12 useful software tools for marketers

The way we work is changing, but luckily workers are adapting to the changes. If it were up to many business owners, they’d like their staff to work beyond the maximum business hours, but there are employment laws in place to prevent that.

To fix this, there are now tools that businesses can use to improve their employees’ productivity. Employers are investing in alternative business tools that can help you improve your team productivity. From utilising HR software to ease the holiday booking process, or managing shift rotas to password managing software to help employees managing many accounts to different sites.

There’s an abundance of tools that businesses can use to improve productivity, but how would you know which tools are right for your business? Before choosing your productivity tools, it is important to understand how your team works and the processes you have in place to identify any sources of concern.

In this article, we’ll list our 12 favourite software tools that SMEs can implement to improve productivity in the workplace.

1. Lastpass is a password management tool. If you work with multiple sites and accounts, you can save passwords to individual accounts on Lastpass for easy logins. From bank accounts to emails, social media, WordPress, email and more, employees can save time and energy accessing accounts. You’ll never have to remember your passwords again.
2. Slack is one of the best and most popular tools for communication within the office. Its features include team and individual chats, timely notifications, cross-functional communication as well as integrating features. Slack helps your employees stay informed, collaborate and communicate faster than they would with emails.
3. Google Docs has taken a massive step in terms of contributing to productivity around the office. Their document collaboration tool allows people to create and contribute to documents, presentations and spreadsheet at the same time and from anywhere with access to the internet. Not only does this help improve productivity, it also helps to reduce clutter on your computer and in your email.
4. Calendly is an online calendar that allows professional offices to schedule meetings without the pesky back and forth. It allows you to select the hours that you want to see clients and then lets your clients select a time that is convenient to them. This tool is adaptable to a variety of industries and can even be embedded into your website to integrate with other tools.
5. Trello is a rising power in the productivity app industry. It is particularly popular for businesses that deal with process-based projects and tasks. This is a free tool for small and medium size businesses.
6. Buffer allows publishers to broadcast on all of their social media accounts. It is a one-stop shop for managing your company’s and client’s social media accounts. It allows you to link your twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and more to the same account, allowing multiple updates with the click of a button.
7. Mailchimp is perfect for businesses dealing with email marketing. It allows customers to manage their subscribers, email list, send out campaigns, send out campaigns to selected segments and more.
8. Blip by BrightHR is a clocking system that allows you to keep an eye on your employees. It takes the employee time clocking system away from old-fashioned methods and presents an upgraded system. Blip tracks and records your team’s work hours making it easier for you to see a full history of how long and how often their breaks are.
9. Dropbox is similar to Google’s document sharing tool. Although you’re not able to carry out multiple contributions, you can share large or multiple files with colleagues. For the fans of Microsoft, you can now integrate your Hotmail or office 365 account which allow for co-editing between teams.
10. Google’s keyword planner is a free tool that is used to research keywords based on relevant topics and areas of your business. Keyword research can help with your SEO, email or social media efforts as it provides you with historical data for specific keywords.
11. Every business needs to be able to write. In-most-cases, they’ll need to write or outsource content to target their audience, this is where the Hemingway editor comes in. It is a digital online tool that checks your content against common errors and readability issues.
12. SEMrush is a marketing software that provides customers with insights into their website, traffic, backlinks, competitors, keywords and more. It allows users to identify trending content, explore link building opportunities and come up with keyword targeting strategies.