Whether you are an SEO Guru or a Content King, planning season means one thing for us all – number crunching. And when 56% of B2B Marketers are seeing their budget’s grow year on year, you have to deliver on your strategic analysis if you want to keep that growth going.
With all those VLOOKUPs and Pivot tables whizzing around, it’s easy to get stuck in an Excel hole. But whether it’s time, data or know-how holding you up – never fear! We’ve put together top resources from some Excel experts to help you deliver your 2014 analysis and results.
While you’re there, why not download the Ultimate 2015 Gantt tool from us? You’ll be the super strategic planning whizz in no time!
1. Time Savers
When over half of all marketers have responsibilities in 7 out of 10 other areas of marketing, our time is becoming a precious commodity, which is why Excel shortcuts are going to be your best friend this planning season.
Chandoo.org has put together their 100 Excel tips & resources including some super quick keyboard shortcuts. We’re not talking advanced Excel tips, but they’ll save you oodles of time in the future.
And check out the team at found.co.uk who wrote these blog posts on 10 great excel shortcuts you might not know about plus their previous 5 unknown tips too. Both blogs feature some great everyday tips that will make your excel sessions super-efficient.
2. Pulling meaningful insight from big data sets
Pivot Tables are the saving grace of many a B2B marketer. “A Pivot what?” you ask…
Pivot tables are a super useful tool for analysing large amounts of data. They allow you to apply specific criteria to summarise and organise data tables, and create awesome reports. Check out these helpful tips from Skilledup on using Pivot tables for data analysis (Email Marketers check out #10).
Excel Add-in’s are another way of making sense of big data sets. They come in the form of free and paid ‘extras’ that you download and add to Excel as extra analysis tools.
They’re perfect for practical application and will make your planning a breeze. For everything from analysis to presentation, stick with Skilledup and check out their top 50 Excel add-ins here.
3. SEO Auditing – Tips and Tricks
SEO Gurus, Excel is your ultimate tool and there’s a mountain of awesome tricks out there to make the most of your 2015 planning.
From ‘Find and Replace’ to URL macros, these top tips from Search Engine journal will ensure you’ve covered all the bases for Keyword and link building analysis.
And don’t forget the almighty VLOOKUP. This video from annielytics shows you how to marry up data sets from various sources and pull quality SEO and PPC recommendations.
For the ultimate in SEO analysis, check out this blog from Search Engine Land on building analytics dashboardsand integrating various data sources too.
4. Graphs, Graphs everywhere!
Now you have your strategic analysis in place, it’s time to present your recommendations to the team and get your key decision-makers on board. It’s time to get down and dirty with some Excel graph work and show off your hard work.
If you’re not sure where to start, Hubspot have some great resources on graph work and excel in general. But if you’re just having trouble with the visuals – then follow these simple tips from Search Engine Land on making your charts super sexy.
If you have multiple segments or variables in your data (Email & Social Marketers we’re looking at you),representing key trends can be a tricky task. Marketing Land have a super easy video to walk you through interactive charts – functional AND impressive!
Got any excel tips up your sleeve? Tweet us @LeadForensics with your top #UltimatePlanning Excel hacks this planning season
Don’t forget to Download the Ultimate 2015 Gantt Tool from us – your planning just got 100 times easier (we promise!).
This blog was originally posted on the Lead Forensics website. Read the original article here.
