30 Tools Our Marketing & Sales Teams Can't Live Without
Do epic stuff and convert leads with these tools
Back at the beginning of the year, I shared a blog post with the 13 tools that our team can’t live without. It included the key tools we use everyday to get sh*t done, and you all loved it, but it was only a couple of the main tools we use. So, I’ve been working on a complete list of the tools and programs we use, and turns out, we use A LOT of them!
Here are the 30 tools our marketing and sales teams use all day, every day, for content development and social media management to influencer marketing, communication and organization .
Social media
Hootsuite is a social media scheduling tool that helps you plan and schedule content across platforms and see all of your feeds in the one place. Hootsuite works for Instagram (you get sent a push notification when it is time to post), Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+ and YouTube, so you can schedule all of your content in batches, and Hootsuite will post on your behalf so you don’t have to worry about social media for the rest of the week or month.
Tailwind is an end-to-end solution for Pinterest marketing and I love it! Pinterest is a crazy little world, so it’s important to keep sharing regular content and repins to drive traffic and referrals back to your website. Pinterest is great for brands in the lifestyle space, and we have seen some great results and conversions from the social media platform (you can read more about Pinterest best practices here).
We use Tailwind to schedule pins on Pinterest to maximize reach and ensure content is shared throughout the day (because who has time to play on Pinterest all day, no matter how much you’d like to!). Plus, Tailwind has some great in-built reporting features!
Bitly is a tool used to shorten URLs and track how many clicks they receive, so it’s great for social media managers. Shorten and brand links before sharing them on social and then measure and optimize with link analytics, audience intelligence and performance insights.
To make our own branded and customized graphics, memes and content for social media, we often use Canva. Canva is an Australian start-up (like us!) that was developed to help everyday people create professional content and graphics without needing the support of a graphic designer.Canva is super user-friendly and customizable, so you can create website banners, social media content, posters and flyers, infographics, presentations, cards and business cards, branded letterheads, invitations and even eBook and magazine templates!
While Photoshop does require a level of understanding of the product and its features in order to make the most of the subscription, you don’t have to be a Photoshop pro to start using it! There are heaps of tutorials available online (just Google whatever it is you want to do) and it has become an important tool in our arsenal to resize and edit images, especially for the Scrunch blog!
You know those cute collages you see, with pieces of clothing arranged into a stylish outfit, or a moodboard for an interior design project? Well, you can create these quickly, and easily, with Polyvore! It’s perfect for creating content for social media, or graphics for a blog. You can pin your own products and use them (just install the Polyvore clipper browser extension) or you can search the Polyvore library - there is everything from black blazer to pink velvet couch!
We use stock image libraries quite regularly for our owned media platforms, and also for customer projects. There are a number of online stock image collections that we use, subscribe to and buy imagery from, which are conveniently gathered together here so you too can find high-quality stock images that aren’t cliche and boring.
Communication
Status Hero is a check in tool used by our entire team to share what we are working on and goal tracking, and you can also detail any blockers that you are dealing with. As our team is external (not all in the same office), Status Hero is great because it’s a quick way to know what everyone is working on, and replaces a daily W.I.P (work in progress) meeting - it’s all about the tools that save you time!
Intercom is a tool to effectively communicate with customers and potential customers in real-time. Intercom has features for live chat, marketing, feedback and customer support, so you can get a message to your customers whenever you need to.
Hate emails flooding your inbox? Just want to ask a colleague a quick question? Need to send an update to someone who is out of the office or working externally? We use Flowdock as our company chatroom to connect with everyone on our team individually, and we also have different “flows” for different teams, projects and topics (for example, we have a flow for our marketing team, dev team, one to chat about movies and music etc etc ).
Skype and Google Hangouts
Our team is based in Australia and the USA and our customers are all over the world, so we use Skype and Google Hangouts for communication and meetings. If you can’t be there in person, a video call is the next best thing, and it’s always better to chat almost in person. Both Skype and Google Hangouts are free to use, which is even better when you are connecting with someone internationally!
Influencer marketing
You would know that Scrunch is an influencer marketing platform, and we also have a full end-to-end agency team who can develop, implement, manage and report on your influencer marketing strategy on your behalf. So of course, our agency team uses Scrunch to discover influencers and manage the collaborative process. Sign up for free and see for yourself.
If you have a Google account or use Gmail, you’ll have access to Google Drive and all of its features. It’s great for collaborative projects, as you can update documents (Google Sheets, Google Slides and Google Docs) in real-time, and more than one person can be editing at once, which means you will no longer have duplicate or corrupted files. The Google Drive is also good for sharing large files with other people, and for storing all of your important documents on the internet, so you can access them from anywhere, any time .
InDesign is a page design and layout tool that is used daily at Scrunch HQ to put all of our documents together (reports, proposal, pitches etc). It’s another Adobe product we couldn’t live without and is used by everyone from beginner to experienced, with a little help from some online tutorials and design team, of course!
Email marketing
Mailchimp is one of the most popular tools when it comes to email marketing because it can be customized depending on your needs and it is super user-friendly. Collate lists of new subscribers, implement a drip feed email campaign, drive conversions with your email marketing and more, all with MailChimp. MailChimp also has great reporting and tracking features, so you can discover what is and isn’t working and how you can optimize your strategy for better results.
UTM tracking links are a Google tool that allows marketers to create custom links for their campaigns that are trackable in Google Analytics. You can use the free Campaign URL Builder to add campaign parameters to URLS, so you know what content, copy and links are driving the best conversions. We also use UTM tracking links in social media and other content, but especially in email marketing.
Content marketing
The Google Adwords Keyword Planner is another free and widely available Google tool that helps you optimize your content with keywords that will ultimately help you rank higher in Google. You can see the search volume of keywords and phrases, how competitive the search term is and what the suggested bid is for the keyword, so that when it comes to creating an Adword campaign you can target the copy for the best results. We also use the keyword planner when creating content and titles for the Scrunch blog.
Google Analytics is a free tool that has in-depth reporting and analytical features, yet many marketers, content writers and bloggers don’t know how to use Google Analytics, or don’t know how to make the most of its many features. It’s true, Google Analytics can be complicated, however, the basics are not hard to understand and will dramatically change the way you do content marketing. If you are just starting out with Google Analytics, here are 12 savvy insights you should definitely know how to find in Google Analytics (they are super easy!).
For content distribution beyond your network, look to Outbrain to promote, share and disseminate your content on the web to reach new audiences and drive conversions through content marketing. How does it work? Outbrain’s amplification service can recommend and place your content on the webs largest and most respected media properties that are geared towards your ideal audience. You just select your budget and CPC (cost-per-click) and pay for the visits you receive each day (until you reach your daily limit).
One of my personal favorites , Grammarly is one free tool that I recommend to everyone who uses a computer for a living (yep, it’s not just for marketers!). Grammarly is essentially your own personal spell checker, however, it does much more than highlight misspelled words - it shows you when punctuation is wrong, the wrong tense has been used, when a different word could be used, and, of course, when your spelling is wrong. Grammarly can be installed in your browser and it checks everything you type (on most applications and tools).
Organization
For project management, we use Asana. Keep your personal to-do lists, team projects, upcoming tasks, group conversations and instructions, important files and updates all in the one place, and have a unicorn pop up to congratulate you when you tick things off. What’s not to love!
Lastpass remembers your passwords for you - which is a saving grace when you have (what feels like) hundreds of different tools, applications, programs and accounts to remember for work and play. So, we use Lastpass to keep our passwords secure and also share important passwords with the rest of the team.
Keep it all in the cloud! DropBox is a cloud storage system that can be used by the whole team for important documents, resources and other files, plus, it’s a quick and easy way to share files (especially large ones) internally and externally. Access online from anywhere, on any device, free up space on your computer and never lose an important document again.
Evernote is a digital notebook for anything and everything - from meeting notes, timelines and to-do lists to inspiration and ideas for the future, Evernote is with you everywhere, so you never have to worry about misplacing or forgetting your notebook ever again. You can also save notes in folders around particular topics, so you can access them again quickly and easily.
Another tool connected to your Google account (if you don’t have one, you really should!), is the Google Calendar. Sync it with your emails, schedule meetings and send invites and allocate time to particular tasks so you never miss an important meeting or deadline again. As our CEO and Co-Founder Danielle Lewis says, if it’s not in the calendar, it won’t get done!
I’m sure you’ve heard of Xero, the accounting and online bookkeeping software that is helping small, medium and large businesses manage their admin easily and effortlessly, without compromising professionalism. Some of Xero’s most popular features include sending invoices and quotes, bank reconciliation, inventory, staff wages, purchase orders, expense claims and more. Even Forbes thinks it’s a pretty great tool after identifying Xero as the World’s Most Innovative Growth Company in 2014 and 2015.
Stay organised, prioritise your tasks and manage multiple projects at once with Trello. Create a new board for each department in your business, each staff member in the officer or split jobs up into categories if that works best for you. Then, once your boards are set up, you can add cards in each board, and then items into each card. Sounds confusing, but don’t worry, it’s totally not! I use it to allocate tasks, jot down notes, keep up with what my colleagues are working on, see what future tasks I have to complete, file inspiration and attach documents for future tasks. It’s an interactive to-do list, and the feeling of archiving each item is pure satisfaction.
Sales
If you’ve ever been back and forth with a colleague, client or potential customer via email to organize a time to meet or call that works for everyone, you will know how frustrating the whole process can be (we get it, people are busy!). So, our Sales team use Calendly to set their availability preferences and share the link to their calendar, so people can jump on, view their available times and book it all in without going back and forth via phone or email.
To organize sales leads and track the conversion flow, Base is a helpful CRM (customer relationship management) tool used by our Sales team. Base is the one platform you need to run a Sales team, with reporting and powerful insights thrown in too.
Do you have a tool that supports your sales and marketing team? As a team that works in the digital space, we love finding new tools that make life easier, so leave a comment below if you have a favorite!