Using Spreadsheets for Marketing

Turn raw sales data into actionable marketing insights! In this short but powerful lab, students learn how to use spreadsheet tools like Google Sheets to analyze historical sales records, identify top-performing products, and select the best customer segments to target for maximum profit.

Students work with sales data from 30 products (clothing and sports apparel) across four customer personas, applying real-world marketing analysis techniques used by professionals.

What Students Will Do

• Use spreadsheet formulas such as IF, VLOOKUP, and SUMIF to organize and analyze data.
• Create a dynamic summary table that updates automatically based on a selected month.
• Apply conditional formatting to transform their table into a heat map, making patterns easy to spot.
• Analyze sales performance to choose the top 5 products and top 3 customer personas to target.
• Make data-driven marketing decisions that can increase profitability.

Skills Students Will Learn

• Practical use of spreadsheet formulas for business analysis.
• Designing interactive reports with drop-down filters.
• Visualizing data for quick decision-making.
• Identifying trends and patterns in sales data.
• Applying analytical thinking to real-world marketing problems.

Why This Lab Is Valuable

• Shows how marketing and data analysis work together in the real world.
• Develops critical spreadsheet skills essential in business, finance, and analytics careers.
• Encourages data-driven decision making instead of guesswork.
• Prepares students for projects involving market research, sales forecasting, and business strategy.

By the end of this lab, students won’t just know how to write spreadsheet formulas — they’ll know how to use them to tell a story with data and make smart marketing choices that could make or break a campaign.