To keep our Olive engine running smoothly, it takes dedicated team members, detailed systems, and a wealth of carefully selected products. Every time we look to a new platform or program to assist our Modern Marketing efforts, we do copious research to ensure it’s the best fit for our studio. Here’s a glimpse at some of the tools we’ve selected to power our marketing every day.
Olive’s Most Powerful Tools
1. Adobe Photoshop
For all of your photo editing and design needs, Adobe Photoshop is the way to go. This software is part of their suite of online creative apps, Adobe Creative Cloud, which also includes Illustrator and InDesign. Adobe Photoshop CC puts your work on the cloud, so you can work on the same project from multiple devices and collaborate with team members. Your assets and stock photos are all available directly from Photoshop, so you can pull what you need at any time. Highly recommended for marketing design teams.
2. AP Stylebook Online
AP Stylebook Online is a key resource for content strategists, copywriters, and anyone who contributes to brand copy. The Associated Press Stylebook is a set of grammar, spelling, word use guidelines for writers and journalists. AP Stylebook Online has everything the print version has, yet is always up-to-date with the most current rules. AP will send you an email whenever they have updates, so you’re informed when something changes. AP Stylebook Online is also good for recording your own brand copy guidelines. You can create a unique, searchable brand style guide that sits right next to the AP style guide.
3. Basecamp
Basecamp is an essential internal and client-facing project management tool. This online program puts your project details and communications on one platform so conversations, details, drafts don’t get lost in the shuffle—a common pitfall of email. Add relevant team members to each project, so everyone who needs to be notified is messaged—no CCing required. Organize each project, create deadlines, and assign tasks to ensure each project stays on track. Share work and collaborate with team members. It’s easy to track the line of communication so you know which drafts, updates, comments came first. Basecamp sends out daily emails with any project changes along with instant updates to selected users. Post work to clients for approval and they can respond with any changes. Once final files are approved, you can archive a project to keep your dashboard clean and organized.
4. Dashlane
Dashlane is a password manager and autofill agent. This tool is beneficial for remembering and organizing your library of passwords. Dashlane recommends more complicated passwords so you’re information is safer online and automatically logs you into websites, so you don’t need to remember each password. With the business plan, you can share passwords and information with colleagues securely. You can also save credit card information, addresses, receipts, emails, and more. Dashlane is free to download for individual use and business plans are available for a monthly fee.
5. Elfster
During the holidays, Elfster is the studio hero. This fun program facilitates secret santa effortlessly. It automatically and anonymously draws names, so everyone, even the organizer, can join in on the fun. Participants can request items, ask anonymous questions, and thank their secret santas. You can also organize and invite colleagues to your holiday party. Elfster helps take the stress out of planning secret santa and holiday events, and it’s completely free to use.
6. Feedly
Feedly is a free, first-rate online newsfeed. Use this platform to curate articles, blog posts, videos, and content that interests you. Add select publications and create categories to keep them organized. Every time your selected news outlets publish new content, it appears in Feedly so you can stay up-to-date on the topics you’re most interested in. You can also share articles to your social media channels directly from Feedly. For a faster and more powerful search, more social share channels, and integration with Evernote, Pocket, OneNote, and Dropbox, sign up for Feedly Pro at $5.41 per month. For even faster search and Trello and Office 365 integration, try their Team plan at $12.08 per month.
7. GatherContent
If you’re looking to streamline the content creation process, you may want to check out GatherContent. This online platform acts as a hub for all of your content marketing efforts, from ideation to draft to content approval. GatherContent excels at customization. Organize your content system any way you like—sort by client, campaign, type, or a differentiator of your choosing. Build structure templates for each type of content, so content creators know exactly which content to provide and where to place content within a document. Pricing starts at $66 per month for 500 items and goes up to $216 for up to 2,000 items.
8. Google Products
Gmail. Calendar. Docs. Maps. Chrome. AdWords. Slides. Sheets. Each of these products is ingrained in our daily operations. Google’s suite of more than 50 products helps with almost every aspect of business and many of them are available for free. Google is responsible for our daily email communications, business presentations, Internet browsing, and more. These tools unify our efforts and have a hand in almost every aspect of our business. While it would take five more blog posts to cover the wealth of features each tool offers, we recommend checking out their products page and starting with the ones that can benefit you the most.
9. Google Hangouts Chrome Extension
This free extension is perfect for communicating instantly with colleagues. Google Hangouts is a text and chat app. The Chrome extension moves hangouts to your desktop so you can chat with colleagues while multitasking on other important projects in your browser. A great way to discuss collaborative projects without having to walk to your colleague’s desk or set up a formal meeting.
10. Hashtagify
Hashtagify lends a hand to social media hashtag research. Search for any hashtag and discover its popularity and related hashtags. By searching for relevant hashtags, you can join your audience in existing conversations. Hashtagify is free to use online. To perform competitor and influencer research and additional services, purchase Hashtags Lab. Their Business plan is $59 per month, but they have a wealth of other plans ranging from free to $299 per month to fit your company needs.
11. HubSpot
HubSpot is our marketing, sales, and customer relationship management platform of choice. Our website, blog, social media posts, landing pages, and marketing emails are all published directly from the platform. Because HubSpot is also a CRM, our leads and customers are updated automatically as they move through the customer journey. This ensures each customer is met with a personalized, on-brand experience. We highly recommend considering HubSpot’s marketing platform for your team. Pricing starts at $200 per month for a Basic plan and reaches $2,400 per month for an Enterprise plan. A reasonable price for a holistic marketing automation platform.
12. Mailbird
Mailbird is a handy email client for Windows. It integrates all of your email, calendar, task management, and messaging apps to one platform. You can also add apps including Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, Google Docs, and Dropbox, so you can view their feeds and files from your desktop. Drag and drop your emails to your tasks list so you can prioritize responding to email along with other important tasks. Mailbird is customizable, so you can choose the layout and color scheme that fit your style best. Mailbird Lite, with basic functionality and integration of three email accounts, is free to download. Choose from Mailbird Pro at $6 per month for the first year or Mailbird Pro Lifetime at a one-time fee of $22.5 for additional features and functionality, including unlimited email account integration, touch integration, and an email speed reader.
13. MockFlow
MockFlow is an online design suite for designers and developers. Within MockFlow’s Design Cloud you can create UI mockups, collaborate on designs, organize your in-development apps, design and develop websites, annotate images, and design banners, brochures, and timelines. MockFlow offers a free trial and limited use plan, a $14 per month plan for full access and one designer license, and a $29 per month plan for full access and three designer licenses.
14. ProWorkflow
This online tool is key for agencies or marketers with an account-based strategy. Create individual projects and sort them by client with ProWorkflow project management software. Within each project, you can delegate tasks to your team members and track their progress and time spent on each task. Sort projects by client, title, priority, start or end date. When projects are complete, simply archive them so your interface stays current with active projects. Three plans make up ProWorkflow’s pricing model. Choose from a Solo plan at $10 per month per user, a Professional plan at $20 per month per user, or an Advanced plan at $30 per month per user.
15. Quill
Quill is a premier site for office supplies and snack ordering: an office assistant’s dream. Shop and pay for all of your office needs in one place. Quill has a wide variety of items for every budget and office style. They offer fast and free shipping for orders over $45 and always have great sales, coupons, and freebies available. You can choose to pay immediately or receive a bill so your accounting team can pick the payment plan that works best for them. Once you create a Quill account, all of your preferences, past orders, and searches are saved, so you can quickly and efficiently reorder.
16. Raven
Do you have to create monthly marketing reports for your marketing campaigns? Raven will make your job a little bit easier. Raven integrates more than 20 data sources (including Google Analytics) to collect SEO data and automatically deliver it in a beautiful, interactive report. You can choose which data to include, based on what’s relevant to you. Raven also includes a site auditor so you can spot areas for SEO improvement, such as page speed and mobile compatibility. Raven’s Pro plan is $99 per month for four users and their Agency plan is $249 per month for an unlimited number of users.
17. Slickplan
This suite of tools will help plan your next website design. With a sitemap builder, diagram maker, content planner, and design mockups, you can plan out every element of your site through one app, with ease. The sitemap builder encourages collaboration and customization, helping you build a hierarchical sitemap for small and large websites. Slickplan’s diagram maker includes the JJ Garrett symbol library, so you can use a variety of beautiful symbols in crafting diagrams mapping the intended user flow of your site. Upload and create content using the content planner to ensure your site is filled with quality content that’s on-brand, optimized for search, and relevant. Plans range from $8.99 to $89.99 per month, but you can request a free 30-day trial before making any decisions.
18. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a top-notch social media marketing platform. If you have multiple social media accounts to manage or multiple users posting to your social accounts, we suggest checking out this tool. It has all the functionality of typical social media management software—including scheduling posts, browsing feeds, and interacting with followers—in addition to several unique features. Sprout Social tracks data and offers analytics insights for each account, so you can track how your social media efforts are performing and calculate ROI. You can mark social engagements as tasks, so you can respond later, assign posts to team members, and discuss post content. Pricing ranges from their Deluxe plan at $59 per user per month to their Premium plan at $99 per user per month to their Team plan at $500 per month for three users.
19. Sublime Text
Sublime Text is our developer’s text editor of choice. A clean and easy-to-navigate UX facilitates code, markup, and prose development. The Goto Anything feature easily opens files and finds symbols, lines, or words. You can change multiple files and lines at once with their multiple selections tool. Split screen editing and distraction-free mode are key to filling your screen with your work when you need to concentrate at the task at hand. A Sublime Text license is $70 per user but you can download and try the program for free.
20. TeamGantt
TeamGantt is a project manager or marketing team leader’s best friend. This online chart software offers simple drag and drop scheduling. Plan out tasks for each of your team members and organize them with visually appealing and easy-to-comprehend charts. With a quick glance at your charts, you can see who’s free to work on the next project and whose schedule is full. As team members make progress, they can update their project status, so you can see how close they are to reaching deadlines. Request items, assign tasks, or work out project details in one place. TeamGantt operates on a monthly subscription model. Find the plan that fits your team size and budget—pricing ranges from their Basic plan at $29 per month for five users to their Unlimited plan at $249 per month for an unlimited number of users.
21. Thinkstock
Thinkstock by Getty Images is our go-to stock image site. Their library has millions of high-quality stock photography, vectors, and illustrations. Thinkstock’s search interface is simple and easy to navigate, which makes searching their vast library manageable. The images are handpicked for creatives from Getty Images and iStock, so many are perfect for use in a wide array marketing materials. Plus, all images are royalty-free so you don’t have to worry about attribution when using or altering the images for your creative marketing projects. Thinkstock has two pricing models. Choose from an image download pack or a monthly subscription plan, priced at $139 or $208 per month.
22. Tiny PNG
Tiny PNG is a simple tool with a big purpose. Simply drag and drop your .png or .jpg files and shrink the file size. This allows website/app images load quicker without sacrificing image quality. Tiny PNG decreases the number of colors in the image and strips unnecessary metadata, all while preserving transparency. Changes to the original image are barely noticeable to the human eye.
23. WorkLife
You can say goodbye to unproductive meetings with WorkLife. This online tool helps you build meeting structure, give each session a clear purpose, and save valuable business time as a result. Before each meeting, input an agenda, create a time limit, and add colleagues. This outlines clear expectations for the meeting and gets everyone on the same page. Once you’re in a meeting, WorkLife’s online interface features an agenda with a clear time limit, so you can check off each important meeting task within the allotted time. You can also add notes, takeaways, and next steps to ensure you close each meeting with clear action items. WorkLife integrates with Google Calendar, so you can invite colleagues and receive meeting notifications the same way you always do. WorkLife is free for infrequent use, or you can purchase a Business Class plan for only $9.99 per user, per month. The paid plan is ideal for sharing meeting notes with your team, onboarding colleagues, and enhanced user support.
