Managing a busy marketing agency usually comes with a diverse range of responsibilities, duties, and challenges that vary with each project. With so many tasks to allocate and complete, often within the temporal confines of demanding deadlines, there’s a clear need for the simplification and streamlining of many processes.
Manually carrying out projects via conventional correspondence will only lead to an inefficient workflow. Instead, almost all modern marketing agencies use a few software tools and online platforms to facilitate advanced collaborative efforts.
Whether you’re looking for ways to enhance your own marketing campaigns, refine the strategies employed by your team, or you’re simply wondering how the big agencies are able to keep up with such massive workloads, the list below will help you achieve any of those goals.
1. Project Management Platforms
Ultimately, managing a marketing agency is all about managing individual projects. In fact, one could argue that as the manager of a marketing agency, you’re essentially a project manager with a special skill set. Like many other corporate collaborations, marketing projects typically require the concerted effort of a diverse group of remote professionals ranging from writers to web designers. To successfully allocate and keep track of such versatile and extensive workloads, most busy marketing agencies will utilize one of the top project management platforms.
These tools make it easy to create, edit, share, and store digital files within a system that allows for live chat, group video sessions, and the scheduling/monitoring of employee efforts. In essence, it gives you a central dashboard where you can assign tasks, make sure they’re being done on time, and manage all of your receivables within a single interface.
2. Time Management Apps
While many project management software will have at least a few time management features, using a separate scheduling app is a common preference amongst marketers. Time management apps help you achieve optimal productivity by segmenting your work days into small blocks. Having one of these tools installed on your mobile devices also makes it easy to keep your schedule with you everywhere you go. Some of these tools will let you set up a chain of timers that run consecutively, making it possible to enforce the most stringent possible output requirements for your employees.
Precise time management works to maximize potential and reduce the likelihood of mishaps because you’re keeping tighter control over every minute of the day. Instead of saying to a team member “I need this done by the end of the day,” when you know the task will only take an hour to complete, you could say “I need it done within the hour.” Busy marketing agencies need to maintain such hourly and daily deadlines to ensure they’re keeping up with an ever-expanding workload.
3. Accounting Software
Busy marketing agencies deal with dozens or even hundreds of clients, creating an obvious need for efficient and comprehensive accounting systems. Initially, many small marketing groups will use spreadsheets and other forms of manual record-keeping. Many times, this simplified approach will work for quite a while with no problems, and may even work indefinitely if you’re organized enough. However, having a designated accounting software can drastically simplify the process of keeping financial records, filing taxes, and devising highly accurate budgets.
Of course, every successful marketing firm should also have a go-to professional accountant on stand-by to ensure that everything is being done in a fully compliant and legal manner. Still, even with the best CPA on your team, it’s always necessary to have a system for inputting accounting details on a daily basis, which is where software like Xero and Quickbooks come into play.
4. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software
Busy marketers not only have to manage the tasks involved in completing projects for clients, they also have to manage their correspondence with a large list of contacts and leads. Customer relationship management software provides a more professional alternative to the typical email client or list-building tool.
These programs help you keep track of hundreds or even thousands of customers and leads within an interface that allows you to send out mass emails, target audiences based on demographics, and complete all the other steps that are involved in the management of an advanced CRM campaign. Since this is a relatively new field of enterprise software, many agencies haven’t started using CRM tools yet. Thus, by looking into this software type and incorporating it into your management process, you’ll be in a class of elite marketers and early adopters.
5. SEO & Competitive Analysis Tools
Most marketers are already using some sort of SEO tool to conduct keyword research and analyze the competition, which is why this kind of software is mentioned last. Nonetheless, you simply can’t have a list of the most essential marketing software without covering SEO and competitive analysis.
On the other hand, there are still many smaller marketing agencies who only use a couple of online tools to check analytics. For those marketing managers who are not yet proficient in using a suite of SEO tools, focusing on improving your skills in that area will be absolutely necessary if you want to scale up.
A Well-Rounded Toolkit Has Become Practically Mandatory
Since marketing is a digital trade, professionals in this field need to keep up with advancements in order to avoid becoming obsolete in comparison to their competitors. Obviously, if your competitors are using tools that give them a significant advantage, you need to be using those tools as well to stay relevant in an increasingly saturated online advertising industry. Maximizing the productivity of your team will help you provide a more satisfactory experience to clients because they’ll be able to see the results of the marketing efforts faster. This is important because no client wants to feel as if they’re paying for a slow service that will delay their business progress. As such, having a versatile toolkit has become a necessary prerequisite for any seriously competitive marketing agency.
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