Overview and insight biggest problems for marketers

Peter Desmyttere
July 6, 2023
⏱ 5 min. read

Together with a market research agency, we surveyed marketeers for the biggest problems in personal and team organisation. The research shows that marketers mainly struggle with a lack of insight and overview. In particular, marketers lack insight into marketing processes and an overview of the course of specific projects, tasks and campaigns.

Marketers indicate in the survey that they do not always know exactly what their colleagues are doing and which tasks have already been completed. This makes it difficult for them to take stock of the current projects and reporting to the management or client is often preceded by a very complex puzzle.

They are sometimes so busy with a specific task that they lose sight of the strategy behind the project or even the complete marketing plan in which the task belongs. 39% of those surveyed acknowledged that continuous ad hoc work makes it difficult to act proactively and to frame marketing actions within a structured whole.

At the request of Husky Marketing Planner, the research bureau Devroe & Partners carried out the research among 250 marketeers of medium and large enterprises (50 to 500 employees) in Flanders and Brussels, spread across various sectors.

A number of remarkable conclusions from the research:

  • 78% of the marketers believe that the current way of working can be improved
  • 6 of the 10 biggest problems in marketing departments have to do with insight and overview
  • 39% say a lack of understanding of marketing processes is the biggest problem
  • 36% of marketers indicate that they measure little or no results
  • 78% only use Excel, Word and Powerpoint to manage the marketing organisation

4 out of 5 not satisfied with current way of working

To the question "How satisfied are you with the way your marketing department is today?" only 55 marketers answered that they are completely satisfied. This means that 78% of marketers are aware - and also admit - that their way of working could be improved.

Insight and overview are the biggest pain points

We also looked at the biggest problems in their work as marketers. It soon became clear that most of the interviewees lacked insight and overview. In particular, marketers lack insight into the marketing processes and an overview of the course of specific projects, tasks and campaigns.

Marketers indicate that they do not always know exactly what their colleagues are doing and which tasks have already been completed. This makes it difficult for them to take stock of the current projects and reporting to the management or client is often preceded by a hell of a puzzle.

They are sometimes so busy with a specific task that they lose sight of the strategy behind the project or even the complete marketing plan in which the task belongs. 39% of those surveyed acknowledged that continuous ad hoc work makes it difficult to act proactively and to frame marketing actions within a structured whole.

marketing challenges
The biggest problems for marketers and marketing teams

Not measuring is not knowing

A cliché, but nonetheless true: to measure is to know. Marketing is becoming increasingly more important for companies, the pressure on budgets is increasing and therefore it's essential to know exactly what is and isn't working. Yet KPI, ROI and CRO still remain a mystery to many marketers because more than a third (36%) of those surveyed identify measuring results as an important operating point.

The favorite program for managing marketing? Excel!

Our research also showed that only 18% make use of a project management tool. The remaining 205 marketers manage their projects most often (58%) via Excel. They also use a CRM system, Access, Word, Powerpoint, paper and oral communication.

Especially the high use of Excel is surprising, because it is a pure-blooded calculation program. It is not at all a tool to manage projects and tasks, monitor campaigns or keeping strategic notes. In a previous article we already explained you how stupid Excel is and why marketers deserve better.

Conclusion?

Are these marketers all sloppy and unstructured or are they perfectionists who are never satisfied with their work? Certainly not. We think that their dissatisfaction and lack of overview is more to do with the tools they use to manage projects.

Those who want to be able to zoom in on the bigger picture (or: the marketing strategy) carefree in their daily operations and in between want to know which tasks their colleagues have completed, how much budget is left over, which campaigns are planned or how the results are going, need an adapted software: a project management tool. With such a tool you can see at a glance the status of current projects, manage tasks, plan campaigns, track results in a dashboard, manage the budget and save all files related to a project.

During the research we listed these key benefits and asked the marketers if they could add value for them. The main advantages turned out to be: saving all marketing data on one digital platform (77%), determining and measuring KPIs per period (77%), more efficient meetings (65%) and communication with colleagues (42%), a calendar that displays all campaigns on one screen (76%) and better reporting to management (71%).

Although marketers recognize the benefits of a project management tool, it is not always obvious for them to implement it in their daily marketing operations. Many fear that its implementation is timeconsuming, complex and expensive.

How can a marketing calendar tool soften these problems?

With Husky we want to provide a marketing calendar tool that removes many of the above problems for marketers and marketing teams. Husky is a perfect alternative to Excel thanks to the central way of planning. Every marketer in the team can plan his own actions in our marketing calendar within a digital application, view actions or campaigns of colleagues and see the big picture when it comes to planning actions and campaigns.

In other words, Husky immediately offers a solution for the lack of insight into marketing processes in order to be able to act proactively, for the lack of insight into the status quo and for the lack of an overview of current projects and who is doing what. Husky centralizes the entire planning or calendar of all actions and campaigns in a single digital platform: no organization or planning tool provides such insight into marketing processes and is a better alternative to the fragmentation in the many Excel files. Thanks to the internal chat function in Husky, colleagues can also launch comments and discussions about planning items. This saves dozens of emails per day.

Husky also offers a solution for managing different tasks because in Husky every marketing task can be directly assigned to the right context in the marketing calendar or marketing planning. Task scheduling and marketing planning are interwoven, which enhances overview and insight. Finally, various reports can be drawn from the marketing calendar so that reporting to management can be done in a very fast and professional way. 

Personal demo

The recommended way to discover Husky quickly and professionally.

Demo by a marketer with experience in marketing planning. After the demo we will customize Husky for your trial period.

Peter Desmyttere

Book now

Free trial

Ideal to get started with your marketing planning after a demo.

The previous demo is not mandatory, but it is recommended.

Trial period lasts 14 days, all functions are available. 

No automatic renewal or subscription, trial period is 100% non-binding and stops automatically.

Start free trial period

This website is using cookies to provide a good browsing experience
These include essential cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site, as well as others that are used only for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, not all functions of the website may be available.
This website is using cookies to provide a good browsing experience
These include essential cookies that are necessary for the operation of the site, as well as others that are used only for anonymous statistical purposes, for comfort settings or to display personalized content. You can decide for yourself which categories you want to allow. Please note that based on your settings, not all functions of the website may be available.
Your cookie preferences have been saved.