The 5 Best Tools for Digital Agencies

Google Drive Services

The Google Drive Services package is a wonderful set of tools for starting any business and completing most projects. Due to their versatility, cloud connectivity, and cost, they’re some of our personal favorites as well as tools that we all use daily at the TDA offices.

Pros:

• Free to use
• Amazing connectivity
• Simple to use
• Auto-saving
• Versatile plugin integration

Cons:

• Data may not be completely secure
• Apps freeze completely when internet drops

Workplace

Workplace, an office chat app by Facebook, is another great tool, as the conversion from Facebook user to Workplace user is pretty much non-existent. This means that any Facebook user can easily understand how Workplace operates because it operates in a near-identical fashion. You can create groups for departments in your business, like groups on Facebook, and hold group-chats as well as individual chats.

Pros:

• Free to use (or $3 per user per month for premium)
• Easy conversion from Facebook
• Simple to understand
• Offers great chat functionality for workplaces
• Aesthetically pleasing design and layout

Cons:

• Not enough business-centered features (is mainly a work chat app)
• Maybe too similar to Facebook (not specialized enough)

Trello

Trello is a card-based team organization tool. Generally, Trello is also great for communicating with external teams, be it development or anything really, if you outsource for a single project or a long-term project, Trello will help you with time management and task prioritization.

Pros:

• Free for most features ($12.50 per team member, per month for premium)
• Minimalistic design
• Free collaboration between Trello board members
• Great for outsourcing projects, and remote collaboration

Cons:

• Somewhat cluttered (with a lot of cards on the page)
• Too many emails regarding comments on Trello cards (w/ default settings)
• Easy to lose a card in the clutter

Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a sales task manager with the intent of maximizing a sales department’s daily tasks with ease. Additionally, Pipedrive enhances department transparency by allowing all members to view each others’ Pipedrives, and enhances department efficiency by prompting a team member to prepare their next tasks (after they complete the first task in that “chain”) ahead of time. Overall, Pipedrive is an excellent tool for any sales department.

Pros:

• $15 per user per month
• Able to process and organize hundreds of leads
• Able to accommodate sales processes easily
• Able to manage and evaluate team (monitor progress)

Cons:

• Overly simplistic design
• A somewhat steep learning curve when training new employees

Productive

Productive is the best one-stop-shop type of tool tailored for agencies of any size. Productive is an innovative, cutting-edge digital tool, and one of the most well-rounded productivity tools on the market. Productive’s features benefit the whole organization, rather than just a single department, which makes it a definite favorite of ours. It supports the entire project lifecycle, from sales to invoicing, and everything in between.

Pros:

• Starts from $12 per month per user (billed annually)
• A fully-featured tool that gives you a lot of bang for your buck
• Onboarding wizard is done nicely
• Very friendly and responsive onboarding team
• Simple 6-step process
• Design and aesthetic of the app is modern and minimalistic (nice stylization)

Cons:

• A bit overwhelming the moment after making an account
• May not benefit large businesses with internal applications crafted for their needs (may not integrate well in this scenario)

As you can clearly see, these apps will definitely increase your business’ efficiency to some degree. No, they may not be a perfect fit for every business, but they’re a good place to start. It takes time to figure out what sort of application is the best for your business, we just hope we helped your research efforts in making this decision.