As your business grows, so do its operational challenges. But when you’re a marketing business owner, spending too much time dealing with administrative tasks and work organization can hinder your productivity and creative juices.
Luckily, great, reliable software can take care of most of your administration and help you maintain organized and accurate information about your work to present to a growing record of clients.
So, today, we’re helping you learn what tools are worth investing in and how they can help advance a marketing business.
Why do you need software to grow a marketing business?
According to a study on the role of IT in entrepreneurial business growth, information technology can propel innovation and foster expansion in entrepreneurial businesses. The study names the following benefits of using software in any business:
- Enhancing operational efficiency,
- Broadening market penetration,
- Stimulating business innovation,
- Expediting product development, and
- Improving customer satisfaction and building better client relationships.
An expert we talked to, Christina Lyon, entrepreneur and CEO of Lyon Content, agrees. In fact, she believes that she wouldn’t have been able to grow her business without the use of tools:
“As the CEO of a marketing agency, tools free up time in my schedule. They automate routine systems and streamline operations like time tracking, emailing, invoicing, etc. so that I can focus on client retention, relationships, and team rapport. I wouldn’t have been able to scale my business to a team of ten with a robust client roster without using automation, management, and time tracking tools.”
If you need even more convincing, here’s what marketing experts and business owners have to say about the reasons to use software for growing your marketing business.
Software performs repetitive tasks more accurately and efficiently
As you employ more people and take on more clients, you’re likely to experience an increase in the number of administrative tasks you have to perform. But if you were to complete them manually, you would risk errors and boredom — not to mention that you would probably waste so much time.
Luckily, using the right tools would ensure more efficient use of your time and more accurate administrative processes — especially when you’re constantly dealing with the same tedious tasks.
For instance, the owner of Nautilus Marketing, Tom Jauncey, relies on software to make his business operations more straightforward:
“Using software makes your business operations much easier as it can help you centralize data and automate repetitive tasks.”
Software can help bridge the staff shortages
Based on Indeed’s calculation, hiring a new employee costs most companies anywhere from $4,000 to $20,000 — excluding salary and benefits.
Adding new members to your team is an exciting aspect of a growing business. But, the hiring process can be pretty costly and take a long time. Luckily, good software can help you cover the basics while you’re waiting for a new hire.
Better yet, it could offload your creatives, allowing them to focus their efforts on marketing tasks.
According to Jordan Stevens, owner of Jordan Stevens Digital Marketing Consulting, not only do tools help you perform tasks more efficiently, but they also reduce the need for additional hiring:
“Automation allows you to scale by increasing the amount of work you can complete in the same amount of time. It gives you a chance to offload tasks that otherwise would need a person to finish.”
Director of Mustard, Justin Quek, agrees and adds that the right software allows business growth without going through the difficulties of finding more people:
“We can scale business with fewer people. It’s hard to find the right people — scaling headcount is always harder.”
Software allows you to focus on the bigger picture
A growing company comes with many new challenges, one of which is spending much more time strategizing and adapting. Luckily, when you’re not wasting time on minor tasks, you can focus on strategic actions and the bigger picture.
Jauncey explains that automation allows him to focus on business goals and strategic activities:
“You can improve your business’s productivity and scalability with the help of automation. For my business, I automate daily tasks like posting on social media handles, email marketing, and much more. It allows me to focus on my major business goals and strategic activities.”
Brand strategist and copywriter at The Branding Psychologist, Liv Steigrad, believes that software allows her to use her brainpower for high-level strategic work:
“As a business owner with ADHD, the right tools are the difference between strategy and success or stress and chaos. As my business has grown, software and tools have both allowed me to increase my efficiency and focus my brainpower on higher-level, more strategic work — for myself and my clients. I use automation and software in every area of my business.”
What’s more, Founder and CEO of VM Digital, Vladimir Milic, notes that automating repetitive tasks allowed more important tasks to become the focal point of their work:
“By automating repetitive tasks, we free up valuable time for our team to focus on more strategic and, to be honest, important activities. Automating business operations has had a great deal of impact on our growth.”
Lastly, Quek uses tools for insights that guide their client strategies:
“As an agency – software can really streamline our workflows and provide our team with insights to guide our client’s strategy.”
So, what tools do you need for your marketing business growth?
You’ve already invested in software that helps you cover marketing basics. So, the question is — what other tools are worth investing in when growing a business?
Above all, you need reliable software that streamlines your marketing business operations as they continue growing.
The founder of Local SEO Help, Lonnie Jones, believes that the tools that automate repetitive tasks and help him distribute resources are the key to effective operations:
“Software tools have helped us streamline our operations. Whether it’s project management, time tracking, or communication, software has enabled us to automate repetitive tasks and allocate resources more effectively.”
So, if you’re ready to invest in good value software, these 3 powerful tools will be your allies in facilitating business growth.
Moving away from manual task management with Plaky
As reliable project management software, Plaky allows you to easily stay on top of your projects, assign work to team members, and get status reports for every task.
Milic uses Plaky to ensure his team meets deadlines:
“Plaky’s task management and project tracking allow us to keep projects on schedule.”
Moreover, Stevens uses project management software to ensure proper project collaboration within the team and with clients:
“[PM tools] help keep the team on the same page and facilitate conversations around project progress and quality — all things that clients are concerned about — which makes supporting a client and communicating with them easier.”
Furthermore, the Web Editor at Ocean Power, Pavel Buev, believes that project management tools allow for more accuracy and control:
“The [PM] system allows you to control any tasks. An experienced manager immediately sees weaknesses [in task and time allocation] and makes decisions to improve these processes. Performers see deadlines and can evaluate future tasks for the project. We work according to the Agile methodology — our Sprint takes a week. Such a system allows you to predict with great accuracy the list of tasks that will be implemented in each Sprint.”
Plaky also lets you manage agile projects. With this software, you can:
- Use the Kanban view to visualize projects from start to finish,
- Track every change in each board by accessing the activity log, and
- Collaborate in real time within the item card’s comments section.
Further reading
Looking for tips on managing your remote team better? Read this guide:
Accurately tracking your work to present it to clients in Clockify
Jauncey notes that time tracking is a must for keeping track of your billable time:
“If you want to manage the growth of your team — implementing time tracking tools is a must! I use them to monitor the productive and billable hours since they must be accurately recorded.”
As a reliable time tracking tool, Clockify allows you to accurately track every hour you and your team have worked as well as mark them as billable to present to clients. What’s more, you can define billable rates for every person in your team as well as group billable tasks into projects and assign them to clients.
As Steigrad highlights, Clockify can also inform your decisions on pricing and time allocation:
“I’m a dedicated time tracker. I used to use Toggl but have since switched to Clockify, which I prefer because of the excellent Chrome plugin. Accurately tracking my time means I can see where my efforts are most profitable and where I need to make some changes. That information informs the services I offer, my pricing, and how I schedule my projects.”
For an overview of how much time his team spent working and better work organization, Milic makes the most of Clockify Reports:
“The detailed reporting and analytics help us understand how our time is spent and where, and most importantly, how we can optimize our efforts.”
With Clockify Reports, you’re able to break down each project-related cost as well as time spent on every task within the project. This information helps you make budget and time estimates for future projects.
Ensuring proper communication in a growing team with Pumble
One of the biggest challenges companies face is enabling good communication within a team that’s constantly growing. VP of Digital Marketing at A Digital Media Company, Julie Keating, explains that proper communication is essential for task coordination:
“When you are growing a marketing business, you have a lot of people coordinating tasks at various levels with the same client. Since most marketing agencies have creatives that work on-site or remotely, communication can often present challenges for everyone to stay on task, while also knowing what their next task is.”
Milic highlights Pumble as a simple and useful real-time messaging platform:
“Pumble’s real-time messaging and channel organization is easy to use and helpful at the same time.“
Keating adds that Pumble helped her ensure her team understands their tasks and completes them on time:
“Pumble is a platform that provides an excellent way to communicate using different channels so that you can directly message either an individual or the entire team and make sure that everyone is up-to-date. It is an invaluable tool that we use to meet deadlines and enhance our customers’ experience.”
Pumble is also excellent for maintaining communication throughout a project. It allows you to create channels in which you can discuss and manage each project-related task.
What’s more, as Jauncey explains, communication software such as Pumble saves time and lessens email clutter:
“I use communication software to maintain clear communication between team members and clients. It helped me improve team collaboration and reduce email clutter by 50%.”
Further reading
Plaky, Pumble, and Clockify are part of the CAKE.com family. Read how the CEO of VM Digital uses these tools to improve job performance:
Covering growing operational basics with the CAKE.com Bundle
At $12.99 per seat/month, Plaky, Clockify, and Pumble now come together in the CAKE.com Productivity Bundle.
The bundle has many perks, one of which is that all 3 tools are fully upgraded to their Enterprise plans. This gives you access to every feature available, along with advanced integrations, SSO, and custom domains.
Milic highlights the importance of good value for marketing business owners with growing operations:
“Pricing is a crucial factor when selecting tools for a growing business. While functionality and features are important, the cost must align with our budget to ensure sustainability. We need tools that offer a good balance between cost and benefits.”
Aside from providing excellent value for your money, the CAKE.com Bundle comprises tools that complement each other, as they’re created to be used together. So, you’ll be able to integrate them with each other for a seamless experience.
For instance, the Pumble team chat integration for Clockify allows you to chat with your teammates directly within the Clockify workspace. You can send messages, receive notifications, and even share files and links within Clockify.
Furthermore, the Plaky time tracking integration enables you to track time on tasks you perform in Plaky.
The Clockify browser extension allows you to turn the time tracking timer for Plaky tasks on and off. It even fills out the information on the task you perform based on your inputs in Plaky. And, once you’re done, you can view your activities in Clockify and even run reports on the tasks you performed.
Further reading
Interested in learning how the CAKE.com Bundle came to be? Read the story behind the bundle here:
Find a reliable tool combo that helps your growing business
You’ve heard it straight from experts — investing in the right tools helps you perform tasks more accurately and allows you to focus on the bigger picture. These benefits become even more important when facing the challenges of a growing marketing business.
Luckily, powerful tools can simplify your communication and work organization, as well as time tracking and reporting to clients. They cover all of the basics of a business operation to allow you to focus on your creativity and grow your business even further.