There are a number of ways to get started using Growth Panel. Last week we tackled two scenarios: how to get started when you’re looking for a solution to an immediate marketing challenge, and getting started managing an existing marketing project. 

Another approach is to dive into the marketing content to expand your expertise in a specific subject. Most marketers and consultants have deep expertise in 3 to 5 of our subjects, along with hands-on experience in six to eight. 

Visit the Library and choose a subject to access the content you’d like to explore. After you select a subject, the exercise panel will display the core exercises you can download to execute and manage each task. Download them here and review each exercise.  You don’t have to do them all right away; just look at the tasks each exercise presents to get an overview.  This might take 30 minutes to a few hours, depending on the subject and the depth of your review. 

Marketing Content for New Expertise

I learn best when I write or type something that I’ve read, so I like to create my own summary of each exercise in my own document. Let’s take a look at Pricing.  After downloading and reviewing the exercises, my outline looks like this:

• Pricing Strategy: What are we currently using?
• Steps to determine pricing strategy
       - Match value proposition to market maturity level and market share goals
       - Understand cost structure
       - Calculate cost-of-goods sold
       - Determine desired gross profit margin
• Review main competitors’ prices and try to identify their pricing strategy
• Match competitors’ value propositions to their pricing strategies and check for alignment. Which ones directly compete with ours?
• Determine acceptable range of prices that meet profit goals
• Review process for evaluating price changes
• Determine how to assess price elasticity and how to evaluate its impact on revenue and profit

More Content in Extended Library

Next, use the side navigation pane to move to the Extended Library and Links panels to review other articles that might be useful. Each panel delivers internal and external content that expounds on the core exercises. They’re tagged as tools, reference material, books and articles. 

As an example, here’s what the Pricing section currently contains: 

• Case study on how a billion-dollar parts manufacturer approached revamping their pricing strategy
• Articles about how to use value-based pricing (for consulting firms)
• Articles and case studies on how companies set prices and approach pricing changes
• Recommended books detailing the math ties between pricing, demand, COGs and margin
• Online calculators to run instant what-if scenarios
• Price elasticity diagrams 

You can also check out the Description panel, which contains our eBook content for each subject. We’re adding an editing function soon, so you’ll have the ability to tailor the content to your company. 

Applying the Content and Tools

After completing my outline, I like to dive into an exercise and start applying it to my business.  I use the Extended Library and Links content to expand on my tasks as I’m working through them. I’ll generally set aside a solid 60 minute window for each learning session, and focus on mastering one or two key tasks at a time. 

We’ll send you alerts each month when we add new content to your Extended Library and Links panels, so you can increase your expertise as needed.

In our next post, we’ll address how to move all of your marketing management to our platform. 

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• Effective Price Management (slideshare.net)

Recently we showed you how to get started in Growth Panel if you’re looking for a solution to an immediate business challenge.

Today we’re going to outline how to get started managing an existing marketing project.

Growth Panel delivers a complete marketing project management module in the Projects section. From here you can set tasks, goals and milestones; assign tasks to team members; download, upload and share exercises from the Library, including your own files; import marketing plans and collaborate with your team.

Create Your Marketing Project

The first step is creating your marketing project. From the Projects section main screen, click the Add a New Project link on the right and enter your project details in the new window. You can enter detail in all of the fields, or simply add your project name and fill in the details later.

The Project Details fields include:

• Project Name (Required)
• Client: This field defaults to Internal, which refers to a project for your own company. If your project is for a client, the clients you’ve added to your Client List from the main Projects screen will display in the dropdown list. You also have the option to add your client here.
• Project Status: This field defaults to In Progress. When you complete your project, you can change this to Completed to archive your project.
• Start Date: Select a date using the calendar widget.
• Target Date: Use this field as you wish. You can enter a projected completion date or leave it blank.
• Project Description: Describe your project here.
• Notes: Add any additional information here.

After you select Save, the Project Details window will close, and your project will be listed as a line item on the main Projects section screen. You can sort all your projects here by clicking on the column headers to sort up or down, or by clicking on the right of the column header tab to change or filter your column view.

Note that the red X on the right allows you to delete your project, but we’re here to work, so click the project name link to dive in.

Project Details View

The Project Details view is where you’ll create and manage the activities of your project. This view contains three panels:

• Project Details description panel to the left. You can close this using the << icon on the right of it if you wish.
• Activities panel in the center.
• Specialized panel views on the right. You can open these by clicking on the icons in the right-hand navigation, and close them by clicking on the X in the upper right of the open panel. Panel options here include:

  • Project Calendar panel

  • Project Plans panel

  • Exercises History panel

  • Project Files activity panel

  • Project Comments panel 

Creating Activities

To get started, create an activity. You can create a Task, a Milestone or a Goal by selecting these options on the activity header bar. Activities are defined as follows:

• Tasks are defined as work to be completed.
• Milestones are markers at a given point in a progression. For example, if you’d like to launch a new campaign by the time you’ve completed five tasks, the campaign launch could be your milestone. Your tasks would be the activities needed to execute the launch.
• A Goal is something you’d like to achieve.

You have the option to link tasks to milestones; otherwise, they’re all independent. Growth Panel doesn’t bog you down with complicated dependencies or Gantt charts.

Tasks are the most frequently used activity and contain the most detail, so let’s review tasks. When you create a task, you can enter the following information:

• Task Name
• Status
• Description
• Target Date
• % Complete: Currently this is for your reference only. We plan to add an option for reporting in the future.
• Hours Required: Currently this is for your reference only. We plan to add an option for reporting in the future.
• Assigned To: If you’ve added team members from the My Account section, their names will appear here.
• Attach to Milestone: You have the option to embed your task into a milestone.
• Notes

Note that the Milestone and Goals are added using the same basic steps just described.

Viewing Details and Downloading Files

After you save your task, it will appear as a line item in the Activities panel of the Project Details view. Click on your task name to open your Task Details window to make any changes.

Click on the black + icon to the right of your task name to expand your task in this screen to display additional information. This opens a view to your task notes while also displaying any exercises or files you’ve attached to your task.

You can download and upload documents right here in the Task Details window. To attach a document to your task, click on the Attach File icon on the right (green arrow over white paper).

If you’d like to set an exercise as a task, navigate to your library from the main tabs. When you download an exercise from the library, you have the option of attaching it to any project you’ve already created. Then you can access it from within your project.

Any activities and comments you’ve created in your Project Details view will display here, as well as on your Dashboard.

As you complete your tasks, you can upload finished files here and set your tasks at 100% complete. Use this option if you’d like to archive your project so you can access these files at a later date.

You can delete any activity by clicking the red X in the Actions column. When you delete any activity (or any project, for that matter), everything attached to it is also deleted: notes, exercises and files. It’s up to you to decide how to manage your projects.

Next Steps

Stay tuned. Next we’ll show you how to import a plan with tasks and milestones already created for you.

During our user testing, many people asked Where should I start? 

There are a few different places to start, depending on your situation.  Are you: 

• Looking for a solution to an immediate marketing challenge?
• Seeking to add management structure to an existing marketing project?
• Interested in expanding your expertise in a specific area?
• Ready to move your entire marketing management into our marketing platform?
• Seeking to train your team in a specific area?

Let’s tackle the first scenario in this post and address the others one at a time in later posts. 

Solutions for Immediate Marketing Challenges 

To find a solution to an immediate challenge, there are two sections to visit in Growth Panel: the Plan Creator and the Library. 

Is yours a high-level challenge? Examples of high-level challenges could be: 

• I need to start marketing my business on the Internet.
• We need to generate more qualified leads.
• There’s friction among our sales and marketing teams. How can we resolve this?
• How can we start measuring our marketing ROI? 

For higher-level challenges like these, visit the Plan Creator and design a plan based on your business needs. The software allows you to generate marketing plans that tie together multiple business subjects into a single work plan, in as few as three steps.  Select your challenge, refine it in Step Two, and then customize your results for your finished product. 

These plans can get very detailed and can cover weeks to months of work. 

Visit the Library for Specific Results 

If you’re looking for a more specific solution, visit the Library. The Library gives you access to specific marketing content organized by business subject. 

First, choose your subject from the navigation panel on the left. 

Selecting a subject will send you to the default exercise view. Exercises are guided best practices that deliver base content to help you execute the specific steps described in the exercise titles. Browse the exercises listed under a particular subject to find what you need, or use the Search function. 

The right-hand navigation takes you to other information panels within your designated subject. Click on the diploma icon to visit the Extended Library to see additional articles, tools or exercises the Growth Panel administrator has loaded into your account. 

If you haven’t yet found what you’re looking for, check out external resources the Growth Panel admin has loaded into the Links panel. Click on the link icon to find an assortment of recommended books, tools, articles and reference websites. 

For a textual overview of the subject, click on the information icon to visit the Description section. 

Next Steps  

Once you’ve found what you’re looking for, it’s time to get to work! In the next post I’ll show you how to create a marketing project to add structure around your marketing activities.