Essential Software for Your Agency.

^{The software, subscriptions, tools and trackers you need for your digital marketing agency.}

Digital marketing agencies can be complex machines with many moving parts. At any one time, invoices need to be sent, projects need to be managed, leads need to be generated and clients need to be serviced. 

So, it’s essential you have the right tools at your disposal to minimise your workload and allow you to scale your agency.

Here, we discuss some software must-haves and recommend some great tools to help you with your agency.

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Lead Generation Software

Constant and consistent lead generation is vital to the success of any digital marketing agency.

Luckily, there are several excellent lead generation tools that allow you to automate this process.

D7 Lead Finder is one of the most popular and powerful tools to create lists of leads in a specific geographic area according to a keyword.

For example, if you ran a digital marketing agency that catered towards real estate agents in Jackson, you would be able to produce a list of businesses, emails, addresses, social media channels – and more.

D7 Lead Finder also permits five free searches every day.

Plans range from 10 daily searches and 3,500 daily leads to 100 daily searches and 30,000 leads.

MyIP.MS – the World Web Sites Hosting Information Directory - acts as an online directory of eCommerce stores when you insert the filter for Top Level Host as Shopify.com

Price:

D7 Lead Finder – from US$29.99 /month

MyIP.MS – free

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Project Management Tools

Any digital marketing agency owner will tell you that a good project management tool is worth its weight in gold.

And there is no shortage of tools: Monday.com, Asana and Basecamp all offer a combination of tools, calendars, to do lists, reminders, notes and more to suit most businesses.

At AgenciFlow, we created an innovative task management system specifically for agency owners. This software allows you to switch seamlessly between internal and client communications – and minimise ad hoc client communication by allowing them to check in on the progress of every task in real time.

Price:

AgenciFlow – from US$95.00 /month

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Outreach Tools

Outbound prospecting is the next step in the client acquisition process. It’s often time consuming – and riddled with rejection – which is why the ability to track and automate this process is so vital.

Snov.io offers a free email tracker which shows you if – and how many times – your email has been opened, as well as whether any links have been clicked. This is a simple way to track manual email outreach.

Lemlist is our favourite automated email outreach tool with clear but power functionality and the ability to endlessly personalise outreach. Their Lemwarm tool also ensures your email deliverability remains high.

Price:

Limelist – from US$50.00 /month

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Invoicing Software

Getting paid on time is the bane of every agency owner’s life.

Luckily, payment processors like Stripe or PayPal have reduced reliance on traditional ‘bank transfers’ ensuring swift payment.

Some tools even offer the ability to automate payment, meaning that you can save your client’s card details on file and ‘auto-bill’ on a monthly – or more regular basis.

This ensures swift payment and removes the need to chase your clients monthly, improving your relationship and retention.  

AgenciFlow integrates with Stripe, PayPal and bank accounts, allowing you to take payment and set up recurring billing from directly inside the platform – removing the need for additional software such as SimpleInvoices or QuickBooks.

Price:

AgenciFlow – included with standard plan (as above)

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Design

Although most digital marketing agencies – especially those which offer content creation or social media management – may have access to a full-time designer or Photoshop, it’s always handy for non-design orientated members of your agency to be able to quickly design a post or put together a proposal that looks the part.

That’s where Canva comes in, offering a wide range of pre-designed templates for everything from Instagram Stories to monthly reports.

You can also create animated stories and even TikToks – or film yourself as you present a document.

With a premium plan, you can also create brand kits and upload custom fonts, and designate colour schemes.

Price:

Canva – free

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Calendar

Whether you’re trying to book a meeting with a prospective client or trying to align your diary with your contractor in another country, it helps to remove the back-and-forth on emails of your availability.

Calendly syncs to your calendar (or multiple calendar) and allows you to offer bookable ‘appointments’ – either via a dedicated calendar link, or by embedding a widget on your website.

Price:

Canva – from $8/month

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Communication

The pandemic brought software like Slack and Microsoft Teams into the international consciousness with many people working from home for the first time.

These instant messaging services proved invaluable for instant communication with team members and clients alike.

However, many users reported frustration at needing to check yet another communication channel – often being chased across email, phone and in their project management tool.

AgenciFlow’s messaging facility integrated in the same platform meaning that while you use your manage tasks, you can speak to your team and client’s without switching software or even windows.

Loom is another tool which is invaluable to digital marketing agencies and other businesses alike.  Available as a desktop application or Chrome extension, you can use this to record your screen, camera and microphone at the same time – an easy way to illustrate what’s on your screen.

This video can then be sent in a link via email or message.

Price:

AgenciFlow – included with standard plan (as above)

Loom – free

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File Management

A proper file management system is essential to keep track of assets, copy, reports, and more.

Google Workspace makes file management easy and allows you to create Shared Drives which can be access by multiple team members – or even users external to your organisation.

Google’s plans also offer high levels of memory capacity meaning you’re able to store large files on the cloud, rather than relying on physical storage.

Price:

Google Workspace - from $6/ per user per month

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Miscellaneous Tools

• Grammarly – available as a Chrome extension, this tool checks your grammar and spelling
• LastPass – an easy-to-use password management system that allows you to share multiple logins between users without exposing the password
• Hunter.io – this plugin helps you find prospects’ emails

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Secret top tip: how to get the best price on software subscriptions

Paying for multiple software subscriptions can get expensive quickly.

That’s why we’ve produced a free guide on how to save a fortune on monthly subscriptions and get the best price.

We spoke to agency owners and software company founders to get the behind-the-scenes secrets you’ll want to hear to secure discounts or even get software for free!

Simply enter your email below and we’ll send you the free guide.