I går fik jeg et spørgsmål, som jeg gerne ville hjælpe med at besvare. Det handlede om, hvad de...
There are seemingly thousands of productivity tools that claim to structure both personal and work tasks to help you achieve amazing results. Tools make my life easier, but the best tools make it not only easier but also much more enjoyable.
Here you have a few of the tools I use in my daily marketing work. I hope they can be of some inspiration for the design of your personal working environment.
TRELLO FOR SHARING TASKS AND PROJECTS
If you are a marketing department larger than one person you need a tool to organize work among team members. From the very start when an idea sparks inside someone’s head to when you have finished the project.
It can be everything from just a piece of paper to notes on a whiteboard and expand out to specific tasks like putting your flipping book online.
I admit that I like to have things organised for us in the marketing department, but I also like to have some “slack” to avoid feeling the constraints that can develop by using some fancy project management system.
In this case, Trello has come to the rescue for us. Trello is a collaboration tool that organises projects into boards. In one glance, it tells you what the team is working on (blog posts, campaigns, content offers, iPaper news, who’s working on what, and where something is in progress). That is simply what Trello helps us achieve.
To us, it does the job.
We evaluate and update all our Marketing Trello boards every Friday afternoon as preparation for the next
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9 free software tools that make you a better marketer
GECKOBOARD FOR TRANSPARENT SHARING OF KPI’S
OK, now we have all of our marketing tasks organised. The “only” thing missing is to get the work done and evaluate.
To me, evaluation is a process that needs to be as transparent as possible. If you have a KPI that is important to you, I recommend that you show it to everybody in your organisation.
We have KPIs that we share via Geckoboard on big screen monitors. We have a large-screen TV showing status on the usage of our system and how many of our customers put their flipping book online recently. Another screen displays specific marketing KPIs.
These boards make it possible for everybody to see what is critical to the performance and goals and it’s an ideal place for dialogue that can spark some great conversations and idea-sharing.
IA WRITER FOR WRITING STUFF
If you are in marketing, you write!
And then you write some more.
And again.
As right now when I am writing this very blog post.
To me, it is important to be able to stay focused when writing and only have that task
My Urbanears headphones and Spotify playlists are crucial components by providing the perfect background soundtrack in my ears. But you’ll also meet the best text editor for Mac that I know
- iA Writer is a barebones text editor that has removed all possible distractions when you write, making it possible to concentrate on the content.
- You can even make it focus on only the sentence or the paragraph you are writing RIGHT now by dimming the rest of the text on your screen! For me, this is the best of all features.
- Besides that,
iA Writer supports Markdown formatting, making it easy to implement some structure and formatting to your text from the start.
THINGS FOR PERSONAL ORGANISATION
Trello is great for organising tasks and projects between coworkers. However, how do you remember to act on all those small and large individual tasks? For task management, I have for many years relied on the Mac and iOS application “Things”.
I am transparent, but not that transparent 😉
As with iA Writer, I just love the simple and sleek interface that makes it easy to handle and prioritize your daily tasks in Things. Moreover, Things is easy to adjust to your specific preferences –
IPAPER
FOR MARKETING DOCUMENTS
Surprise: I actually do use iPaper in our own marketing efforts 😉
This is crazy:
You can use it too. Just get your free trial:
First and foremost I use iPaper to present free ebooks in a much better way than a PDF ever will be able to (like this one: 3 Steps to the Perfect CTA).
Have a look at this eBook “Designing for Digital” where we enriched the traditional PDF file to and converted it to an online flipping book instead.
Whether you use iPaper or another Digital Publishing Software supplier, it’s always a good idea
This is crucial for any marketing material, as we do not only want leads and clients to map and perceive what they read.
We also want them to make decisions and act on their reading experience.
Moreover, as a marketer, you can at the same time track reader behaviour via the iPaper statistics tools and gain insights into what kind of material makes a difference to your readers. With the new iPaper/HubSpot integration, you can even get information on the reader behaviour of the single contact. It makes a big difference compared to a download of a PDF file where you only see the original form data keyed in by the user when the PDF was downloaded.
Must read: 4 simple tips to succeed with online documents
Use digital flipbooks to:
- track reader behaviour
- capture the impatient online consumer
- convert browsing into sales with direct e-commerce
- drive conversions via user engagement
- collect leads via forms and pop-ups for continuous communication with interested users – and potential customers
- display your range of products in a
catalog format - design a brochure that showcases your services
- present your otherwise static and dull PDFs in a new and engaging way
- accelerate sales for B2B with optimized search functionality
- create customized proposals/brochures for potential and existing customers and partners with their exact logo, preferences and
pricelist . - save time on search in long documents
- easily and instantly update heavy product
catalogs - create an educational flipbook that offers the reader an enriched learning experience
- ensure responsiveness on all platforms and devices
- ensure fast load time
Look:
No doubt that a digital flipbook is an effective marketing and sales tool. If you’re willing to try it out for yourself, dig into this blog post for inspiration:
5 free simple tools to give your flipbook that extra touch.
COFFITIVITY FOR THE PERFECT ENVIRONMENT
This last one may for many people sound a little silly. However, to me, it totally works!
When writing and reading, I need to stay focused and try to remove all distractions that are a natural part of any office environment.
So that got me thinking: Where is the place where I can stay focused on the job and not feel distracted at all? To my surprise, that is not when I work from home or at the office. It’s when I sit in a coffee bar with a nice cup of strong java surrounded by others drinking their cafe lattes and just enjoying the buzz of other people talking and the music playing.
So, why not recreate that exact feeling and sound when you can? The free app “Coffitivity” has that as its only purpose in life. As they say:
“Coffitivity recreates the ambient sounds of a cafe to boost your creativity and help you work better”.
I recommend you try using it the next time you are writing content and text strings for your flipping books, magazines, blog posts or creating online brochures. I find it’s a great help
That’s it! Nothing more, nothing less. Try these productivity tools – they work for me.
