Confluence for Marketing

[LaToya Muff _Snyk_]

Top of the year and as I'm building out my marketing plans I'm thinking about how to better organize the plans, details, timelines and deliverables and I think Confluence would be a great help especially with the automation and calendar functionality. Anyone using Confluence find it useful? Would love to explore best practices & helpful tips.

[Ignacio Aredez]

Using Confluence for organizing marketing plans is an excellent choice, especially when considering its rich features for documentation, collaboration, and project management. To ensure you're leveraging Confluence effectively for your marketing plans, here are several best practices and helpful tips:

1. Structure Your Space Efficiently
Create a dedicated marketing space: This space will house all your marketing plans, documents, and resources. It ensures everything is in one place and easily accessible.
Use page trees: Organize your content using a hierarchical structure. For example, have main pages for "Annual Marketing Plans," "Campaigns," "Content Calendar," and "Market Research." Under each, create child pages for specific initiatives or details.

2. Leverage Templates
Confluence offers various templates that can be very helpful for marketing teams, such as project plans, meeting notes, and campaign planning. Customize these templates to fit your team's specific needs.
Campaign template: Create a template for your marketing campaigns that includes objectives, target audiences, key messages, channels, budget, and timelines.

3. Integrate with Jira
If your organization uses Jira for project management, integrate Confluence with Jira. This allows you to link Confluence plans directly to Jira tasks and projects, providing real-time updates and visibility into the progress of marketing initiatives.

4. Utilize the Calendar Functionality
Use the Confluence Team Calendar to manage and share key dates, such as campaign launches, content publication dates, and important meetings. This ensures everyone is aligned and informed.
Automation: Set up reminders and notifications for upcoming deadlines and events directly within the calendar.

5. Collaboration and Feedback
Encourage collaboration by inviting team members to contribute and edit plans. Use @mentions to draw attention or assign tasks.
Implement a review process using the comments feature to gather feedback on marketing plans and content drafts.

6. Document Version Control
Take advantage of Confluence's version history feature to track changes over time. This is particularly useful for reviewing what has been updated in marketing plans and ensuring everyone is working from the latest version.

7. Analytics and Reporting
Use Confluence analytics to track page views, engagement, and document usage. This data can be valuable for understanding which parts of your marketing plan are getting the most attention and where to focus your efforts.

8. Continuous Improvement
Regularly review your Confluence setup and processes to identify opportunities for improvement. Gather feedback from your team on what's working and what could be enhanced.

9. Security and Permissions
Set up appropriate permissions to ensure sensitive marketing information is accessible only to relevant stakeholders. Confluence allows you to control who can view, edit, or comment on your pages.

10. Integration with Other Tools
Explore plugins and integrations that can enhance your marketing planning in Confluence. For example, integrating with social media planning tools, analytics platforms, and CRM systems can streamline workflows and provide a more comprehensive view of your marketing activities.

By following these best practices and tips, you can maximize the benefits of Confluence for your marketing plans, ensuring your team is organized, aligned, and equipped to execute your marketing strategies effectively. Remember, the key to success with Confluence is not just in setting it up but in how you and your team adopt and adapt its features to fit your specific marketing processes and workflows.

[Andrea Walters]

Our team uses Confluence for all of our marketing plans and timelines! 

Our page tree is typically something like:

• Program Container Page (e.g. 2023 Paris Team Tour) that has has the "Child pages (Children Display" listed on that page. 
  • Then nested underneath are workstreams or functions (e.g. Operations, Strategy, Measurement, MarComm).
    • Then each of those workstream pages have their own pages nested underneath with various timelines, tasks, and deliverables.

We like to use the action items check boxes with due dates and @ mentions of people to track reviews, approvals, etc. Some of our workstream leads also like to use the Jira Issues Calendar macro or embedding a Trello board to keep track of tasks. 

Knowing every team is different, there are some awesome templates you can explore here (if you haven't already): https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/templates

[Kristen Roth]

+1 to @Andrea Walters' recommendation of templates! It's nice to not have to always start from scratch on a blank page - that can feel so daunting! 😅

"The ultimate guide for marketing teams" site that our team put together might help you better visualize some of your specific use cases, too.

Please do keep us posted on what you decide to try out first and your thoughts on how things are going along the way. This group is always here for questions and to bounce ideas off of! 

[Teodora V]

Hi @LaToya Muff _Snyk_

Everything @Ignacio Aredez suggested is a staple for your marketing activities in Confluence. I have worked in Confluence for a nice 7 years and never stopped using it for all marketing and event activities in the company.

As @Andrea Walters also mentioned, templates are extremely helpful for better organizing and structuring your work. A pre-filled template works magic when you have limited time to reflect on a campaign or kick off a new initiative. 

Writing about my experience with Confluence is one of my passions, so you can always browse some of my articles and, hopefully, find inspiration about your team :)

1. Handling your Confluence content:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/The-right-time-to-grow-a-Page-Tree-handling-your-Confluence/ba-p/2310676

2. Enhanced Collaboration:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/From-Meh-to-Wow-Team-Collaboration-Without-Borders/ba-p/2448364

3. Using Confluence Templates:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Confluence-articles/How-Confluence-Templates-Change-the-Way-You-Think/ba-p/2133033 

[Zoriana Bogutska_Adaptavist_]

Hi @LaToya Muff _Snyk_ As marketers, it's also important that our content looks professional, not only in terms of content, but also in terms of formatting and visual design. To get more options for this, you can try a tool that will help your content look well thought out and structured and, as a result, easy to read. One such tool is Content Formatting Macros for Confluence, 

It includes all the necessary functions for formatting content: tabs, backgrounds, numbered headings, buttons, cards, etc., and allows you to preserve the brand identity of your company with the help of a colour management palette.

If you have any questions, please let me know. This app was developed by my team.