The Marketing Team Starter Kit

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The Marketing Team Starter Kit

A collection of free, time-saving templates for better workflows, cross-functional partnerships, and internal visibility.

Last updated: 3/31/2021

This Starter Kit showcases free, time-saving templates for marketing teams. And each template is customizable, so your team can create smoother workflows, foster deeper collaboration, and give visibility to stakeholders—faster than you can say “satisfaction guaranteed.”

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Copy this Starter Kit

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Learn more about Coda

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How to use this doc: Read our insights on how to overcome bottlenecked workflows, collaboration issues, and insufficient internal visibility on this page. Then explore templates to help your marketing team work better, together in the

Workflows⁠

Internal partnerships⁠

, and

Internal visibility⁠

pages.

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We’re willing to bet you’re not here for a definition of “marketing.” You’re here because

84% of people⁠

believe customer experience is as important as the product itself. And you’re reading this doc because you have a hunch that providing better support for the people who create that experience will ultimately result in more, happier customers.

Addressing the challenges your team faces every day will help them work better, collaborate deeper, and connect more authentically with your potential and existing customers.

But what exactly is holding your team back? According to HubSpot’s

2020 State of Marketing⁠

, marketing teams have faced similar challenges for the last several years, including generating leads, providing ROI, and securing enough budget. However, we believe the foundational issue behind these obstacles, which we alluded to above, is actually how your team works and not what they deliver (or don’t).

Of course, your marketing team is already juggling endless processes and tools for generating leads, raising brand awareness, scouting influencers, and curating thought leadership. And time spent learning new processes to fix the old ones is time missed connecting with customers. So we created this Starter Kit to help your team work together, better—and save time in the process.

If you have...bottlenecked workflows.

Every company, no matter how small, has some amount of red tape teams need to navigate.

Marketing Insider Group⁠

says:

For both agency and non-agency marketers, staying timely and relevant with the long, clunky marketing approval processes they need to go through with content creation is one of the biggest challenges that’s keeping them up at night.

And although we’re all used to the game of hurry up and wait, bottlenecked workflows can cause perpetually-extended deadlines, missed budget targets, and less-than-stellar quality deliverables.

At Coda, we work on releasing the bottleneck by ritualizing our workflows, turning them into a set of templates with consistent processes and clearly mapped Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI).

Trade meetings for product marketing briefs.

Sure, you could schedule a series of meetings to nail down the details of your next campaign. Or you could give everyone that time back by sharing a brief: a set of guidelines that influence future decisions by creating a baseline for objectives and expected outcomes.

Why you’ll love the

Launch brief⁠

template:

You can align stakeholders on product marketing campaigns, sales outreach, FAQ/Help content, etc.

You can leverage the specifics to create a single-source-of-truth for your launch campaign.

Your team will be incredibly impressed by your organizational skills.

Prepare to wow your team (and your customers) by typing /launch brief in your doc. And if must have a meeting, may we suggest this

meeting tracker⁠

or our

agenda timer⁠

Turn polite pestering into a button.

Has anyone read the brief you so carefully constructed? You can hope that they have. You can also send them a Slack message gently reminding them. You can even tag them in a stern-yet-approachable doc comment. Or you could add one simple button to the end of your brief—and every other doc you want people to read, for that matter.

Why you’ll love the

Done reading button⁠

template:

Buy-in is immediately apparent.

No customization required, although you’re welcome to change the icon.

Clicking a button is universally fun.

Type /done reading button in your doc. And then tell us, have you read this doc? 👇

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Keep your GTM team on track, with a workback.

Workflows are sometimes stalled because people simply aren’t sure what to do next. We try to remove the guesswork with what is essentially a team to-do list, complete with button to say “I did the thing I said I would do!”

Why you’ll love the

Simple project workback⁠

template:

In true task list form, you have a comprehensive view of what needs to be done, by whom, in what timeframe.

The Notify team button cuts out the status update middle-steps.

Status-assigned colors indicate the health of your project—and the color green has never felt so calming.

Type /simple project workback in your doc, and try it out below. 👇

Project workback

Project workback

Item

Due by

DRI

Status

Send Slack

Notes & links

Share Workback

5/26/2020, 12:00 AM

🚀 Done!

Notify team

Schedule Copy Reviews

5/26/2020, 12:00 AM

🚀 Done!

Notify team

Compile List of Products/Launches w/ Briefs

5/26/2020, 12:00 AM

🚀 Done!

Notify team

Copy v1 Drafted

6/8/2020, 1:30 PM

🛠 In Progress

Notify team

Copy v1 Reviewed Async

6/8/2020, 2:00 PM

⏳ Not started

Notify team

Copy v1 Reviewed as a Team

6/8/2020, 3:30 PM

⏳ Not started

Notify team

No results from filter

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Build a mindful content marketing strategy.

At some point, your project is going to shift from internal planning to communicating and connecting with your customers. Although your content team has acknowledged their tasks in your workback, those tasks can often be come in a flurry. When this bit of content chaos starts to clog an otherwise smooth pipeline, we refocus on the story we’re trying to tell.

Why you’ll love the

Launch promotions tracker⁠

template:

You have a space for your team to pitch their promo ideas, no matter how wild.

You can easily identify ideas in scope and prioritize them by success metrics.

You can finally pitch your company logo-turned-Chia Pet idea.

Let the pitching begin by typing /launch promotions tracker in your doc.

Why you’ll love the

Content calendar⁠

template:

This natural complement to the

Launch promotions tracker⁠

gives you a color-coded calendar to track content for your social media marketing and beyond.

You’ll know exactly how content fits together to tell your story.

You’ll never miss another opportunity to create content for National Puppy Day.

Start scheduling by typing /content calendar in your doc.

If you have...a lack of internal partnerships.

Marketing teams listen to the voice of the customer through the support team. They provide sales teams with enablement content. And, because marketing is more digital than ever, they need strategic alignment with IT and/or engineering. While the cross-functional collaboration itself isn’t a surprise, the fact that building these partnerships can be so difficult often is. Acknowledging the differences in how teams work, and how they collaborate within their own teams, is easier than fostering a collaborative environment where all teams feel heard and valued.

As a company, Coda designs meetings, and internal partnership indirectly, like product teams build apps. We think about each meeting’s stakeholders and what we want them to walk away with when the meeting’s done.

Make everyone feel as valued as your CMO.

Much our of our day-to-day collaboration is built on trust. And that trust needs to be carefully cultivated, especially when it’s cross-functional. At Coda, we follow a strategy highlighted in Amy Jen Su’s

Harvard Business Review⁠

article:

Reinforce and capitalize on each person’s strengths, perspectives, and contributions to the team by calling out their achievements and wins in meetings or group settings.

Much like our workflows, we build rituals around making sure that discussions are unbiased and avoid groupthink.

Why you’ll love the

Team sentiment tracker⁠

template:

Your team has an opportunity to give context and perspective.

You can quickly see the overall sentiment of your team.

Sentiment doesn’t have to be about work! Let everyone know how excited you are about your haircut.

Type /team sentiment tracker in your doc, and check in below.👇

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Add your sentiment

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Check to show everyone's sentiment (

3

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submitted with average sentiment of

2.67

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)

Sentiment

Reflection

Who

We’re making great progress toward launch!

I’m confused as to why we’re not tracking metrics yet.

I need to be more productive this sprint.

There are no rows in this table

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Why you’ll love the

Unbiased voting⁠

template:

You have the opportunity to equalize all voices on your team.

You’ll give everyone a chance to weigh-in on which topics should be discussed.

Two words: historical record.

Have an unbiased discussion by typing /voting table in your doc, and vote on topics below.👇

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Add a topic

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Show authors

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Show and sort by vote count

✔️

Idea

Upvote

Notes & replies

Author

Upvotes

Go to the beach

Read my favorite book

There are no rows in this table

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You could also try engaging your team with this

live polling app⁠

Rely on process, not location.

One thing the world learned during the global pandemic is that authentic partnerships canned be formed with people you’ve never met in real life. As a distributed company, Coda has embraced various workflows that still embrace our culture of transparency and collaboration. We’re committed to doing the work together, to hearing each other’s opinions, even if that means doing so asynchronously.

Why you’ll love the

Figma frame table⁠

template:

You can seamlessly integrate several tools: Coda, Figma, and GitHub.

In doing that, you’re giving more visibility to design feedback.

Just think of how few times you’ll have to hear “But I never saw the mock!”

Type /Figma frame table to incorporate design feedback into your doc.

Why you’ll love the

Namestorm⁠

template:

You’ll provide some structure and sanity to your brainstorming process.

You’ll save your team from going down a brainstorming rabbit hole of Slack threads, emails, and docs.

You get to play Mad Libs!

Name your thing together by typing /namestorm in your doc, and try re-naming Coda below.👇

Stress test any name:

Coda

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The magic of
Coda
⁠
starts with a table.

When you connect your
Coda
⁠
to the apps you use every day, your team can finally have everything in one place.

⁠
Coda
⁠
was founded with an observation.

Or if you can try this

brainstorm template⁠

If you have...insufficient internal visibility.

As long as your work is visible to your customer, it doesn’t matter if your company understands your goals and how you’re tracking toward them, right? Unfortunately, no. Internal marketing influences your marketing team’s success almost as much as external marketing.

Even with well-framed workflows and authentic cross-functional collaboration, your stakeholders are still going to ask for a clear picture of where you’re going and where you’ve been.

Marketo found that⁠

Internal brand awareness drives conversions, which fuel revenue growth.

Practice open door goal-setting.

It should be no surprise that Coda’s teams are in the habit of documenting everything. As with workflows and collaboration, transparency is a ritual. Have a meeting? We send out the notes to attendees and stakeholders. Planning goals? The entire company is welcome and encouraged to weigh-in with a

Unbiased voting⁠

—and then the goals are kept in docs for anyone to access at any time.

Why you’ll love

The OKR Starter Kit⁠

Much like the Starter Kit you’re reading right now, we’ve done the goal-setting research for you.

You can plan and track team

OKRs⁠

in a way that works best for your marketing team.

So many

OKR templates⁠

and

OKR examples⁠

, so much time saved!

Why you’ll love the

Marketing leads forecast⁠

template:

You’ll equip your exec team with the confidence they need to make decisions.

You’ll ground your team’s every day work in metrics that impact the entire company.

Charts are the ultimate visual aid.

Start scheduling by typing /marketing leads forcast in your doc.

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No amount of time spent searching will produce a one-size-fits-all solution for issues around workflows, collaboration, and internal visibility. But that doesn’t mean the perfect solution for your team doesn’t exist. We’ve given you a head start—all you need to do now is adapt Coda’s templates to your team’s needs.

If you need help building docs or have tips for making beautiful docs, please share on

https://community.coda.io/⁠

💡 Have a drag-and-drop template idea? Email

help@coda.io⁠

to let us know!

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A few of the 25,000+ teams that 🏃‍♀️ on Coda.

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Coda is an all-in-one doc for your team’s unique processes — the rituals that help you succeed. Teams that use Coda get rid of hundreds of documents, spreadsheets, and even bespoke apps, to work quickly and clearly in one place. This template is a Coda doc. Click around to explore.

Find out how to Coda-fy your rituals.

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Connect with a Rituals Architect

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If you have...bottlenecked workflows.

Trade meetings for product marketing briefs.

Turn polite pestering into a button.

Keep your GTM team on track, with a workback.

Project workback

Build a mindful content marketing strategy.

If you have...a lack of internal partnerships.

Make everyone feel as valued as your CMO.