Top Marketing Tools To Be Thankful For
It’s hard to believe there was a time when marketing teams didn’t have a whole suite of tools at their fingertips. From learning the wants and needs of target audiences to creating engaging content to brainstorming new ideas, there are so many amazing tools that make our jobs easier every day as marketers that we simply can not live without.
This Thanksgiving, the #SliceSquad shared the top tools they are most thankful for.
Canva
One of Senior Social Media Account Manager Caroline Hromy’s favorite tools is Canva! From creating social media posts to downloadable documents, Canva simplifies graphic design with its easy-to-use design features, brand kit options, and thousands of available templates. Whenever she’s stuck working on graphics for clients, Caroline will take a look through the templates to get inspired. Social Media Account Manager Adrian Heredia also really enjoys using Canva. He too likes looking at the different tools and resources that Canva offers and is a big fan of their background remover feature.
Answer The Public
As a content creator, it can be super difficult to feel creative and generate new ideas when multiple clients are expecting your best work. When content strategist Marissa Bruette finds herself in a rut for new ideas, but more specifically relevant ideas, she turns to AnswerThePublic. This site shows what audiences are searching in relation to a topic, keyword, or search query in a specific location. That can be enough to generate a new, relevant and insightful piece of content for FREE.
Adobe Creative Cloud
The Adobe Creative Cloud has a variety of programs geared towards marketing professionals – whether you’re trying to create documents, brochures, newsletters, websites, graphics, or videos, there’s a program and tool for every element of creative marketing and content creation. Content account manager Mary McCusker notes that there is a bit of a learning curve, but once you familiarize yourself with the different Adobe tools in one program (such as PhotoShop), it becomes easier to learn how to use the other programs (such as InDesign or Illustrator). There is also a wealth of free information out there about how to use the software and how to complete just about any task. Mary has been using Adobe Creative Cloud for years now and is still learning new tricks and tools.
Really Good Emails
When working on a brand new email campaign, one of the tools our Email Marketing Account Manager Charlotte Bausch finds the most helpful is Really Good Emails. They have tons of examples for every type of email, and you can filter by industry and message to find just what you’re looking for. When you’re coming up with a new design or message, it’s great to have a jumping-off point!
Monday.com
Dubbed the “Monday.com Queen” by the team, our Agency Marketing Manager Kija Chronister led the charge in implementing this project management system into our everyday work and it’s been a success both internally and externally. Monday.com is completely customizable which gave us the ability to create board templates and workflows that work best for how our agency operates. It also gives us full transparency with our clients who are able to see our weekly metrics as well as custom dashboards to visualize data and show our progress toward our goals.
Marketing Books
This might be old-fashioned, but our Strategy Consultant Tony Sadowski is recommending some light reading. Once you’ve finished reading Pay Attention!: How to Get, Keep, and Use Attention to Grow Your Business and Social Media is About People by Cass and Dana, of course, pick up a copy of Best Practices are Stupid: 40 Ways to Out-Innovate the Competition by Stephen Shapiro. It’s been a favorite of Tony’s for many years because it perfectly encapsulates some important ideas that he wishes more marketers (and heads of companies) would keep in mind when approaching branding, promotions, organizational challenges…anything! If you’re not doing something interesting or different, why should anyone give you their attention? Just because something has been done a certain way in the past doesn’t mean you should be handcuffed to it forever. This book explores how to expand a brand without sacrificing its core principles and the importance of new ideas and fresh approaches to keep your company and your messaging from collecting dust. In the immortal words of Krusty the Clown, “Give a hoot! Read a book.”
