Marketing Tech: Little Effort, Big Impact
When we talk about marketing tech, it’s usually about booking, delivery, performance, advertising relevance and analysis. But creative potential can also be leveraged better with the right tools.
Brutal implementations, lengthy project phases, blocked day-to-day business: Marketing automation can be cruel – but it doesn’t have to be. There are areas of application in which this is also possible elegantly and silently, but all the more effectively. An area that is predestined for this: creative cooperation within marketing. Digitally supported, the creative potential can develop much better.
The solutions for brainstorming and collaboration are mostly web-based. This eliminates a complex implementation; the log-in is sufficient to be able to use all functions regardless of location. Such tools not only optimize internal processes in a very smart way, but also take working with external creative people to a new level – whether it’s about new products, logo design, campaign motifs or planning the next marketing event. Technologies for idea management are packed with numerous functions and can hardly be compared with each other. Essentially, however, they cover three major areas: finding and collecting ideas, working together and managing ideas.
At its core, idea management tools offer an online whiteboard and numerous additional functions, especially for collaboration. Such whiteboard functions are ideal for generating ideas and brainstorming: written thoughts, suggestions, sketches or graphics can be recorded and displayed on a digital work surface, just like on a physical pinboard. In most cases, people work with colourful, digital notes that can be labeled and arranged freely. Arrows, images or lists of bullet points can also be stored on the virtual work surface.
Folders and frames are usually available to structure the flood of ideas. The solutions from Miro, Mural, Lucidspark and others, whose core is a digital whiteboard, are therefore often subsumed under the term “all-in-one whiteboards”. Classic mind mapping is also possible with such solutions in order to visually structure ideas and connections.
Real-Time Collaboration
However, these tools only develop the right power if you don’t hold onto your ideas in a quiet little room, but work together in a team. The web-based solutions offer all team members the same view of a common work interface. The actions of others can be followed live on the digital board, making many considerations more comprehensible. Chat functions are used for live communication. Some solutions even have an integrated video conferencing feature and comment functions make it possible to communicate with a time delay.
There are often useful interfaces to other tools, which can be used, for example, to dock messenger or project management solutions and transfer data, which makes cross-collaboration even easier.
Managing The Flood Of Ideas With Marketing Tech
In large organizations, brainstorming and collecting ideas together is usually not enough. If ideas are collected on a large scale, features are required to manage ideas. Solutions that focus on structure and workflow therefore sometimes even offer separate web interfaces – for submitting, managing and evaluating ideas. Tasks can be assigned to those involved and even a reminder system can be set up in order to promptly evaluate submitted suggestions. Idea challenges are also possible with such solutions. Participants are notified and submit their ideas for solving a specific problem. These ideas can then be commented on and evaluated.
The range of requirements is also reflected in the price. While the basic functions of whiteboarding tools for small teams are often available free of charge, the high-end solutions cost tens or even three-digit euros per month. Anyone who wants to optimize creative collaboration digitally should therefore clarify the required range of functions in advance. Workflow management is not always necessary, with which tasks can be distributed and deadlines can be set. In any case, care should be taken to ensure that an idea management solution can be used across devices, i.e. not only on Mac or PC, but also on smartphones and tablets.
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