How We Use Atlassian Products to Manage Marketing Team Work

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Marketing departments are often seen as more artistic and less structured than technical teams. Jira, however, is often seen as a tool designed for developers, with its complex procedures and technical language – not exactly a marketer's dream.

However, today, effective marketing is driven by data, streamlined processes, and agile methodologies that help teams meet immediate goals efficiently. Our marketing team is no exception, and Atlassian products have become integral to our workflow.

Streamlining workflows with Jira

Jira is at the heart of our operations, enabling us to manage and streamline our marketing tasks seamlessly. 

We break down projects into manageable tasks, assign them, set deadlines, and track progress through customized boards and sprints. We also use custom fields in Jira tasks to capture essential details like goals, activities, and channels. This data, combined with marketing attribution insights from our other tools, allows us to identify which activities are delivering the best results and optimize accordingly.

Strategic Planning with Jira Plans

For strategic planning, we rely on Jira Plans. We structure our work by setting up Jira Initiatives as Strategic Marketing Initiatives, with Epics, Stories, and Tasks organized underneath. This hierarchy provides a clear view of our progress at every level, ensuring that we're aligned with our long-term goals without needing to rely on external spreadsheets or presentations during meetings.

What using Jira gives to the marketing team

1. Sharing the same toolset as developers and product teams enhances visibility and collaboration, especially for product marketers. It improves communication and makes tracking cross-departmental initiatives more straightforward.

2. Agile isn't just for dev teams. Our marketing team also follows a sprint-style planning approach, and Jira has proven to be one of the best tools for managing agile marketing projects.

3. Aligning with company-wide tools like Jira isn't just about consistency. It's also about efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Using Jira brings standardization across teams, making it easier for everyone to stay on the same page.

Beyond task management, Jira serves as our central hub, integrating with Confluence. We maintain our marketing playbooks, project plans, and meeting notes in Confluence, ensuring everything is easily accessible in one place.

Of course, we also use dashboards with various gadgets to visualize our team's work and progress. Jira's reporting features are invaluable for monitoring our KPIs and performance metrics, giving us in-time insights into our campaigns.

Additionally, apps from the Atlassian Marketplace help us enhance our efficiency. These include apps for creating tasks from Gmail & browser tabs, recurring checklists, forms for feedback and surveys, managing standard operating procedures, time & cost tracking, etc.

Confluence for Collaboration & Documentation

From product documentation to brainstorming sessions, Confluence is our central hub for content.

We utilize Confluence Whiteboards for collaborative brainstorming and visually mapping out ideas and user flows. We've recently implemented the Jobs-to-be-Done framework to focus on the specific 'jobs' our customers are trying to accomplish.

This approach has shifted our mindset from merely selling products to helping customers achieve their goals. We've even created a JTBD template in Confluence that other teams can use for their products.

By using pre-built Customer Journey Map and Jobs To Be Done templates, we can better understand customer needs and motivations.

Additionally, the SWOT analysis template in Confluence helps us prioritize projects, identify strengths, and address market opportunities and threats effectively.

Communication & Collaboration: Staying in Sync

Google Chat, integrated with Jira, keeps our team informed with timely updates and notifications. For internal knowledge sharing and creating engaging marketing materials, we rely on Loom videos:

So, by using this combination of tools, our marketing team has a collaborative and productive work environment. Jira and Confluence help us stay aligned with our marketing goals, keep our processes streamlined, and ensure that our work is both efficient and effective. 

If you have any questions or would like to share how your team uses Atlassian tools, feel free to comment below!