Whether it’s a tradeshow, corporate retreat or networking party, events are projects and they need to be planned to be successful. Our free event plan template for Excel lays out everything you need to do and helps you avoid any glitches that will negatively impact your event.

You’ll find places to list the tasks you need to complete to have the event, including the resources you need to execute that work. Every task will have an owner, an estimated time it’ll take to complete and a checklist to mark if it’s been started and to note when completed.

This is your first step to scheduling your event and figuring out a feasible timetable to get everything ready. The more accurately you can forecast the amount of time it’ll take to prepare for the event, the less likely you’ll miss deadlines and threaten the success of the event.

10. Marketing Calendar Template

Capture important dates in an easy-to-read format to make sure you don’t miss deadlines, meetings and more with our free marketing calendar template for Excel. Use the free template to view your marketing campaigns by the month, quarterly or over the course of a year.

Marketing calendars are essential pieces to a larger marketing plan. Marketing plans can be complicated, whereas a marketing calendar is easy to read at a glance to make sure you’re meeting the necessary milestones.

A marketing calendar template is also a great tool for communication with stakeholders. They don’t need to get into the weeds of your marketing campaign. They’re interested in your progress and your schedule, both of which can be tracked on a marketing calendar template.

11. Competitive Analysis Template

Companies rarely operate without rivals, and understanding their strengths and weaknesses is key to winning market share. A competitive analysis template examines how competitors position their products, price offerings, promote themselves and serve customers. Marketing teams use these insights to spot differentiation opportunities, evaluate projects and identify threats and refine messaging that resonates more strongly. With clearer visibility into the landscape, brands can make more confident decisions about where to compete and how to outperform others.

This competitive analysis template organizes detailed research into a structured view of the market. It includes competitor descriptions, marketing mix elements and a full SWOT breakdown to compare value propositions side by side. Teams can evaluate pricing approaches, distribution strategies, branding tactics and customer experience quality in one place. By highlighting strategic gaps and emerging opportunities, the template supports smarter positioning and helps guide tactical moves that strengthen your market advantage.

12. Event Proposal Template

Marketing comes in all shapes and sizes. There’s direct mail, billboards, digital ads, websites and much more. But one of the most effective ways to connect with the target audience is in an event. Whether that’s a tradeshow, webinar or launch party, this free event proposal template for Word is the perfect document to get things moving.

This marketing template is a detailed document that takes the coming event and defines its goals and objectives to better serve the client. It is a thorough tool that is designed to win the bid, which is the first step of any event planning process.

All the pertinent information is collected on this customizable marketing template, from its purpose, target audience and event stakeholders to the even schedule. That comprehensiveness will show the client that the firm understands the event and mapped out all the steps to ensure its success.

13. Go to Market Strategy Template

Bringing a product to market takes more than a launch date; it requires a clear plan for how the product will win customers. A go to market strategy template links target buyers, messaging, pricing and distribution into one coordinated approach. It helps teams focus on the channels that drive adoption, remove barriers to purchase and align marketing and sales activities. With a solid GTM strategy, launches become more predictable and growth more achievable.

This go to market strategy template organizes everything needed for a successful product introduction. It begins with the product’s value proposition and a detailed profile of the target audience, then defines promotional, sales and delivery channels with associated costs. A structured timeline helps teams coordinate development, marketing and launch activities. By centralizing planning and budget details, the template ensures alignment across teams and supports smarter decision-making at every stage of market entry.

14. Customer Journey Map Template

Customers experience a brand long before and long after a purchase is made. A customer journey map template captures every step of that relationship—from initial awareness to retention—to reveal what people think, feel and need along the way. Marketers use it to find friction points, strengthen engagement and align messaging with real customer motivations. With a clear map, teams improve satisfaction and guide more prospects toward becoming loyal advocates.

This customer journey map template breaks down the full buying experience into stages such as awareness, consideration, purchase, onboarding and retention. It links customer actions to emotions, pain points and touchpoints to show where support or improvements are needed. Persona details add context for decision-making, while backstage processes highlight operational responsibilities. With these insights in one place, teams can design more seamless interactions and elevate the overall customer experience.

15. Creative Brief Template

Marketing, advertising and design projects require project briefs just as construction, manufacturing or engineering projects do. Only they’re not called project briefs, they’re called creative briefs. If you’re managing one of these projects, then you need our free creative brief template for Word.

The creative brief is used to plan the project, define its objectives and keep everyone involved clear on what the project is about. It’s created at the beginning of the project but referred to throughout the project life cycle as a roadmap to keep everyone working together.

Our free creative brief template details the target audience, your competitors in the marketplace, what the key message is and how it should be delivered plus more. It’s the rule by which you measure the project requirements to ensure that you’re keeping to them.

16. Marketing Proposal Template

Clients want confidence that a marketing initiative is worth the investment, and a marketing proposal template helps provide that clarity. It explains the current situation, the approach being recommended and the results the strategy is designed to achieve. Rather than diving straight into tactics, the proposal builds a narrative that connects marketing work to business goals. This alignment makes decision-making easier and strengthens the relationship before a project even starts.

This marketing proposal template provides a structured format for pitching a complete marketing plan. It includes an executive summary, SWOT analysis and detailed buyer personas to ground decisions in research. Strategy sections specify channels, messaging and performance metrics, while the scope of work, timeline and budget make deliverables transparent. Terms and conditions complete the package, giving clients everything they need to confidently approve and move forward.

17. Marketing Report Template

Knowing whether your marketing efforts are working requires more than a gut feeling. A marketing report template gives teams a consistent format for measuring campaign performance, tracking key metrics and communicating results to stakeholders. Without regular reporting, budgets get renewed or cut based on anecdote rather than evidence, and high-performing channels go unrecognized.

The marketing report template includes sections for campaign objectives, key performance metrics, channel-by-channel results, budget vs. actual spend and recommendations for the next period. Keeping the format consistent across reporting cycles makes it easy to spot trends and compare performance over time. Leadership teams use these reports to make informed decisions about where to invest and where to pull back.

Use this template for weekly, monthly or quarterly marketing reviews. It works equally well for internal team reporting and for presenting results to clients or executive stakeholders.

18. Product Launch Template

Bringing a new product to market is one of the most cross-functional projects a marketing team manages. A product launch template gives you a structured framework for coordinating every deliverable across marketing, sales, product and operations so nothing gets missed in the push to launch. Without a plan, launch day becomes a scramble rather than a culmination.

The product launch template includes a timeline of pre-launch, launch day and post-launch activities, with columns for task owner, due date and status. It maps out everything from messaging development and channel setup to media outreach and performance tracking in the weeks that follow. Having all workstreams in one document prevents the siloed planning that leads to last-minute surprises.

This template is especially useful for marketing teams launching into new markets or audiences where coordination risk is highest. It pairs naturally with the go-to-market strategy template and the marketing campaign template already in this collection.

19. SWOT Analysis Template

Effective marketing strategy starts with an honest assessment of where your brand stands. A SWOT analysis template gives marketing teams a structured framework for evaluating internal strengths and weaknesses alongside external opportunities and threats. This four-quadrant exercise brings strategic clarity to planning conversations and helps teams prioritize where to focus their efforts and budget.

The SWOT analysis template includes a dedicated quadrant for each dimension, with prompts that guide the team through examples relevant to a marketing context, from brand perception and channel performance to emerging competitors and shifting audience behaviors. Working through it as a team surfaces assumptions and blind spots that a single strategist would miss working alone.

Use this template at the start of annual marketing planning or whenever the team is reassessing positioning, entering a new market or responding to a significant competitive shift.

Go Beyond Templates With ProjectManager

Download the above free marketing templates and you’ll be able to better manage your campaigns. However, templates can only take you so far. They are, after all, static documents. If you need to change anything, it’s time-consuming, and time shouldn’t be wasted in business. ProjectManager is online software that does what the free templates do and more, plus it does it in real time so you have more insight.

Use the Tools You Want to Collaborate

One thing templates can do is help you collaborate. You can’t have multiple marketing teams working on the same document or allow different versions to float around. Our software has multiple project views, all of which are updated in real time so you’re always working on the most current version. Managers can play on robust Gantt charts with timelines that can link dependencies, add milestones and set a baseline to track planned vs. actual effort in real time. Design teams can use kanban boards for a visual workflow and other teams can use task lists or calendars.

See How You’re Doing in Real Time

The task track template requires that you add to the document. Our real-time dashboard tracks the marketing project automatically. There’s no setup required as in competitors’ lightweight products. Our live dashboard collects data and displays it in colorful graphs giving you a high-level view of your costs, workload and more. We even have customizable reports for more detail, and they’re easy to share to update stakeholders.

Marketing teams, be they in copy, design or another department, need to collaborate across tools. Our collaborative platform allows them to comment at the task level, share files and tag anyone on the project team. Real-time communication is facilitated by email notifications and alerts in the tool so you don’t have to leave your work to stay in touch with team members in different departments or locations.

ProjectManager is award-winning software that empowers teams to work better together and gives managers the tools they need to plan, manage and track work in real time. Use task, resource and risk management features to further drive successful projects. Join teams at businesses as varied as Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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What Is a Marketing Action Plan?

A marketing action plan is a structured document that converts a marketing objective into the specific tasks required to achieve it. For each task, it defines who is responsible, what needs to be done, when it must be completed and what budget or tools are needed. Unlike a marketing plan, which covers overall strategy — target audience, channels, messaging, budget allocation — a marketing action plan is purely operational. It assumes the strategic decisions are made and focuses on executing them.

Marketing action plans are built for individual campaigns, quarterly initiatives or channel-specific programs. A content team uses one to execute a Q3 editorial calendar. A demand generation team uses one to run a product launch campaign. A social media team uses one to grow an audience in a new channel. The format is the same regardless of the marketing function it serves, making it a core tool of marketing project management.

Marketing Action Plan vs. Marketing Plan

These two documents are often treated as the same thing, but they serve different stages of the marketing process.

A marketing plan is a strategic document covering a full year or campaign cycle. It defines target audiences, brand positioning, channel mix, budget allocation and high-level goals. It answers the question: what is our marketing strategy, and how are we investing our resources to support business goals?

A marketing action plan is the execution layer for a specific marketing objective within that strategy. It answers the question: what does the team actually do this week, this month and this quarter to make that strategy happen — and who is doing it? A campaign brief or project charter typically precedes it, defining the scope before the action plan maps out the tasks.

Run Your Marketing Action Plan With ProjectManager

ProjectManager is online project management software with planning tools, real-time dashboards and task management built for marketing teams that need to execute campaigns on time and on budget. Try it free for 30 days.

Marketing Action Plan Components

A marketing action plan that drives results contains the same six core elements regardless of the campaign type or channel.

• Marketing objective — The specific, measurable goal the plan is designed to achieve: a lead target, a traffic number, a conversion rate, a revenue contribution. One objective per action plan keeps focus clear and makes success unambiguous.
• Action steps — Every task required to achieve the objective, broken down small enough that each one can be assigned and completed independently. Broad tasks like “run paid campaign” need to become specific tasks: set up ad account, write ad copy, design creatives, configure targeting, launch, monitor.
• Task owners — The specific person responsible for each action step. Marketing tasks stall when ownership is assigned to a channel or a function rather than a person. A responsibility matrix is useful when campaigns span multiple teams or agencies.
• Timeline and deadlines — Start and end dates for each task, with campaign milestones marking the major checkpoints — creative approval, launch date, mid-campaign review, final reporting. Milestones create accountability before the campaign ends, not only after it.
• Budget and resources — Ad spend, tool costs, agency fees, design hours and any other resources required for each task. A marketing resource plan built alongside the action plan surfaces budget conflicts before they stall a campaign mid-flight.
• Success metrics — The KPIs that confirm the objective has been achieved: cost per lead, conversion rate, organic sessions, email open rate. Define these before the campaign launches so the post-campaign review is a factual assessment rather than a selective reading of whichever metrics looked best.

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Action Plan Template

Use this free Action Plan Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

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Types of Marketing Action Plans

Marketing action plans are built around specific objectives and channels. The most common types follow a consistent structure but are scoped to the work at hand.

Campaign Action Plan

Built to execute a specific marketing campaign: a product launch, a seasonal promotion, a lead generation push or a brand awareness effort. Campaign action plans typically run for a defined period — four to twelve weeks — and include tasks across multiple channels: content, paid, email, social and PR. A communication plan often runs alongside it to keep internal stakeholders informed of campaign status and results.

Content Marketing Action Plan

Focused on executing a content strategy: publishing an editorial calendar, building a library of gated assets, launching a blog or growing organic search traffic. Content action plans tend to run quarterly, with tasks covering topic research, writing, editing, design, publication and distribution. Success metrics are tied to traffic, rankings and content-attributed pipeline.

Social Media Action Plan

Built to grow or activate a social media presence: launching on a new platform, increasing engagement on an existing channel, or running an influencer campaign. Tasks cover content creation, scheduling, community management, paid amplification and performance reporting. Social action plans often align with a content calendar and are reviewed weekly against follower growth and engagement benchmarks.

Product Launch Action Plan

A cross-functional plan that coordinates marketing activities across channels to support a new product or feature release. Covers pre-launch (building awareness, creating assets, training sales), launch (coordinating announcements, activating paid, publishing content) and post-launch (capturing leads, running nurture, reporting results). The product launch action plan is one of the most complex marketing action plans because it spans multiple teams and has a hard launch date that all tasks must work backward from.

How to Write a Marketing Action Plan

Here’s a quick breakdown of how to create a marketing action plan for your department.

1. Define the Marketing Objective

Start with a single, measurable goal. “Generate 300 marketing-qualified leads in Q3” is a goal. “Drive more traffic” is not. The objective should be specific enough that the team agrees without discussion about whether it has been achieved at the end of the period. If it can’t be measured, it can’t be planned against.

2. List Every Task Required

Work backward from the objective. What channel activity, content, ads, emails or events need to happen to hit that number? List every discrete task, then sequence them by dependency. Use a work plan to organize tasks by channel or workstream if the campaign spans multiple functions. Flag upstream dependencies — a task that requires creative assets or legal approval should be treated as a separate task with its own owner and deadline, not an assumption.

3. Assign Individual Owners

Every task needs a named person responsible for it — not “the content team” or “agency.” When a task is owned by a group, it’s owned by no one. For campaigns involving external vendors or agencies, the internal task owner is the person responsible for briefing, reviewing and approving the vendor’s work.

4. Set Deadlines and Campaign Milestones

Assign a deadline to every task, then identify three or four campaign milestones — the dates by which key deliverables must be complete for the plan to stay on track. For a product launch, milestones might be: creative assets approved, landing page live, email sequence loaded, launch day. Milestones function as early warning signals; a missed milestone two weeks before launch is fixable, a missed launch date is not.

5. Allocate Budget by Task

Assign a budget line to every task that has a cost: ad spend, tool subscriptions, freelancer fees, event costs, design hours. Tracking budget at the task level rather than the campaign level makes it easy to identify overspend before it compounds. A marketing budget built in parallel with the action plan keeps finance visibility and campaign execution aligned.

6. Define Success Metrics

Decide before the campaign starts how you’ll measure success. Pick a primary metric tied directly to the objective — leads generated, conversion rate, sessions from organic, email-attributed revenue — and one or two secondary metrics that provide context. Define what “success” looks like numerically so the end-of-campaign review isn’t a negotiation.

7. Review on a Fixed Cadence

Schedule a standing campaign review — weekly for fast-moving campaigns, bi-weekly for longer programs — and update task status at each one. Adjust the plan when tasks slip; don’t absorb slippage silently and hope to catch up. Use a status report to share progress with stakeholders on a regular cadence. Post-campaign, document what worked and what didn’t in a retrospective that informs the next action plan.

Marketing Action Plan Example

The following example shows how a marketing team would structure an action plan for a new product feature launch, with a goal of generating 500 free trial sign-ups in the first 30 days.

Objective: Generate 500 free trial sign-ups in the 30 days following the feature launch
Success metric: 500 new trial accounts created, attributed to launch campaign, by day 30
Timeline: 4 weeks pre-launch + 30-day launch window

Milestones:

• Week –1: All creative assets approved; landing page live; ads loaded and reviewed
• Launch day: All channels active simultaneously; PR distributed; influencer posts live
• Day 14: Mid-campaign review — pace toward 500 sign-ups; reallocate budget if needed
• Day 30: Final sign-up count vs. target; retrospective and handoff to sales nurture

This structure ensures every channel is ready before launch day, names a single owner for each workstream and sets a mid-campaign checkpoint to catch pacing issues before the window closes. Track all tasks and dashboards centrally using marketing dashboard templates to keep the full team aligned on progress.

Free Marketing Action Plan Template

Rather than building a marketing action plan from a blank document, start from a structured format. A marketing plan template gives you the framework already configured — enter your objective, tasks, owners, deadlines and budget lines.

Download it free and adapt it to your campaign or initiative. The structure works for any marketing function — content, paid, social, email or events — because the underlying task and ownership framework is the same regardless of channel.

Manage Your Marketing Action Plan With ProjectManager

A template gives your marketing action plan its structure. Executing it requires tools that connect the plan to the actual work — task tracking, deadline visibility, budget monitoring and real-time campaign progress without a status meeting.

Build and Schedule Marketing Campaigns on a Gantt Chart

ProjectManager‘s Gantt charts let you build your marketing action plan as a live project schedule. Add each task, assign it to the named owner, set start and end dates and link dependencies so the schedule reflects the real sequence of campaign work. Campaign milestones appear as fixed checkpoints on the timeline — when a task slips, the Gantt shows the downstream impact before it threatens the launch date.

Track Campaign Performance in Real Time

Marketing leadership visibility into a campaign shouldn’t depend on a weekly check-in. ProjectManager’s real-time dashboards pull live data from your project tasks and display completion rates, task health and budget consumed at a glance. Share a dashboard link with stakeholders and the campaign status update runs itself.

Related Content

• How to Write an Action Plan (Example Included)
• 5 Free Marketing Dashboard Templates for Excel
• How to Create a Marketing Budget: A Quick Guide
• 10 Free Communication Plan Templates for Word and Excel
• 14 Free Work Plan Templates for Excel and Word

The post What Is a Marketing Action Plan? (Example & Template Included) appeared first on ProjectManager.

A marketing dashboard solves that problem by surfacing the right metrics in one place. Rather than logging into five platforms to understand how a campaign is performing, a well-structured dashboard shows the headline numbers (spend vs. budget, leads generated, conversion rate, channel performance) at a glance, and flags what needs attention before a problem becomes a missed target. It gives marketing managers the overview they need to run the function and gives leadership the visibility they need without requiring a report every time they have a question.

We put together five free marketing dashboard templates for Excel that cover the metrics marketing teams track most, from campaign budget management to creative asset tracking. Each one is free to download and ready to adapt for your team.

1. Marketing Budget Dashboard for Excel

Marketing budgets are allocated months in advance and spent in real time. Paid media burns through spend daily, event costs hit in unpredictable chunks, agency retainers run monthly and campaign investments need to be weighed against results that take time to materialize. Without a dashboard that shows budget consumption against plan across every channel and initiative, overspending in one area quietly offsets opportunities in another before anyone notices the imbalance.

This Excel dashboard tracks planned versus actual spending across marketing categories (paid media, content, events, tools, agency fees and headcount) with variance calculations that immediately show where the budget is running ahead or behind plan. Summary charts give the marketing manager and finance team a visual read on spend performance across the quarter, while the line-item breakdown makes it straightforward to identify which channels or campaigns are consuming budget faster than expected and where room remains to invest.

The right tool for marketing managers and marketing ops teams who need a regular read on budget performance and a format they can use in weekly planning reviews or share with the CFO without pulling numbers from multiple systems first.

2. Marketing Campaign Dashboard for Excel

A marketing campaign involves more moving parts than it appears from the outside. Creative briefs, copy reviews, design approvals, channel setup, landing page builds, media buys, tracking implementation, launch, optimization and reporting. Each campaign is a project with its own timeline, budget and list of dependencies. Without a dashboard that shows campaign health across all those dimensions, it is easy for a launch to slip or a deliverable to get dropped without the team noticing until the go-live date arrives.

This Excel dashboard covers the key dimensions of campaign health: timeline progress against the launch date, budget consumption, milestone completion, deliverable status by workstream and an open issues log. Updated weekly during the campaign build and shared at team stand-ups, it gives the campaign manager and stakeholders a single reference point for campaign status, replacing the status meetings spent gathering updates with meetings spent making decisions based on a shared, current picture.

Most useful for campaign managers and marketing project leads running multi-channel campaigns, product launches or go-to-market initiatives where multiple teams and external partners are contributing deliverables on a shared timeline with a fixed launch date.

Get AI-Powered Marketing Dashboards: No Manual Updates Required

ProjectManager‘s dashboards update automatically as your team completes tasks, logs time and tracks spend. No spreadsheet updates required. AI-powered insights flag what is off track before a deadline slips or a budget is exceeded, so you can act on live data rather than last week’s report. Try it free for 30 days.

3. Marketing KPI Dashboard for Excel

Marketing performance is only as clear as the metrics you are tracking against targets. Impressions and clicks tell you about reach. Leads, MQLs and conversion rates tell you about effectiveness. Cost per acquisition and return on ad spend tell you about efficiency. Tracking all of them in isolation (one metric per platform, one report per channel) makes it impossible to see the full picture of how marketing is performing or where to invest to improve it. A KPI dashboard brings those metrics together in one view.

This Excel dashboard tracks your selected marketing KPIs against target values with visual indicators that immediately show which metrics are on track, which are approaching a threshold and which need attention. You define the KPIs that matter for your strategy (lead volume, conversion rate, CAC, ROAS, email engagement, organic traffic), and the dashboard shows performance against target across the reporting period. The trend view shows whether each metric is moving in the right direction over time, which is more useful for optimization decisions than a single-period snapshot.

Particularly useful for marketing managers running performance reviews, reporting to senior leadership or working with an agency partner where a shared, consistent set of metrics keeps everyone accountable to the same targets regardless of which platform or channel they are responsible for.

4. Marketing Task Tracker Dashboard for Excel

A marketing team’s task list is never short. Blog posts in draft, social content queued for review, email campaigns being built, ad creatives in feedback cycles, landing pages waiting on development, reports due at the end of the week. That is before the ad hoc requests that arrive daily. Without a visible, shared view of what is in progress and what is coming due, tasks get dropped, deadlines get missed and the team spends more time managing the workload than doing the work.

This Excel dashboard logs marketing tasks by campaign, channel or workstream with columns for owner, due date, status and completion percentage. Summary charts show overall workload status across the team and surface overdue items that need immediate attention. Used in weekly team stand-ups or shared as a living document, it gives the marketing manager a current view of what every team member is working on and what is at risk of slipping, without requiring a separate update from each person to get the picture.

Most useful for marketing managers overseeing multiple campaigns or content programs simultaneously, or for teams where the volume of parallel deliverables makes informal tracking unreliable and things falling through the cracks is a recurring problem.

5. Marketing Asset Management Dashboard for Excel

Creative assets are the output that marketing teams produce most consistently: ads, landing pages, email templates, social graphics, brand collateral, videos, whitepapers, case studies. Managing them informally (files scattered across shared drives, status tracked in someone’s head, approvals happening over email) creates the kind of disorganization where a campaign launches with the wrong version of an asset, a brand asset gets used without approval or the team rebuilds something that already exists because no one knew it was there.

This Excel dashboard tracks your marketing assets with fields for asset name, type, campaign or channel, owner, current status (briefed, in production, in review, approved, live, archived), publish date and location. The summary view shows the pipeline of assets at each stage so the creative director and campaign manager can see at a glance what is ready to use, what is still in production and what is coming up for review. This makes it possible to plan campaign launches around asset readiness rather than discovering gaps at the last minute.

Best used by content teams, creative departments and marketing ops functions managing a high volume of assets across multiple campaigns and channels, where the lack of a shared status view regularly causes delays, version confusion or duplicated work.

Manage Marketing Projects and Campaigns With ProjectManager

Dashboard templates track performance after the fact. The work that drives those metrics (campaigns planned, content produced, budgets managed) needs its own system. ProjectManager gives marketing teams the project management tools to plan campaigns, assign deliverables, track progress and manage budgets in one place, so the numbers that appear in the dashboard reflect execution that was actually coordinated rather than assembled under pressure.

Plan and Launch Campaigns on Schedule

ProjectManager’s Gantt chart turns a campaign plan into a live timeline with tasks assigned to team members, dependencies linked and milestones marked at key dates. When a deliverable slips, the downstream impact is visible immediately so the campaign manager can resequence rather than discovering the delay on launch day. Everyone on the team works from the same updated plan, which reduces the back-and-forth about what is due and who is waiting on what that slows campaign production down.

Track Campaign Budgets Against Plan in Real Time

ProjectManager’s budget tracking tools let you set campaign budgets, log costs as they are incurred and compare actual spending to plan at any point during the campaign. When a channel is burning budget faster than expected or an agency invoice comes in higher than estimated, you see the variance in time to reallocate rather than after the quarter is over. Budget reports pull directly from the project record so the numbers in your dashboard reflect what was actually spent rather than what was estimated.

Related Content

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• 10 Free Status Report Templates for Word and Excel
• 8 Free Work Schedule Templates for Excel
• 20 Free Marketing Templates for Planning and Strategy
• A Quick Guide to Marketing Calendars (Template Included)
• What Is a Marketing Plan and How Do I Make One?
• 18 Budget Templates for Business and Project Budgeting

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1. Sales Forecast Template

Designed to support revenue planning, this template captures forecast assumptions, potential risks, growth opportunities and confidence levels alongside projected sales data. Product details, expected unit volumes, pricing, revenue estimates, sales channels, target markets and geographic coverage are organized in a structured format that simplifies forecasting activities.

Before inventory is purchased or sales targets are finalized, teams need visibility into future demand. Using this template helps sales managers estimate revenue, compare opportunities across products, identify potential shortfalls and align sales efforts with market conditions. Better forecasts also support budgeting, staffing and production planning decisions.

If you’re looking for project management software to plan, schedule and track sales activities and business projects, try ProjectManager. ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that includes Gantt charts to build project schedules, kanban boards to manage tasks and workflows, project portfolio roadmaps to oversee multiple projects simultaneously and real-time dashboards to monitor progress and costs. Workload charts and timesheets help teams allocate resources effectively and balance workloads. Try ProjectManager today for free.

2. Sales Dashboard Template

Built as a centralized reporting tool, this template combines executive-level KPIs with detailed sales breakdowns and visual charts. Users can track revenue, units sold, customer acquisition, product performance, regional results, sales growth and target comparisons while reviewing trends through automatically updated dashboards and performance summaries.

When performance data is scattered across spreadsheets, identifying problems becomes difficult. This dashboard brings key metrics into one view, allowing sales leaders to monitor progress against goals, evaluate territory performance, recognize top-performing products and uncover trends that may require corrective action or additional investment.

3. Sales Order Template

This template provides a complete framework for documenting customer purchases from initial order through fulfillment. It includes customer and vendor information, delivery details, payment and shipping terms, itemized product listings, quantities, pricing, tax calculations, order totals and signature fields needed to formally authorize transactions.

Accurate order documentation reduces fulfillment errors and improves communication between sales, operations and accounting teams. By standardizing order information, sales representatives can process transactions more efficiently, maintain clear records, track customer commitments and ensure products are delivered according to agreed terms and schedules.

4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Template

Created to centralize customer records, this template combines contact information, account status, follow-up schedules, revenue tracking and sales opportunities in a single worksheet. Built-in summaries and charts provide visibility into customer segments, account activity and top revenue contributors, making relationship management easier and more organized.

Strong sales performance depends on consistent customer engagement. By keeping account details, communication history and pipeline opportunities in one place, teams can prioritize follow-ups, identify valuable customers, monitor account health and reduce the risk of missed opportunities that could delay or prevent future sales.

5. Client Information Sheet

Organized as a comprehensive client intake document, this template captures company details, contact information, shipping and billing addresses, requested products or services and payment arrangements. Additional fields support purchase tracking, recurring billing management and special requirements, creating a complete record for each customer relationship.

Before proposals are prepared or orders are processed, sales teams need accurate customer information. Using a standardized client information sheet reduces administrative errors, improves communication between departments and ensures every transaction begins with complete, consistent data that supports fulfillment, invoicing and customer service activities.

6. Customer Journey Map Template

Structured around the customer lifecycle, this template helps teams document each stage from awareness through retention. Dedicated sections capture customer actions, touchpoints, emotions, pain points, supporting processes and improvement opportunities, providing a visual framework for understanding how prospects and customers interact with a business.

Rather than focusing only on transactions, successful sales organizations examine the entire customer experience. Mapping the journey helps identify friction points, uncover engagement gaps and improve interactions that influence buying decisions. The result is a more effective sales process that supports conversion rates, customer satisfaction and retention.

How to Make a Project Budget with ProjectManager

Free Excel and Word templates are useful for managing sales operations, but if you’re interested in managing tasks, workflows and projects, use ProjectManager instead. ProjectManager is designed to create detailed schedules, allocate resources and track costs. Simply make a list of tasks using the list, sheet or Gantt chart view, create a project schedule and allocate resources such as people, materials or equipment. Then, estimate the cost of those resources and establish a budget amount.

Once the project starts, enter actual project costs and task completion dates and ProjectManager will automatically calculate the difference between estimates and actual performance and will display this information in real-time dashboards and reports so you can check whether things are going according to plan or not.

ProjectManager also includes AI-powered project insights, workflow automation and live performance tracking that help teams identify delays, manage risks and improve decision-making. The platform also supports an open API and more than 1,000 integrations with tools like Acumatica, QuickBooks, Microsoft Project, Slack and Google Workspace. Watch the video to learn more!

ProjectManager is online project management software that empowers individuals and teams to plan, manage and track their projects in real time. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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What Is Event Planning?

Event planning is the process of putting on and managing a variety of events, from something as small as a meeting to as big as a convention and everything in between. When event planning you’ll be taking into account every aspect of that event, whether it’s a birthday party or a networking event.

That means you’ll be estimating budgets, creating timelines to schedule the event, reserving the site and any panels or speakers involved, getting necessary permits, food, transportation and more. If the event has a theme, you’ll develop that, too. Plus, you’ll be in charge of securing the needed resources to make the event a success.

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Event Plan Template

Use this free Event Plan Template to manage your projects better.

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What Is an Event Plan?

An event plan defines how an event will be executed. It addresses all the components of an event such as the start and end dates, budget, venue, marketing, attendees and more. The scope and complexity of the event plan vary depending on the size of the event, but the fundamental challenges remain the same.

Organizing all those disparate parts, especially for larger events, requires powerful project management software. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that lets you plan, manage and track your event to ensure it’s a success.

Our powerful Gantt charts help you list all your tasks and the associated resources and costs, assign them to your team and set milestones to track your progress. The whole plan is visible on a project timeline and can be saved by setting a baseline. Now you can track the planned progress against your actual progress to make sure you’re on schedule. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Who Makes and Manages an Event Plan?

Various event professionals are typically responsible for creating and managing an event. The event planner or coordinator will create the event plan, working with the client or organizing body to understand the event’s goals, target audience, budget and desired outcome. From there, the event manager will take over and help execute the event plan. They oversee the on-the-ground logistics of the event and ensure it goes according to plan.

Depending on the event’s size and complexity, there may be a dedicated event team to create and manage the plan. They can help with logistics, sponsorship, fundraising, marketing, registration, etc. Some key stakeholders may be involved in the event plan, such as community leaders, sponsors or speakers. They can provide input during the planning process and must be kept informed about the plan.

Event Plan Example

Most of us have some experience planning an event, be it at home, work or in our community. For this article, let’s focus on large events.

A conference is a common type of large event, so for our event management purposes, let’s talk about a TEDx conference that we were involved in to illustrate how to plan an event. This example is a good scenario to explain the structure and challenges of planning a big event, along with the benefits of planning an event with project management software.

Let’s break down the other components of setting up an event. They’re summarized below:

• Event timeline: First, establish a timeline for your event. This timeline should include pre-event planning, event execution and post-event activities.
• Budget: Estimate your event costs and create a budget. Your available budget will influence many event management decisions such as your venue, the marketing and advertising methods, etc.
• Venue: The event has to take place somewhere, and that involves logistics management, food and beverages as well as the décor.
• Marketing: Once you’ve selected a venue, you need to start drawing people to it through a marketing program that can include a website, social campaign, email and print work.
• Advertising: Hand in glove with marketing is advertising. That can include radio, TV, newspaper and magazine advertisements.
• Volunteers: A big event needs a big crew of people to get it off the ground and run smoothly. That means volunteers, which means writing contracts, defining their roles, setting up meetings and determining schedules.
• Speakers: You must have a keynote speaker or a group of speakers to attract an audience. This involves contracts, curators to select the talent, a program, bios and rehearsals.
• Sponsors: All of this costs money, and a big event’s budget is supplied by its sponsors. This again involves contracts, marketing and logistics.
• Production: The production involves creating contracts as you work on creating an audio-visual recording of the proceedings, as well as a sound and video broadcast during the event.
• Stage: The event takes place at a specific venue and on that venue is a stage on which the event proper will be presented. That usually incorporates a projector, screen, microphones, internet connection, batteries, cables and more.
• Attendees: Don’t forget about the people attending the event! You’ll need communications to inform them of event information, payment processes to collect fees, emails to stay in touch, directions, badges and access points.

The Event Planning Process: Event Planning Steps

We covered a lot on event planning, so let’s break down those tips into concrete steps. These event planning steps will guide you toward success. Let’s continue with our conference example.

1. Determine Event Goals and Objectives

For the TEDx conference, what do you want the goals and objectives to be? This will help define how to measure the event’s success. Why is the event happening? What problem are you trying to solve? What message do you want to convey? Consider the overarching organizational goals and how the event aligns with the broader mission, values and strategic objectives.

When possible, make these goals under the SMART criteria (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound). For this particular event, the goals may be to spread brand awareness, raise a target number of funds or generate a certain number of qualified leads.

2. Assemble the Team

Now that the goals and objectives are clear, next comes assembling the team. What core roles are needed to run the TEDx conference? Common roles include the event manager, planner, logistics coordinator, communications manager, finance manager or creative lead. If needed, hire external professionals outside of the organization to ensure the event runs smoothly or tap into the skills of internal team members based on their strengths and expertise.

3. Establish an Event Budget

Next, determine what the conference’s budget will be. This will be based on the goals and objectives of the event. Consider expense categories such as the venue, catering, beverage, marketing, promotions, speaker fees, staffing, labor, technology and transportation. In the case of this event, a large portion of the budget may be going to the speaker, as they are the main attraction of the event.

4. Choose a Date & Venue

Find a date that works for not only your company but also for the main parties involved. Ideally, you’ll provide more than one option for them in case a backup plan is needed. Before selecting a venue, do research and get various quotes that fit your event size and style. These may include event spaces, hotels, cultural institutions or even outdoor venues, weather permitting.

5. Select the Speakers

By this point, you likely have an idea of who you want the speaker or speakers to be at the event. Reach out to them and get a quote on how much it will cost to hire them. If needed, make adjustments to the budget or have a backup in mind in case it doesn’t work well with your budget.

6. Event Marketing & Advertising

Now that the details of the event are in place, it’s time to promote it. Ideally, there should be a dedicated event website or landing page that includes all event details. Outline the agenda, speakers, location, etc. Social media is also a great way to promote the conference, such as teasers, speaker spotlights or behind-the-scenes footage. Email marketing, video marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO) marketing are beneficial to utilize as well. Using a reliable event ticketing system can also streamline the registration process and enhance the attendee experience.

7. Execute the Event

In this last step of the event planning process, it’s time to enjoy your hard work and see the event come to life. As the event is taking place, take notes on what is going well and what isn’t going to plan. These details can help avoid similar mistakes in the future or act as a guideline for success.

When you break down the scope of your event plan into manageable steps, the process seems a lot less daunting.

Free Event Plan Template

This free event plan template for Excel is a great tool to start assembling the information you need to create an event plan. It can be customized to add your event details.

Related: 12 Free Event Planning Templates for Excel & Word

Event Planning Roles

As you might expect, there are many different roles that work together to bring an event to life. It’s easy to get confused. Are you an event manager or an event planner? Is there any difference between the two? Let’s take a look at some of the more common event-planning roles and define them.

Event Manager

The event manager is often mistaken for the event planner, but they are two distinct roles. Most simply, the event manager is responsible for event management activities, which involve coordinating and implementing the event. They take care of setting up the event, including its design, and make sure the vision of the event planner is realized.

Event Planner

An event planner organizes, coordinates and executes the event. They’re in charge of coming up with the idea, overseeing the setup and breakdown of the event. They’ll select the venue, create the budget and ensure everything is taken care of. What sets them apart is they design the strategy for the event to the smallest detail.

Event Producer

The event producer fleshes out the strategic plan of the event planner. They are the one who takes the idea and turns it into a living event. They will take charge of the technical aspects of the event, such as audio/visual, stage design, etc. They work with the event planner to schedule the event, but the event producer uses their skills and expertise in producing events to deliver the event that’ll impress both attendees and the client.

Event Planning Tips

Unfortunately, there are always going to be variables out of your control that’ll affect the event planning process, such as the weather, delivery delays, technical difficulties and other potential mix-ups. As stated earlier, you can’t change the date of your event, so you’ll want to be as prepared as possible for any risks or issues that may pop up on the day of your event.

Do a Post-Event Review

A post-event review or a post-mortem as they’re often called, is very valuable. By looking back at the past event and seeing what worked and what didn’t work, you can better plan your next event. There are always lessons to be learned and applying them to the next project will avoid previous mistakes and increase your chances of a better outcome.

Use Event Planning Templates

Having an event planning template is a great way to make sure you’re not missing any important pieces of the larger event. It’ll help you organize your tasks and resources, costs and more. Use our free event plan template to get started on the right foot.

Use Event Planning Tools

A template is fine, but limited. You have to manually update everything and it’s not very collaborative. Event planning tools, such as Gantt charts, kanban boards, task lists and calendars, help you plan and implement the event plan. They also allow you to track the work to make sure it’s following the plan, which leads to a more successful event.

Prepare a Plan B

As important as your plan is, there can be issues with it. There might be acts of god, such as weather, which negatively impact the event. Whatever the cause, you’ll need a backup. That’s why developing a plan B is so critical to the success of the event. You might never have to use it, but in case you do, you’re prepared.

Use an Event Planning Checklist

Another tip is to have a checklist made up. That way you can collect all the things you have to do and why you’re doing it in one place. Using a checklist for event planning can be done in conjunction with project planning tools. The more safeguards, the better. Also, there are few things more satisfying than crossing something off your list.

Event Planning Checklist

There’s a lot to manage when planning an event, so it’s important to have a list of everything you need to include in your event management plan. The following is a general event planning checklist to help you get started. The more questions you ask, the better your event checklist. Feel free to add your own unique responsibilities and tasks.

Goals and Objectives

• What’s your event’s reason for existing?
• What are the goals this event is expected to achieve?
• What are the revenue objectives?
• What is your target audience?
• How many people will attend?
• Is there a cost associated with ticketing and what is it?
• Where is the event being held?
• Create an event schedule.

Event Budget

• Figure out what the costs will be
• If you held similar events, use and adjust an old budget for a baseline
• What ticketing and registration software will be used?
• Finalize sponsor contributions
• Set ticket price

Date & Venue

• When will the event take place?
• Have a backup date in case issues arise
• Is there the best location for the event?
• Is the venue appropriate for your expected number of attendees?
• Decide on needed infrastructure: wifi, capacity, bathrooms, near shopping & restaurants, etc.
• Hire a caterer
• Secure what equipment you’ll need
• What are your security needs?
• Do you need permits, licenses or insurance?
• Create event signage and communication plans for attendees

Speakers

• Research potential speakers
• Create a list of relevant speakers
• Create a pitch for speakers
• Pitch speakers
• Finalize speaker selection, get bios and headshots and arrange travel and accommodations

Sponsors

• Develop a list of sponsors and what you can offer them.
• See if there are sponsors who have partnered with similar events.
• Reach out to potential sponsors.

Website

• Design signoff.
• Update the site or build a unique one.
• Make sure the site can handle expected traffic.
• Have a mobile-friendly site.

Event Marketing & Advertising

• What’s your messaging?
• Coordinate with digital tools and social platforms
• Add the event to online calendars
• Market the event with blog posts and other promotions like videos and online ads
• Send reminders to all parties a month or two before the event date

Finalizing the Last Steps

• Schedule
• Caterer
• Speakers and scripts
• Venue
• Equipment
• Decorations
• Contracts

Pro tip: That’s a lot to coordinate and plan, which is why there’s a need for project management software that has the right features for event management. It provides a common portal, where you can track costs and tasks with automated alerts. It also offers both a communication and a collaborative platform that reduces the need for unnecessary emails. Software collects all your files in one place and makes team reporting simpler by adding efficiencies and reducing stress.

ProjectManager Offers Robust Event Planning Tools

ProjectManager is online software that’s suited for event planning. We have event project management tools to keep all the parts of your events, from managing vendors to promotions, organized. Our planning software helps you keep track of all the elements that make up your event plan.

Keep Stakeholders Updated With Event Calendars

Our multiple project views mean that event planners and managers can use project calendars, Gantt charts and there are task lists and kanban boards for teams. While reports can keep stakeholders informed, they might want to have access to the project. Share the calendar view with your stakeholders, which allows them to see start and end dates for all the tasks as well as milestones. This manages their expectations.

Zoom Into Event Activities With Kanban Boards

Use ProjectManager’s kanban board to manage the daily activities that need to be executed to plan, schedule and track your event plan. Move tasks from column to column as you collaborate on work with your team, and it’s easy to spot bottlenecks and get everything over the line in time for the event.

Track Event Labor Costs With Timesheets & Real-Time Dashboards

Plus, timesheets make invoicing easy for all your events. They can be submitted and approved with a keystroke. Our software also offers a variety of views, from a list to a calendar and even a kanban board that helps you visualize the workflow to keep on task.

More About Planning an Event

Event planning can be complex. There’s a lot of balls to keep in the air. If the above is too much to digest immediately, you could start with our event plan template and watch one of our planning experts. Jennifer Bridges, PMP, has years of experience and uses it to teach you the fundamentals of event planning in this short video.

Related Event Planning Content

• Gantt Chart Template for Event Planning
• Free Event Proposal Template
• Event Management: A Quick Guide
• How to Plan a Virtual Event: Virtual Event Planning Checklist
• How to Plan a Webinar: Webinar Planning Steps
• Event Project Management Software
• Planificación de eventos: ¿cómo hacer un plan de evento?

ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that helps you plan and monitor your event details. From powerful planning tools to real-time reports and dashboards that capture all of your event details, you can use our software to stay on schedule and stick to your planned budget. Try our software today with a free 30-day trial.

The post How to Plan an Event: Event Planning Steps, Tips & Checklist appeared first on ProjectManager.

Understanding how to create a marketing budget is a key element of any marketing plan. Once you’ve made the marketing budget, you have to track it to ensure you stay within your marketing budget. We’ll explain how to do that and even throw in a free marketing budget template to help you get started.

What Is a Marketing Budget?

A marketing budget is an outline of the costs that a company will spend to market its product or service, which is referred to as marketing spend. The marketing budget covers a finite period, the length of which can be anywhere between a quarter to a year.

The marketing budget includes all expenses related to the advertising campaign. These can include paid advertising, sponsored web content, additional marketing staff, registering a domain and building a dedicated website, print and billboard advertising, TV ads and much more.

Budgeting is a crucial part of any marketing plan; you need to allocate your resources properly to meet various marketing strategies that your company sets. It’s a complicated job that’s simplified through project management software.

ProjectManager is online project management software that helps you plan and track your marketing budget. Our Gantt chart helps you organize your tasks, resources and marketing costs. Once you have a marketing plan and set the baseline, you can track the planned costs versus actual costs in real time. Keep to your marketing budget—get started with ProjectManager today for free.

How to Create a Marketing Budget

Creating a marketing budget is an essential part of planning your marketing plan. Without the funds, your efforts will fall short. Below are the steps you should take when building a marketing budget for one or more campaigns over the quarter or year.

1. Set Marketing Goals & Objectives

Your goals and objectives should be SMART. That’s an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. For a marketing budget, you need to think about your sales funnel and devise short- and long-term goals while setting key performance indicators (KPIs) to track your performance.

2. Conduct Market Research

You don’t want to go into the marketplace without a clear picture of the market. You need to conduct market research to understand your target audience. That includes demographics, customer needs and so forth. But don’t neglect the competition as they’re vying for the same customers as you are. Identify the competition and list what you have in common with them and how you can differentiate yourself.

3. Develop Your Marketing Campaign

The budget depends on the concept you’ve chosen to deliver the message about your product or service. That message must align with the overall strategy of your company. Once you have made these decisions, the related costs will become clear, such as ad materials, graphic design, art or photography and so forth.

4. Choose Marketing Channels

Your message will be most effective on specific channels depending on the target audience you’re trying to reach. This requires some research to determine if your audience is swayed by social, email or content marketing, just to name a few.

5. Estimate Marketing Costs

A marketing budget is a forecast of how much you think you’ll spend. But once that budget has been approved, you’ll have to stick with it, so your estimates must be accurate. There are many techniques to help you estimate your marketing costs, from revenue-based to competition-matched, top-down and goal-driven. You might also use a combination of these techniques.

6. Develop a Marketing Budget

Once you’ve gone over these five steps, you can begin to put together your budget with the resources and costs you’ve determined. These will have to be tied to the larger marketing plan. For example, resources will have to align with a schedule so teams have what they need when they need them. The marketing budget is part of the marketing plan and will be developed together.

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Marketing Budget Template

Use this free Marketing Budget Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Download Excel File

Marketing Budget Example

Marketing expenses vary from one organization to another, depending on their approach to reaching potential customers. Some of them invest most of their budget in digital marketing resources, while others prefer traditional methods of advertising such as radio or TV ads.

Having said this, there are certain expenses that many businesses have in common. Here’s a marketing budget breakdown example to better understand what marketing expenses can go into a marketing budget.

Staffing, Office & Supplies

The wages of marketing employees who will carry out all the marketing activities. This could also include the cost of hiring agencies or consultants for specific activities such as paid advertising, search engine optimization (SEO) or white hat link building.

There’s also the cost of renting an office, which can be easily avoided by having a remote team. In that case, most organizations will pay their employees’ internet connection fees and provide certain office supplies such as computers, tablets or phones.

Software

In most cases, marketing teams use dozens of marketing software tools for most processes such as customer relationship management, creating and publishing digital content, managing websites, analyzing business data, etc.

Website

Every business needs a website to reach its potential users and sell its products or services online. For many companies, websites generate a major part of their revenue and in the case of e-commerce businesses, websites replace brick-and-mortar stores.

Because of the impact they can have on a business, websites are critical areas for marketing budget allocation as they generate expenses such as:

• Content marketing: The wages of employees who create digital content such as web pages, ebooks, infographics, videos and other types of multimedia resources.
• Content management system (CMS): Software that allows users to manage the content that is uploaded in a website without requiring the technical knowledge required to code.
• Content delivery network (CDN): Network of servers that allow websites to be shown to users promptly throughout the globe.
• Web hosting: Infrastructure needed to host the data that makes up a website in a physical server, which is needed to show it on the internet.
• Paid Ads: Digital ads shown in search engines, websites and social media platforms.
• SEO: Software and functional experts are needed to optimize a website to improve its visibility and user traffic obtained from search engines.

Other Digital Marketing Expenses

There are other expenses related to managing the digital presence of a business besides running a website.

• Email marketing: Staff and specialized software are required for sending emails in large volumes and using complex sequences.
• Social media marketing: Cost of making content, engaging with users online, scheduling posts, investing in paid ads, among many other activities required to manage social media profiles.
• App development: Most if not all organizations hire an external company to develop their mobile apps. After it’s been created, the mobile app will generate costs over time.

Marketing Budget Template

While a marketing budget template isn’t going to give you real-time data and will require you to manually input all your financial information for the marketing campaign, it’s still a good start if you don’t have project management software. Our free marketing budget template for Excel is a great tool to help you manage your budget. You can break up your spending over quarters and view the year-to-date spending against your total yearly budget.

Use our free marketing budget template to organize the money you’ve allocated to marketing initiatives, whether paid advertising, sponsored web content, marketing personnel and so forth. You can use our free marketing budget template as a strategic tool when spending across your marketing channels. Use our free marketing budget template when you strategize your marketing for the year and turn creative ideas into financial realities.

Other Forms of Advertising & PR

These are the costs of other types of advertising such as press releases, printed materials, radio, TV and organizing, sponsoring or participating in events such as conventions or conferences.

How to Determine the Ideal Marketing Budget Allocation for a Business

The marketing budget allocation is how much funding is designated for each marketing expense in the budget. As noted, it’s a figure that the marketing budget cannot exceed. If the marketing budget allocation isn’t well defined, some marketing activities will take the resources allocated for other purposes, which will affect the operations of the marketing team.

A marketing budget allocation is used to estimate revenues and expenditures for various marketing activities over a time period. Marketing management teams use this when planning and figuring out how to allocate their financial resources for the best results in terms of leads, sales and other KPIs that will deliver a return on investment (ROI) for the company.

The marketing budget allocation is usually done annually, though it can be quarterly, and revenues are estimated to determine how many resources will be employed over that budgetary period. This informs the marketing spend, which is usually divided into departments and program units to make it easier to identify necessary resources.

Every business needs a marketing budget, but how do they calculate how much money should be spent on marketing? The short answer is, it depends.

How to Determine the Ideal Marketing Budget Size for a Business

The size of the marketing budget of an organization will depend on many things, such as the average marketing budget of its industry, its business strategy, its growth stage and the availability of financial resources.

However, certain rules of thumb can be followed. For example, most organizations determine their marketing budget by allocating a percentage of their estimated revenue to it.

What Is the Average Marketing Budget for a Small Business?

For example, startups and small businesses with low market recognition need a high growth strategy that requires a marketing spend from 30% to 50% of their total revenue, until they position themselves in the market which will allow their revenue to rely less on their marketing efforts and more on their brand recognition.

Once they’ve reached a point of moderate or stable growth after establishing themselves as a trusted brand in a particular market niche, they can reduce their marketing spend to 10% to 15% of their revenue.

However, there are many other factors to consider. For example, the company’s marketing budget may grow year over year if there are events such as the launch of a new product or service, or major changes in the business strategy such as a rebranding or a strategic partnership.

Tracking Your Marketing Budget

The idea of tracking your budget is an essential part of managing the marketing initiative. You’ve spent a lot of time and effort planning the budget, but that doesn’t mean your work is done. A marketing budget, like any part of your larger marketing plan, is not chiseled in stone. It’s a living document that must be constantly reviewed and revised.

First, create a baseline or benchmark for the budget. That is, you have to capture those planned costs and expenditures so you have something to compare against when you’re executing your marketing plan. Without taking this step, you could overspend. For example, if you don’t know your photography budget and the photographer comes back with more costs, you’re going over budget.

That doesn’t mean that costs are frozen, but having a baseline means you know when you’re going over your budget and can adjust the scope of your campaign or the schedule to make up for the added funds spent in photography, as in our example.

Everyone on the marketing team is going to have money earmarked for their tasks, but the marketing manager has the final say. The team can have some anatomy, but for efficiency and transparency, there should be a centralized purchasing process in which the manager is in control.

It’s also best to have software that delivers real-time data. You don’t want to know that money was spent days ago, you need that information immediately. Having real-time data means managers can make more insightful decisions when managing their budgets.

ProjectManager Tracks Marketing Budgets

Unlike templates, ProjectManager is online project management software. That means our tool updates in real time and even automates workflows that you set up. We have task approval settings to ensure that nothing moves forward until it’s been reviewed for quality assurance.

Schedule Your Marketing Campaigns

While marketing managers want to use robust Gantt charts to schedule marketing campaigns, not everyone uses this tool to execute their work. Our multiple-project view means you can use what you want and all views are updated in real time. For example, a calendar view captures events that are easy to see at a glance.

Track Marketing Costs In Real Time

Of course, seeing events and activities is important, but so is tracking that work. It’s how you keep to your budget. Once you set a baseline on your marketing plan, you can view planned versus actual effort on the real-time dashboard. No setup is required. You get a high-level view of six metrics whenever you want, from costs to workload and more.

Manage Teams, Time & Resources

There are a lot of ways to spend money on a marketing campaign, and marketing managers have to stay on top of all of them. Resources can be tracked on the Gantt chart while human resources can be balanced on the workload chart. To keep track of how much time your team is spreading on their tasks, use our secure timesheets. They not only streamline payroll but help you keep track of invaluable time.

Marketing budgets fund a variety of departments and even outside vendors. You can connect sales, marketing and your art department as well as any contractors on our collaborative platform. Anyone can share files, add comments and tag other team members to get their input. It’s all done in real time so whether you’re working in the office, at home or anywhere, you’re able to work better together.

Related Content

Creating and managing a marketing budget can be challenging. That’s why we’ve created blogs, templates, guides and more to help you streamline your marketing management process.

• 10 Free Marketing Templates for Excel, Word and More
• What Is Marketing Management: An Essential Introduction
• What Is a Marketing Plan and How Do I Make One (Template Included)
• Marketing Implementation 101: How to Implement Your Marketing Plan
• How to Create Marketing Budget: A Quick Guide
• How to Write a Creative Brief
• Push vs. Pull Marketing: A Quick Guide

ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps marketing departments plan, schedule and track their campaigns in real time. Plan and track time and budgets to keep your costs in control. Join teams at NASA, Siemens and Nestle who use our software to save money. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

The post How to Create a Marketing Budget: A Quick Guide appeared first on ProjectManager.

What Is a Webinar?

A webinar is an online event that’s usually created for educational or commercial purposes such as conferences, product presentations or academic courses. While they’re mostly live events, they might also be taped and archived for people who cannot attend at the time it’s broadcasted. It’s viewed on internet-connected devices, such as smartphones, laptops, computers, etc. In most cases, webinars start with a presentation of some kind and a Q&A session follows.

To have a successful webinar requires planning. ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that allows you to plan, manage and track your work in real time. Use our multiple project views to plan how you want, on a timeline with Gantt charts, visualizing workflow with kanban boards, simple but robust task lists or a calendar view. Create tasks, assign work and track progress in real time. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

How to Plan a Webinar Step-By-Step

Webinars are projects and therefore, they require thorough project planning. By following these eight steps you ensure that everything is accounted for and set up your webinar for success.

1. Set Goals and Objectives for Your Webinar

Clearly define what the goals and objectives for your webinar are in order to ensure the content you’re delivering is aligned with those goals and objectives.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

For the webinar to be successful, you first have to attract those whom you want to reach, whether to sell them something or educate them in some way. Therefore, you need to research who your audience is and what is the best way to invite them to the webinar.

3. Determine What Resources Are Needed For Hosting Your Webinar

For the webinar to be successful, you’re going to need resources. These can be people, such as a speaker, writer, marketer, et al. But you’ll also need technical resources, such as live video conferencing, screen sharing, interactivity, etc.

4. Estimate Costs

Webinars are not free. While you might offer them for free, they cost money to make happen. Estimate the cost of paying speakers, renting equipment and other costs. Use estimation techniques to calculate the most accurate cost estimate possible.

5. Create a Budget For Your Webinar

Part of estimating costs is to develop an accurate project budget. The budget is made by listing all your tasks, resources and related costs over the course of the project. The budget will be the amount of money you can spend so be sure to monitor those costs to ensure you don’t overspend.

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Event Budget Template

Use this free Event Budget Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Download Excel File

6. Identify What Webinar Planning Tasks Need to Be Done

The list of tasks you identified when creating a budget now has to be scheduled. That is, you must organize the tasks, prioritize them and assign each to a member of your team.

7. Define a Date for Your Webinar

Keeping in mind your target audience, decide on a date. For example, if your audience is in another time zone, don’t schedule the webinar for a time they wouldn’t be available or a date that would fall on some holiday.

8. Follow Up With Your Audience After the Webinar

After the webinar, be sure to follow up with the audience. Capture their email and ask how you did. This can help you learn from your mistakes to improve the next webinar. It is also a lead for sales if that’s your intention.

Webinar Planning Best Practices

As the workforce becomes more mobile, the importance of webinars has only grown. Jennifer Bridges, PMP, shows you everything you need to know to plan a webinar.

Here’s a screenshot of the whiteboard for your reference!

When planning any project, Jennifer noted that the first step is to go through the who, what, when, where, why and how of the webinar. Before you begin, she said, make sure you know what value the webinar will have for those watching.

Is the webinar going to be worth the participants’ time and money? Is it going to be relevant and timely? These are all questions to ask prior to planning. If the answer is yes, then you’re all ready to start the plan.

It’s a Project

Remember, a webinar is a project. It has a unique deliverable, with a start date and an end date. You’ll also want to know in advance what the end result of the webinar is. What is its purpose, its intention? In other words, be clear about what people should take away from the webinar.

Know Your Audience

Speaking of people, Jennifer noted that they’re a key part of the webinar. You must know your audience. Who is the target for the webinar? With this knowledge, you can work backward and direct all the information to these people.

Create an Agenda

Therefore, once you know “who,” you can work on “what.” That is, the agenda. Make it as specific as possible, with a timeline. Have agenda items for everything you want to cover and make sure there’s time allotted to cover it.

Set a Date

The next step is finding a date and time for the webinar. While it’ll get archived, one of the benefits of a live webinar is participation, having people on the call, etc. So, pick the best time to have the most viewers.

Get the Gear

Naturally, in order to archive the webinar and have it available for others who weren’t able to attend live, you have to record it. Make sure you have the right software to capture your presentation, including the visuals and the viewer participation.

Another crucial aspect of the webinar, of course, is the hardware. You need to have a good audio and video setup to make sure you can broadcast clearly and without glitches.

Send Reminders

Once you have a date and time, send out reminders. It might feel obnoxious like you’re spamming your viewers, but it’s important. People are busy and like reminders.

Make It Easy to Sign Up

To make sure you have a good group of participants, make it easy for people to sign up, register and attend. The worst thing would be to attract the right person for the webinar, only to have them give up because of a confusing user interface.

Stay Concise

Once you have an audience, don’t lose them by rambling or being verbose. Have your presentation be short, concise and to the point.

Have a Backup Plan

Things can go wrong. You might be on the road when you’re doing the webinar, there could be technical difficulties or any number of issues could arise. Anticipate these risks and have a Plan A, B and C to address them.

Related: Event Planning Template

Practice Makes Perfect

Before you go live, practice. Practice, practice, practice. That can’t be stressed enough. You want to come across as knowledgeable but also natural, relaxed and enunciating clearly. Great content is ruined by bad delivery.

Build Anticipation

Drum up excitement for the webinar with pre-work and some light marketing. During the webinar, use polls to keep people engaged. You’ll want to set the stage, get the audience prepared and distribute the agenda. Tell them what to expect, and then summarize to make sure they understand what you’ve gone over.

Follow these steps and you’ll have a plan for a successful webinar.

Pro tip: Don’t let the name webinar intimidate you. It’s just an online presentation. It follows the same rules: prepare, present and follow up.

Event Budget Template

This event budget template helps you estimate the costs for all the different resources, assets and equipment that are needed for your event and then compare your estimates against the actual event costs.

The post How to Plan a Webinar: Webinar Planning Steps appeared first on ProjectManager.

A creative brief is a short, one-or two-page document that summarizes marketing and advertising projects. Creative briefs are used by marketers and creative professionals to define the goals, scope and timeline for a project and set guidelines for their teams. For this reason, a creative brief can be described as a project management document for creative teams.

Who Should Create a Creative Brief?

A creative brief may be written by an in-house marketing team, an advertising agency or a marketing consultant for internal purposes. It’s a document that should capture the requirements of a client who needs their services.

The creative brief is like a blueprint for a project that’s made to help graphic designers, writers, videographers and other members of a creative team know what they’re responsible for and how their work and deliverables fit into the larger project.

After you write a creative brief for your team, you’ll need to plan, schedule and track your creative project. To do so, you’ll need project management software like ProjectManager. ProjectManager is equipped with tools such as Gantt charts, kanban boards, project dashboards and timesheets to help you manage any creative project. Assign work to your team members, create schedules, track costs and much more. Get started for free today.

Why Are Creative Briefs Important?

The value of having a creative brief is that it sets out to ensure that the deliverables from the creative project meet the client’s expectations and business needs. Because of their clear value in managing marketing and advertising projects, creative project managers typically employ them for each project.

Yes, a creative brief is just a document, but it’s an essential one. If you have a well-made-up creative brief at the front of your project, you’re less likely to have problems as you progress through the life cycle of the work.

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Creative Brief Template

Use this free Creative Brief Template to manage your projects better.

Get the Template

When Should You Use a Creative Brief?

A creative brief might be used for a variety of marketing and advertising projects, such as:

• Launching a marketing campaign for a new product or brand
• Revamping your existing marketing strategy
• Rebranding an existing business
• Creating a website for your brand
• Creating a promotional video
• Starting a social media campaign
• Guiding your marketing team when working for an external client

Creative Brief Outline

A creative brief can be made in many ways, from a Word document to a PowerPoint presentation or PDF. While there’s no single way to write a creative brief, as the structure of a creative brief depends on who’s requesting the creative brief and who’s drafting it.

For example, a marketing agency working for an external client will need to gather as much information about their client as an in-house marketing team working on a project. Having said that, here’s a quick overview of the main elements most creative briefs should include.

• Company background: Include important information about your client such as its company’s core values, mission and vision as well as the name of the project, what it is and why it’s being done.
• Brand voice: The brand voice is critical to success and must be tied to the target audience and their values, so decide if it’s serious, light, humorous, etc.
• Message: Have a clear, simple and single message to tell the target audience. How will they believe that message to be true?
• Target audience: Who’s the target audience? What do they think about the product or service you’re developing, and is there anything that the creative team should avoid? Also, note the competition.
• Market insights: What are the key insights that have been learned about the market, and how does that relate to the company, brand or product?
• Project goals & objectives: Outline what needs to be accomplished, how it’ll be measured and what success will look like.
• Project scope: The scope of a project simply refers to all the tasks that will be executed.
• Project deliverables: List how to deliver the message to the audience and what the best way to do that is.
• Project timeline: Have a schedule to note when something is needed, when it must be done, how many revisions can be fit into that timeframe, etc.
• Project budget: What’s the financial commitment to developing this project?
• Approval: Who’s responsible for making approvals and decisions related to approval?

How to Write a Creative Brief

Now, let’s go over five simple steps you should follow when writing a creative brief.

1. Start by Understanding Your Client’s Requirements

Understanding the expectations and requirements of your client is key to success when writing a creative brief. This will be easier if you’re leading an in-house marketing team, as your team members will already have a good understanding of your company’s strategy, target audience and goals. If you’re working for an external client, make sure you get as much information from them as possible and make sure they approve your creative brief.

2. Conduct Market Research

Don’t neglect the work and marketing research before the creative brief is written. Some parts will be easier to develop than others. Defining the target audience and the best strategies to reach potential customers will require your team to do market research. Be sure to give those parts of the creative brief their share of time to get it done right.

3. Set the Goals for Your Creative Brief

Once you’ve understood the project requirements, it’s time to translate them into measurable and realistic goals for your team. For example, the main goal of your creative brief might be to simply increase the brand awareness of your company. Meet with your client and agree on an attainable goal, such as 30% more visitors to their website.

4. Define Your Project Scope & Deliverables

To accomplish the goals set forth in your creative brief, your marketing team will take a series of actions such as launching a social media campaign. Some deliverables will be images and promotional text created by your creative team. Once this social media campaign is live, you will track its success using digital analytics tools. Brainstorm with your team so that you don’t miss any detail.

5. Create a Budget for Your Creative Brief

Now that you’ve defined what your team should accomplish and how it’ll be accomplished, you’ll need to estimate the costs of each activity on your project scope. Once you know the costs for each task, you will be able to create a budget for the creative brief.

Creative Brief Template

Our free creative brief template is a great tool to get started with creative briefs. It’ll facilitate the process and help you make sure you don’t miss anything.

Creative Brief Example

The ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy, came up with the Happiness Factory campaign for Coke, with the tagline, “the Coke Side of Life” in 2005. It was driven by an issue that its client had, specifically that “Coke had become a forgotten friend.”

Its challenge to the creative team was to remind people what makes Coke special. The brand idea they wanted to deliver to their target audience was that Coke is the genuine taste of happiness. To support that, they listed that Coke is delicious and refreshing, but it won’t resolve world peace or restore the ozone layer.

Therefore, the tone was honest, intimate and personal, being friendly, joyful and uplifting. With these signposts to lead the creative team, they developed this eye-catching video. It’s remarkable to see how an outline can be filled in so dynamically with the right creative team and the proper direction.

Creative Brief vs. Client Brief

As stated above, a creative brief is created by marketers and creative professionals to guide the efforts of their teams. A client brief on the other hand is a similar document that’s created by a client, who uses this document to communicate his expectations to the leaders of a creative team who will then turn that client brief into a creative brief.

Creative Brief vs. Content Brief

A content brief is simply a document that’s created to guide the efforts of writers who are working on websites, social media management or other forms of copywriting. It may include guidelines such as brand voice, word count and SEO keywords.

Tips for Writing a Creative Brief

Just because they are highly effective, doesn’t mean that creative briefs are present in every instance of project planning. Surveys of ad agency executives have shown that many of the creative briefs used are not clear, and can be incomplete or inconsistent.

To avoid these shortfalls, the creative brief should be written after a client explains their expectations. Then the creative team can compile a list of questions that are answered by the requestor, usually a marketing team leader.

The answers to these questions will become the template for the creative brief and the whole creative execution of the project. As the project moves forward, the creative brief is always referred to, and any deviation can be identified and addressed.

Avoid Adding Too Many Details to Your Creative Brief

Adding too much information to a creative brief is a common mistake. While the creative team should know all there is about the product or service being developed, this is a creative brief—emphasis on the brief. The brief must be short and to the point; there are supporting documents for the details.

Know the Client Before Drafting Your Creative Brief

The client interview is critical to a successful creative brief. They are, after all, the ones who know what they want from the project. The creative team needs to have clear communications with the client, and before any creative brief is executed, it must be approved by the client.

Don’t Rush the Process of Writing the Creative Brief

While a creative brief is a short document you should take your time when researching and writing one. Also, once it’s completed, don’t just let it sit with the creative team. Yes, they can come to you with questions, but it’s best to be proactive and keep the human interaction present. Be available for the creative team to ask questions through the project life cycle.

How ProjectManager Helps You Manage Creative Briefs

While a creative brief sets guidelines for your creative team it’s just the first step when planning a creative project. Once you’ve written a creative brief, you’ll need the right project management software to plan how your team will execute the work. ProjectManager is robust project management software that offers tools that are ideal to plan, schedule and track creative projects. Here are some of its key features.

Plan With Multiple Project Planning Tools

ProjectManager’s project planning tools are perfect to plan and schedule the work that’s needed for your creative brief. You can use Gantt charts, kanban boards, task lists and project calendars to create a project schedule, assign tasks to your team members, set due dates and collaborate with them in real time.

Real-Time Project Dashboards & Reports

ProjectManager’s real-time dashboards are ideal for tracking costs, timelines, progress and workload at a glance. In addition, ProjectManager lets you create project reports in minutes so you can keep stakeholders informed.

Track Labor Costs With Timesheets

Creative briefs are executed by a diverse team of professionals, which means different rates of labor costs. ProjectManager’s timesheets and planning tools let you track the work hours of each member of your creative team so you don’t miss anything.

The creative brief is one of many essential documents that help with the planning of a winning project. ProjectManager is online project management software that helps you plan, track and report on every stage of the project’s progress. It offers kanban boards and a collaborative platform for teams to work together more productively and provides managers with real-time data, so they know exactly where the project is at any time. See how it can empower all your teams by taking this free 30-day trial.

The post How to Write a Creative Brief (Example & Template Included) appeared first on ProjectManager.

Projects can’t be idle and exploratory endeavors. Design projects are no different, which is why a design brief is so important. It communicates the design project and helps keep everyone working together regardless of their department.

What Is a Design Brief?

A design brief is a document that identifies the goals, scope and strategy of your design project. It’s similar to a roadmap to help with design decision-making and it defines the workflow of the design project, from start to finish.

It’s a critical first step for any design project in that it not only outlines the project but gets buy-in from the project team and key stakeholders. It communicates the project deliverables, budget and schedule to everyone involved, making sure they’re on the same page.

The design brief is also similar to the statement of work in a traditional project but the difference is that the client is already working with the design team. The deal is done, now only the details have to be sorted. Whatever you compare it to, the design brief stands alone as one of the first and most important documents in your design project.

The design brief is essential as it acts as the framework for your design plan. ProjectManager is project management software that helps you take a design brief and turn it into tasks, assignments and more. Use our interactive Gantt charts to organize your work, link dependencies that could delay your progress and share the plan with your team. You can even set a baseline to capture the schedule and monitor your planned progress against your actual progress in real time to stay on track. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Design Brief vs. Creative Brief

While often referred to as the same thing, a design brief and a creative brief are different animals. Knowing the difference is important when venturing into a design project.

The creative brief is a translation of the client’s objectives and goals including when and where it’s being executed, how it’ll flow through the supply chain and its practicalities.

Usually, the design brief is more concerned with the preproduction and business side of the project. The design brief lays out how things will be done while the creative brief is more about establishing the project objectives.

The design brief and the creative brief are different but work together. The research of the design brief informs the deeper creative brief, which targets the audience and makes sure the design is meeting their needs.

How to Write a Design Brief

Now that we know what a design brief is and how it differs from a creative brief, it’s time to learn how to write a design brief. There isn’t one way to create a design brief, but there are common elements to them all.

Before you begin, you’ll want to make sure the client’s objectives and goals are clear. It also helps to place a design brief in context to help inform the choices you make throughout the project. Once you have that in place, be sure to include the following.

Project Overview

The first step is to know your client and the company that has hired you for the design project. List all the details until you understand the market, industry and guidelines for the company’s brand. This will help you gain the trust of your stakeholders.

Some things to know include the size of the company you’re working with, contact info, naturally, take a look at their older projects and what their current design needs are. This will help as you work across departments to keep the objectives and goals at the forefront of every team’s mind.

Project Scope

The scope is an outline of everything that’s necessary to execute the project. The project scope is a very detailed part of your design brief, summarizing what you’ll do without leaving anything out. This is important not only for the client but so everyone on the design team understands their roles and responsibilities.

Once you have the project scope, be sure to get buy-in from the client and the project team. Everyone involved in the project needs to agree on the details outlined in this section or else there will be problems during the execution of the project. That is not good for anyone involved and will only cause delays and add costs.

Goals & Objectives

The goals and objectives must be clearly defined. If you’re unsure of these, the project is doomed to fail. Look at the design problems inherent in the project and explore ways to resolve them. List these steps so the team has a plan if they’re faced with a design problem.

You’ll also need to understand the purpose of the project as it will determine the goals and objectives. They go hand-in-glove. Once you have the goals identified, list the steps your team has to take in order to accomplish them. Be clear and specific. This isn’t an area in which you want to be vague as it will lead to misunderstandings resulting in delays and extra costs.

Project Deliverables

Deliverables are the outputs that are submitted within the scope of your project. Just as you outlined the scope, you’ll also want to detail the deliverables throughout the course of the project. Deliverables can be either tangible or intangible that the client will receive, including the end product.

Something to keep in mind as you list the project deliverables is what the end result looks like and the key milestones in the project. This can include the size, resolution and format that they will be. Also, make sure the deliverables align with the purpose of the project as defined earlier. If they’re not, there will be a problem with your client when they’re delivered. At that point, it’s too late and the schedule and budget will suffer.

Target Market or Audience

Just as important as the purpose, goals and objectives of a design project is who it’s for. That can be the market to which you’re introducing it or the audience you want to target as potential customers. Interview the client and create a design idea board to bounce things off of them and make sure you’re targeting the right market or audience. It will help you by always knowing who you’re working towards impressing.

Often the client has already done the heavy lifting in this arena. They have a target market or audience and can provide you with these details. That’s helpful, but you still want to make sure that you’re clear on who the market or audience is, such as the demographic data, psychological characteristics, etc. The better you know your audience, the more successful the project will be.

Project Budget

Of course, projects of all kinds can’t occur if they’re not funded. Being able to accurately forecast the cost of executing your design project is a critical step toward actualizing it. If your project estimates are off, you’re going to be spending more money and clients don’t like that.

Remember, your client isn’t likely a designer. They don’t know the cost related to creating what they want. There’s research, planning, executing and reviving involved. It’s your job not only to know how much the project will cost but convince the client that the price is reasonable. A word of advice: always add enough cushion to your budget to cover unexpected costs as these are commonplace.

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Project Budget Template

Use this free Project Budget Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Download Excel File

Project Timeline

The other fundamental aspect of any project is the timeline or how long it’ll take to complete the job. This is usually determined by a hard deadline from the client if they need to deliver to market during a specific time, season, etc. Having an accurate estimate of your schedule is as important as forecasting a realistic budget. You have to have ample time to do everything.

Again, you’ll probably have to educate your client on the timeline and why it’s as long as it is. They want quality and that doesn’t happen overnight, as any designer knows but few clients might understand. To have an accurate schedule, you need to know all the tasks and then make sure the resources are available. There are tools that can help, such as a work breakdown structure (WBS).

ProjectManager and Design Briefs

The design brief gets you ready for the project, but once you start executing your plan, you need project management software to connect and empower your teams. ProjectManager is online project management software that delivers real-time data that leads to better decision-making.

Use the Tools You Want

Design projects go through many departments and everyone has to work together. But not everyone works on the same tools. Managers love Gantt charts, agile designers gravitate to the visual workflow of kanban boards and copywriters might want to knock off their work on task boards. That’s why we offer multiple project views so everyone can work how they want to. Best of all, the real-time data is shared across the tool so everyone is always working on the most current information.

Track Progress and Performance in Real Time

Not only do you need to foster collaboration over cross-functional teams, but you also need to track their work in order to stay on schedule and keep to your budget. Get a high-level view with our real-time project dashboard. There’s no configuration needed and unlike other tools, it’s ready to use when you are. Simply toggle over to the live dashboard and see time spent on tasks, workload, costs and more in easy-to-read charts and graphs. For more details, there are customizable reports that can also be shared to keep your client updated.

Whether you work with a team in the same office, different departments or even across the globe, our real-time data makes it easy to stay connected and work better together. Teams can comment, share files and tag anyone on the project team if they need their input. You can even give clients access, limiting what they can see and do. Transparency leads to less confusion and greater productivity. Make your next design project a success with our software.

ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps you plan, manage and track design projects. Our collaborative platform and multiple project views give users the flexibility they need to work more effectively. Add risk, resource and task management features and you have a one-stop-shop for all your project needs. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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Pull and push marketing are two marketing strategies that are used to sell products or services to an audience. Push vs. pull marketing isn’t a competition. Both have pros and cons, which we’ll get to in a moment, but understanding both can inform your next campaign.

What Is Push Marketing?

Push marketing is what it sounds like, the pushing of a product on a target audience. Push marketing brings your product or service to the audience through marketing. That can be by publishing content on a website and using SEO to draw them to it or a social media post that goes viral.

It’s general advertising as we’ve come to expect it. Push marketing is in your face. It draws you to a product that you never thought you wanted and before you know it, you’ve walked out of the store after completing a purchase. In other words, the push is promoting something.

You want to expose your product or service, ideally to that market segment you’ve researched. It’s less about long-term relationship building, though that’s always a secondary concern, and more about triggering an impulse buy. It’s immediate and can quickly increase your sales and strengthen your brand.

We’ll get to some examples of push marketing in a moment, but regardless of whether you push or pull in your marketing strategy, you’re going to need a plan to implement that strategy into a viable marketing campaign. ProjectManager is online software that helps you turn your strategy into a workable marketing plan. Our online Gantt charts help you organize activities, resources and costs. You can set a baseline to monitor your planned effort against your actual effort in real time to stay on track. Then share it across departments and even with outside vendors. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Push Marketing Examples

To get a better idea of what push marketing is, let’s look at some examples. There are many, but here are just a few to illustrate what’s meant by push marketing.

Direct Sales

Direct sales are selling directly to the customer. It avoids intermediaries in the supply chain. This could be online sales or those taking place in a brick-and-mortar establishment. Promotions for direct sales often include point-of-sales (POS) displays. You’ve seen them in supermarkets near the checkout, which are intended to grab a customer’s attention. These usually promote a new product or special offer to sweeten the deal.

Radio, TV and Other Ads

Another type of push marketing is commercials you hear on the radio or TV, but they can also be ads in magazines and newspapers. They’re paid advertisements created to sell a product or service and broadcasted on radio or TV shows that are popular with the target audience. That’s why you find products focused on older people being advertised during network news programs, as they have an older demographic. The same is true for products in magazines and newspapers. Beauty magazines have ads for beauty products and so forth. A lot of research is required to understand the target audience and where they spend their time.

Billboards

Billboards are large outdoor signs, usually near heavily trafficked roads used to promote a brand, product or service. It’s an efficient method of push marketing for getting the most views and long-term brand impressions. These giant signs imprint the company’s brand into the customer’s mind and even if they only see it in passing, they’ve done their job pushing the brand, product or service. Then when they see the item in a store, they’re more likely to buy it.

Advantages of Push Marketing

You’re likely familiar with push marketing. It’s been around seemingly forever because it works. There are many advantages to push marketing. Let’s review a few of the top reasons to use this strategy.

For one, manufacturers find push marketing useful when trying to establish a sales channel and need distributors to help with product promotion. Push marketing is great at giving product exposure and increasing customer awareness and demand.

That demand is easier to forecast and predict. The manufacturers control the levers in that they can make and push as much or as little of the product to their customers. If the manufacturers can produce at scale when there’s high demand, then economies of scale can be realized.

Disadvantages of Push Marketing

Push marketing is without its deficits. Even the best strategy has a downside and it’d be foolish to engage with push marketing without a full picture of its pluses and minuses. The following are some disadvantages of push marketing.

To take advantage of push marketing, you must have an active sales team. They have to develop strong relationships with retailers and distributors or it’s not going to work. If your company isn’t able to effectively negotiate with retailers and distributors, your products aren’t going to get stocked or given good placement.

Then there are new products. They’re hard to get traction in a retail environment because retailers have no insurance that these products will prove profitable. New products are hard for manufacturers to push, too, as they have no clear picture of how much demand for the product there will be.

Related: Free Product Requirements Template for Word

There there are the initial marketing efforts, which are sure to be costly. They have to focus on securing a one-time purchase and aren’t as concerned at first with building relationships with customers to develop loyalty. That means the results can be good at first and quickly decline.

What Is Pull Marketing?

The opposite of push marketing is pull marketing. This is a marketing strategy that aims to increase demand for its product or service by bringing the customer to the product or service or pulling them in.

The secret to pull marketing is getting a consumer to want your product. This marketing strategy can be simple to pull the customer in or it can be used in conjunction with push. That’s why the dynamic of push vs. pull marketing is somewhat misleading. They serve the same purpose, but they try to achieve that goal by different means.

The idea of pull marketing is to have the consumer want your product and actively seek it out. They’ll reach out to retailers and if they don’t sell the item, the retailer will likely want to start stocking it to meet the demand. This is a powerful marketing strategy as it converts consumers. This is the first step to creating a long-term relationship and brand loyalty.

Pull Marketing Examples

There are many examples of pull marketing. They might not be as obvious as push marketing at first glance, but when you take the time to examine these pull marketing examples, you’ll understand how they work discretely.

Content Marketing

Content marketing is when a company creates and distributes copy that is valuable and relevant to the audience they want to target. It should also be consistent in order to build a loyal following. By attracting potential customers to websites, magazines, etc., with interesting content that appeals to them, you’re more likely to get a call to action (CTA) that helps drive profitability. The pull here is you’re not pushing your product on people but enticing them with useful content that they want.

SEO

SEO stands for search engine optimization. The purpose of SEO is to get your webpage to rank higher on search engines. People who are searching for a keyword or topic, which is called organic search results, tend to not scroll down the page and rarely go past page one. Those first links on any search page are paid and likely expensive. If you can get your content to rank highly, you’ll get more visitors, leads and conversions. SEO strategy ties to content marketing. You can write the most relevant and engaging copy, but if you’re not showing up in search results, the likelihood of anyone, especially potential customers, finding it is close to nil.

Social Media

Another pull marketing strategy is social media. Everyone knows how integral social media has become in everyone’s life. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Redditt or other platforms, millions of people scroll through those sites every hour. If you can figure out a social campaign to stand out from the noise, it’s possible to engage with consumers by posting interesting content while building brand loyalty. It’s a matter of figuring out creative that can cut through the churn and knowing the platform your potential customers are visiting.

Advantages of Pull Marketing

Just as there are advantages of push marketing, they are benefits to pull marketing. The biggest plus for marketers is that they bypass retailers and market directly to consumers. Being one step closer to the potential customer is always helpful, plus they don’t have to build relationships with retailers in hopes that they give their products good placement.

Once you have that connection with customers, manufacturers are in a stronger position to bargain with retailers and distributors in terms of getting their products out into the marketplace. Pull marketing also creates brand equity and product value.

Pull marketing works when the consumer is actively seeking out your product. One advantage is marketers don’t have to worry about conducting outbound marketing, which is another way of saying push marketing strategies. Those can be expensive. Though they can be used in together with pull marketing for a hybrid approach. Pull marketing can test a product in the marketplace and see if it’s accepted by consumers and get feedback to improve the product.

Disadvantages of Pull Marketing

There are disadvantages of pull marketing. For example, pull marketing works best when there’s already high brand loyalty. This means that customers already trust and are attracted to the product.

Another issue is lead time. It takes a while before consumers make a purchase. They’ll usually look at your product in comparison to competitors. You have to expect an extended period before any purchase is made if it’s made at all.

Of course, the secret of pull marketing is creating a high demand for your product or service. That’s easier said than done, especially if the marketplace is saturated with competition. Your marketing efforts will have to be doubly persuasive to convince consumers to seek your product.

Data Privacy Challenges

Several pull marketing techniques, like SEO and content marketing, work best when you collect and process personal information about the people who visit your site. This analytics data helps you determine where your consumers come from, how long they spend on a page, and what causes them to finalize a purchase.

However, collecting and using analytics data is highly regulated by data privacy laws, which require websites to generate a privacy policy informing users about what data they’re collecting and why. They also require you to obtain cookie consent, especially if you use any cookies for targeted advertising.

ProjectManager & Marketing Teams

In the battle of push vs. pull marketing, the winner is the marketer. They have more power when it comes to connecting their product with a target audience. Now they have a choice of strategies, but what they need are the tools to implement the marketing campaign. ProjectManager is online software that connects teams across departments and gives everyone the tools they need to do their job the way they want to.

Let Marketers Choose Their Own Tools

Marketing managers plan out the campaign on Gantt charts, which can organize tasks, resources and costs. But when that plan is shared with copywriters or sales, they’re going to want to do their work on tools that make sense for their jobs. Our multiple project views give them options, such as calendars to capture events, list views to show tasks and kanban boards that visualize the workflow. Now everyone can manage their backlog and plan sprints while managers have visibility to reallocate resources as needed to avoid roadblocks. Plus, all tools update in real time.

Track Progress and Performance in Real Time

Having real-time data means having the information you need to make more insightful decisions. Marketing managers can get a high-level view of the campaign with our real-time dashboard. It collects and calculates project data automatically and displays the results in easy-to-read graphs and charts. There’s no setup required as with lightweight alternatives. You can see time, cost, workload and more at any time. Then use our customizable reports to get deeper into the data and share them with stakeholders to keep them updated.

Those are just a couple of the features that make our software so valuable to marketers and manufacturers. There are also secure timesheets that streamline payroll and track the time your team is spending on its tasks. Our collaborative platform means you can share files, comment and tag others across departments and timezones to keep everyone connected. Push or pull, there’s no better marketing management software.

Related Content

Choosing the right marketing strategy for your business is a very important decision. That’s why we’ve created dozens of blogs, guides, templates and more project management tools to help you as you go through your marketing management journey.

• 10 Free Marketing Templates for Excel, Word and More
• What Is Marketing Management: An Essential Introduction
• What Is a Marketing Plan and How Do I Make One (Template Included)
• Marketing Implementation 101: How to Implement Your Marketing Plan
• How to Create Marketing Budget: A Quick Guide
• How to Write a Creative Brief
• Push vs. Pull Marketing: A Quick Guide

ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps you plan, schedule and track marketing campaigns. Using real-time data means you can manage your marketing initiative better and keep everyone involved connected. Join the teams at NASA, Siemens and Nestle who are using our software to deliver success. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

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