My Favorite Growth Marketing Tool of the Week — #4
It’s 2020, and there are more sales, marketing, and automation tools out there than I can count. At times this can be very overwhelming. Especially for someone like me who often suffers from ‘shiny-object syndrome’.
But always the optimist I decided to turn that into something useful and start presenting my favorite tools or resources I found this week.
So if you are a startup founder, marketer, growth-hacker, sales rep, or anyone else obsessed with business growth, you’ll enjoy this!
Sh**t that’s good!
Ever tried tracking those fancy growth hacks you’ve been experimenting with? Or the responses to your backlink outreach campaigns? How about keeping track of your business expenses? If yes, where did you go first?
My guess is you went to Google Sheets. Because if you’ve done anything online that requires keeping track of data, you’ll know the power of Google Sheets. Google’s cloud version of Excel is so powerful that many are using it as a database or trust it with their entire business administration.
And those doing growth marketing are no different. Sheets can help you power up a dashboard to track metrics and key KPI’s, or serve as a way to help you and your colleague at the other end of the world keep track of tasks and what to do next.
So is this weeks blog about Google Sheets? Well, sort of. But that would be too simple, wouldn’t it? If actually found something much sexier than that when I discovered Sheets for Marketers.
What is Sheets for Marketers?
Where better to ask that question than to the actual people who run the website? Here’s how they describe what they do:
“Learn how to get your hands around useful data, automate your work and up your marketing game, without ever leaving Google Sheets.”
And by they I mean Jake. Because when I was doing some more digging I noticed that our hero has a name.
Jake Sheridan mentions he started out the same way most of us did. After messing with spreadsheets for some time in an attempt to automate parts of his work, he became somewhat of a Google Sheets ninja and decided to share his work with others.
So what exactly can you find at Sheets for Marketers and how can it help you become a better growth marketer?
Order, order!
If you’re anything like me you have dabbled in Google Sheets and have about 314145 Sheets scattered over 24 Drive accounts, but never really got the right template nailed. That’s where these guys come in.
With 100+ Google Sheets templates gathered from around the web in categories such as Analytics, link building, and paid search, this directory is every data driven marketers dream. So take this as a warning — if you appreciate a good data sheet or marketing tool, don’t head over to their website if your to-do list is still filled with important tasks.
Track everything and look good doing it
By getting access to the best Sheets from across the web your job just got a lot easier. Just last week I made a copy of the UTM code template you’ll find on Sheets for Marketers and am now able to easily generate UTM codes and make sure we’re using a set template for all of our online presence. Nice!
Not only that, but I am now working on a dashboard to keep track of marketing KPI’s as well as cold outreach metrics, all from one location. Where you’d normally pay about $100 a month for a SaaS solution to do this for you, you can now simply make a copy of a Google Sheet and you’re up and running.
New to Google Sheets or no inspiration?
No problem! As much as I enjoy a good Sheet and working with marketing data, I’m still a newbie and am only scraping the surface of what’s possible.
But even there Jake has you covered. With a dedicated resources & tutorials section anyone can now wrap their head around more advanced Google Sheets functions and options, without having to search through countless non-marketing related forums looking for tips or how-to’s.
Because of the marketing-specific nature of the tutorials it’s the best and fastest way for you to learn new skills that will help you speed up your daily tasks and down the line will even help you progress in your career.
Efficient or lazy?
Jake mentioned in his about section that automation is sometimes looked upon as being a lazy solution. But I definitely don’t agree with that statement, and neither does our favorite spreadsheet guru.
With such an emphasis on the hustle & grind of doing business online many seem to forget that working smarter is usually the key to success. Willpower isn’t enough.
By making sure you have the right tools to keep track of your work and to automate the right processes you can divide your time smarter among tasks, and focus on the ones that move the needle.
As a business owner or marketer your focus should be on strategy and tactics, not on repetitive tasks that anyone could do. Which is why having the right tools is key to helping you to get the most out of your awesome growth-focused brain.
And thanks to Jake and his collection of marketing sheets, anyone can now focus on growing the business they’re working on.
Conclusion
Another week, another growth hacking tool analyzed, loved, and documented. You’ll probably recognize that feeling of excitement whenever you find a new tool and start thinking about the possibilities it’s presenting you.
With Sheets for Marketers anyone can now start tracking, building, or scraping marketing data and dashboards without the hassle. I myself am a huge fan and have nearly gone through all 100 (+ a few) marketing sheets, and I’d love to hear what you think.
Before you go
If you’re looking to transform your cold email game make sure to head over to Wiza.co. Not into lead-gen? Then still make sure to head over to hansdekker.net to read my other blogs and follow my journey of becoming a kick-ass growth marketer.
And If you want to talk to me directly you can reach me at hans@hansdekker.net. Have a good one! :)
