The best marketing tools to boost productivity

Motivation and a solid work ethic are your best assets when it comes to keeping up in a fast moving business, but there are also some solid tools you should add to your arsenal, helping to maximise your efforts and stay afloat when you’re rushing around like a headless chicken!

Here are our favourites.

Trello

Trello is a Kanban-based work management tool that will help members of a team to work more efficiently together. It uses a board system, populated with cards and lists, to show what team members need to do, what they are currently doing and what they have finished. The user interface makes everything easy to read, digest and stay on-top-of and you’ll find features like deadline reminders, email notifications and shared calendars as standard.

If you’re prepared to pay a little extra for the business class upgrade it also connects with other services, like Google Drive, Evernote and Salesforce, and allows large file uploads too, making it a formidable tool for creative folk

From free

Asana

Asana is another solid work management tool, but this one was designed by Facebook alumni Dustin Moskovitz and Justin Rosenstein, who were both tasked with improving productivity at the company.

Asana offers a slightly more in-depth approach to planning, when compared to Trello. It includes the same Kanban-style card system, but also includes more visual and list-centric attributes. The downside is that it might make the app more complicated for newcomers.

Once you’ve come to grips with the app, however, it’s more complete than Trello, and may suit those looking for more functionality over simplicity and ease of use.

From free

TimeCamp

TimeCamp is an easy app to love (and to use). It helps you to track the hours you spend on your work and keep tabs on your productivity levels. It’s a great tool for isolating where and how you waste time, and is a major asset when it comes to keeping on top of invoicing.

From free

Toggl

Toggl is an open source time management app which offers a lot of bang for your buck. It allows you to track time spent on various projects or with various clients, so you can ensure you’re invoicing properly and investing your time in a manner which best suits both yourself and your clients.

The UI is clean and simple; it’s very easy to get to grips with, too, and there isn’t much of a learning curve, which is great news for those who just want to dive right in.

From free

HootSuite

HootSuite is an extensive social media management tool. With it you can monitor multiple streams at the same time, keep up with feedback and client outreach, schedule and post updates to all of your favourite platforms, keep tabs on your analytics in real-time and post sweepstakes, among other things.

WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+ are covered, making it an invaluable tool in a market where social media is king.

From free

Brandwatch

There are few better tools out there for social media monitoring than Brandwatch. The app allows you to stay on top of your brand’s reputation on social media by tracking keywords across myriad sources, giving you the opportunity to stay in-tune with what your client base is saying.

The app offers sentiment analysis, charting features and more, giving you a perfect picture of what’s being said and why – so you can better tailor your output for your user base and fix issues before they become a problem.

For all the good it offers, Brandwatch isn’t cheap, but given the power of social media it should be considered a worthwhile investment for any brand looking to grow.

Price available on request

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