KEXP Boosts Productivity With Smartsheet

Based in Seattle, KEXP has listeners around the world — and even in space. With expert DJs, inventive musicians both indie and established, and a focus on providing an enriching experience as a non-profit, the entertainment network has a mission to help people discover and love new music.

A five-year period of growth was exciting, but it also gave KEXP a challenge. The station needed to coordinate project work and manage content between teams. Communication had previously consisted of hundreds of impossible-to-track emails per show, and the company’s paper tracking method wasn’t an effective way to stay on top of priorities.

It needed a way to organize and track information. The solution was Smartsheet.

Improve Visibility and Productivity

Janice Headley, Digital Content Manager for KEXP, created the content calendar using Smartsheet. “It was something that was badly needed and something that we tried lots of different ways to create a content calendar,” she says. “And nothing had all the features that we wanted until Smartsheet, which is awesome. I literally used to keep our content calendar in this three-inch plastic binder with paper that I would hole punch. It was so archaic. Now everything's just archived and it rolls over year after year and it's accessible to everyone.”

Using Smartsheet, a handful of sheets automatically update each other, automatically remind contributors to fill in information, and can be reviewed by higher-ups with a glance.

Boosted Fundraising Efforts

In addition to organizing the workflow and content calendar, KEXP uses Smartsheet with its fundraising efforts.

“I build donor lists at the request of our fundraising teams and the way with which you could request the donor list was basically just emailing me and explaining your parameters and what you want included, what you want excluded,” says Andy Klatt, KEXP Information Specialist. “When we finally got Smartsheet, I saw the web forms and I saw that that was an opportunity to build, publish that to our fundraising teams and then whenever they needed a list, simply fill out that form. I wouldn't have to go back and forth and ask is this for an email or is this for a mailing?”

Impactful Time Savings

After implementing Smartsheet, the team at KEXP realized it had previously been wasting a lot of time trying to coordinate and communicate with each other.

“[Smartsheet] eliminated a lot of email thrash that always seemed to happen back and forth,” says Klatt. “Same questions being asked. Smartsheet helps me manage my work and also have an idea of how much work am I actually doing.”

The verdict? “It's a beautiful thing,” says Headley.