Our Favorite Marketing Tools of 2018
We use quite a few marketing tools over here, and we’re pretty much in agreement on our favorites. If you’re a tool nerd like we are, you’re going to want to see this list. Without further ado, and in no particular order, here are our picks:
1. Mixmax
Mixmax integrates directly with your Gmail and Google Calendar to make scheduling meetings very easy. You can send a list of meeting times and once the user selects a time, it gets added to both of your calendars. It also allows you to send automated emails in a really personal way. Plus, you get analytics on these emails (like opens and clicks) that you wouldn’t if you’d slaved away to send them manually in Gmail.
2. TeuxDeux
This one’s a must-have if we deux say so ourselves. It’s the ultimate task list with a clean, easy interface. You can edit your tasks, drag and drop, and still see them greyed out once they’re crossed off (which is super validating). Tasks automatically carry over to the next day and you can create “Someday” lists for all those random ideas that aren’t deadline-specific.
Pro Tip: In Settings, you can enable flying kittens when tasks are completed. Flying kittens!
3. Campaign Monitor
We regard Campaign Monitor as the designer-friendly version of Mailchimp. The email template capabilities are both more advanced and more user-friendly, resulting in really sharp emails with all the analytics you’d expect. You can also create automated email journeys in Campaign Monitor for your welcome series and drip campaigns.
4. Boomerang
Boomerang is a free extension for Gmail and Outlook that lets you control when you send and receive emails. You can schedule emails that sit in a separate “Outbox” until they’re deployed, get notified if the recipient doesn’t respond within a set period of time, and request for emails in your inbox to resurface at a later date if you’re not ready to deal with them yet. And if you’re someone who can’t ignore your inbox number ticking up when you’re trying to focus, the “Pause Inbox” button provides sweet relief.
5. Our Own Editorial Calendar Template
We use this editorial calendar template ourselves and got it just how we liked it before sharing with the world. It’s organized by quarter to tackle tab overload, and we’ve included space for all of our marketing channels including website, email, social, paid, events, and anywhere else your content lives. You can get it yourself here.
6. Grammarly
The free browser extension every human needs! Grammarly catches your grammatical errors and saves you all that time you spend Googling grammar rules or trying to recall what your eighth-grade English teacher used to say about it. You can always ignore the suggestions if you’re a rebel striving to be incorrect on purpose.
7. Google Data Studio
We know that adding another Google tool to your belt might feel daunting, but this one actually makes life easier. It’s a dashboard for creating fully customizable, automated reports that pull directly from your Google Analytics, Ads, social networks, and other platforms in real time. There are countless plugins to sync with non-Google data sources. We use Data Studio for our own marketing reporting and set these reports up for our clients as well.
We hope at least one of these tools makes your job easier in 2019. Cheers to the new year!
