More efficient marketing management for Mildenberger Publishing

About the Mildenberger publishing house

Mildenberger Publishing has been publishing textbooks in Offenburg, Germany, since 1948. Today, the publisher presents a steadily growing collection of over 1600 individual titles, with a focus on the primary school sector.

Oliver von Kobbe has been with the publishing house since 2007 and has helped shape online marketing, amongst other things as head of the department. As the driving force behind the introduction of Stackfield at Mildenberger Publishing, von Kobbe is motivated to make his and his colleagues' work more innovative and efficient.

Increasing complexity and data protection risks due to Excel and Jira

When von Kobbe started his job at Mildenberger Publishing almost 17 years ago, things looked different than they do today. He remembers lots of piles of paper on the desk and in the cupboards to get organized. At that time, it wasn't a big problem since the company was smaller. There was an overview and the workload in marketing was easy to manage by a small team.

However, as the publishing house grew in size and processes became more complex, the company was forced to use various external tools. Projects were organized using Excel spreadsheets and shared with external service providers via email. Unfortunately, this often resulted not only in endless email threads but also in duplicates and different file versions. Von Kobbe explains: Occasionally, those involved didn't know for sure which Excel list was the current one. People sometimes worked with different versions and it became more confusing and complicated to exchange information on different topics.

For some time, the company therefore tried to structure the projects visually with Lucidchart to support the Excel spreadsheets and later added Jira for more comprehensive project management. Although the publishing house was actually satisfied with Jira, data protection guidelines ultimately put a spanner in the works.

Stackfield impresses with high data protection standards, user-friendliness, and fair prices

After Jira was discontinued as a collaboration tool at the beginning of 2021 for data protection reasons, Oliver von Kobbe became aware of Stackfield through a recommendation from a colleague who had read about Stackfield as a secure, German collaboration tool. Since Stackfield was convincing from a data protection perspective, von Kobbe did not hesitate for long and familiarized himself with Stackfield's functionalities.

Above all, he liked Stackfield's uniform, clear and uncluttered user interface. Compared to Jira, Stackfield was not equipped with too many bells and whistles and he was sure he could convince his colleagues to use it effectively. Stackfield was secure, intuitive, and inexpensive, so the decision was quickly made.

Every new user received a link to Stackfield's Learning Center and a personal introduction. As the tool's benefits were also quickly apparent to the staff, the introduction did not pose a major problem and familiarization with the new tool was quick.

Collaborating with external parties without problems

Today, Stackfield supports Mildenberger Publishing in the further development of the online store, among other things. All collaboration and communication relating to the project takes place in a Stackfield room. If, for example, a look-inside-the-book is to be implemented in the store, a new task is created in the room's Kanban board.

New tasks end up in the Preliminary consideration column. All tasks stored here are checked and prepared for the external programmer, for example concerning time frame and technical implementation. The task is then moved to the next column To do. This column contains all subtasks to be implemented by the programmer. Each of the tasks is assigned a priority using custom labels. The task then moves via the In progress and For review columns to the Approved and ready to go live column. Finally, after finalization, it is filed in Completed for documentation.

In the comments section of the task, the programmer can ask questions and share screenshots with the team at any time. The task therefore contains all the communication for the feature to be implemented. This way, Stackfield's functionalities allow the Mildenberger team to collaborate in a clear, sustainable, and transparent way, even with external people.

Complex marketing processes are displayed simply and clearly in Stackfield

Stackfield has become a valuable companion for Mildenberger Publishing. Almost all marketing campaigns are planned, created, implemented, and documented in Stackfield, says von Kobbe, presenting five of the numerous processes:

• Stackfield plans, prepares and documents the success measurement of external advertising via print and newsletter.
• Ideas are created as tasks in the Kanban board and thus, prepared for the team to discuss and assign them directly at the Jour Fixe.
• Sub-tasks are created, individually dated, and assigned to be able to work through the many steps involved in revising and updating brochures.
• The complex accessibility project is handled in a separate project room, allowing the revision and updating of the store to be processed and finally tracked together with an external service provider.
• The annual planning of the online trade fair in the shop has become "much more relaxed", as the work on the trade fair from previous years is documented in Stackfield and tasks can be copied and adjusted with just a few clicks.

Stackfield relieves the publishing house in its day-to-day work

Today, Oliver von Kobbe is grateful that he can rely on Stackfield every day. He is regularly reminded of important tasks and activities during My Week and knows that he can relax and work on many different projects at the same time with less stress, without having to worry about overlooking or forgetting anything.