At Upright, and every other agency out there, keeping your goals on track is crucial to success. When you have multiple campaigns running at one time it can get hairy fast. Without proper organization questions begin to fly: Who’s in charge of that? What happened to this? When did you make that? Who called this meeting? What were the results? What happened to Tom and the Czechoslovakian account….
What you need in your life is improved technology. For all those slow adapters out there, you can’t deny that technology has made lives way easier around the world. Though life now may be a little more stressful, that doesn’t mean it has to stay more stressful. Picking the right apps can make all the difference. Today I want to share the apps that make my work life better at Upright every day.
My number one most amazing fun app of all time is…
ASANA
If you don’t want to read the rest of this blog post that’s fine. This is the best app of them all! This online app is a fantastic way to keep your team on track and it’s easy to use. With Asana you can start using email less… I know that sounds impossible, but it’s true. Instead of having to coordinate a project over an email string. Make a task, assign it to someone, and pick a due date all at one time. No more needless back and forth. Just streamline the way you think and do things with Asana. I could go on and on about why I love this app, including flying unicorns of encouragement, but here is a great intro video to see what I mean.
Keeping it real with Email:
GMAIL
I’m sure this choice will be controversial to some, but Gmail just does what so many other email clients won’t. One of my favorite features is its online. Its there whenever and wherever you need it. The best part of gmail are the extensions out there! Streak, Side Kick, Gmelius, and Dropbox are just a few i’ve used and love. When you get your extensions in place you can really knock down your stress levels and stay organized. I’m also excited about Gmail developer’s new side project “Inbox”. Once that project is fully ready, I will be thinking about switching over, but in the meantime Gmail is keeping me together.
For the business class version see Google Apps for Work
A great alternative for Windows – (Free & Paid) Mailbird
Great alternatives for Mac – (Paid) PostBox – (Free) Thunderbird
Tracking Results
Google Analytics.There’s just not much out there that can compete with all the tracking functionality of Google Analytics and stay 100% free. It has a bit of learning curve, but there hours and hours of youtube videos explaining everything. We have Google Analytics set up on all of our clients and we encourage you to set it up on your site. You can see behavior flows, set up goals, monitor your income (if you have ecommerce) and so much more.
We also use Raven Tools for some more in depth research. Raven tools is basically an API octopus that grabs data from a bunch of different tools and brings them to a central location. See google analytics reports next to mailchimp reports, next to facebook reports, and so on. There is a lot to learn when diving into Raven Tools, but it’s well worth the investment.
A Powerhouse App:
Hubspot
This is a more expensive solution for many people but it is well worth dishing out the big bucks. Hubspot allows you to track customers and engage with them like never before. Hubspot brings it all to the table and includes features such as:
- Highly targeted emails
- Powerful Automation Workflows
- Ways to integrate with the sales team
- Website analytics.
- Social Publishing
- Social Monitoring
- Awesome contact list management with lead scoring
- And More
Overall Hubspot is our new best friend at work. We love introducing it to our clients and showing them the power. I know for certain we’ll be using it for years to come.
So, what apps do you use? I would love to hear your thought and ideas. Feel free to email me at Jacob@walkupright.com or take the conversation to twitter or facebook.