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2 minute read
Project management software is vital to your business as a digital marketing agency. It probably forms an integral part of the tools you use to manage your agency clients.
The options for project managing your business are vast. Many companies will start with simple spreadsheets or personal task management apps to track their projects, but they will likely grow out of these quickly. While they may be reasonable solutions, they soon become inefficient as your teams and projects grow.
As you're reading this article, we'll assume your current system isn't working. Before you begin considering options for new project management software, you should ask yourself some key questions:
What’s not working with your current system?
It won't take much to realise the issues with your system. Why are you embarking on the search for something new?
When using your current system, note anything that doesn't work well or makes things more difficult. Your current system may be missing helpful features. You may need something that can manage more complex needs. It won't be long before you've assembled a list of things to look for in a new system.
What do you need from your project management software?
A good project management solution will allow you to forecast projects, tasks, and workloads. It will also give you visibility on who should be doing what, when, and how. Collaboration, scheduling, assigning, tracking, and deadlines are part and parcel of most project management systems. However, additional features vary from solution to solution.
As a digital marketing agency, we often advise our clients on choosing project management software. We can recommend software that will improve their business processes and have experience with which systems work well and which don't.
Features
If you need to keep track of hours spent on particular projects and clients, you need a good time-tracking system. While many platforms offer this, you should look into how time is tracked and recorded. You want something intuitive, user-friendly, and suited to your business.
If reporting is critical to your business, look for solutions that display project progress (including a budget, timelines, and invoicing) in beneficial formats.
In an ideal world, you'd choose one solution that would integrate everything you need. However, solutions like this are difficult to come by. If you use third-party apps indispensable to your business, ensure your chosen project management solution integrates with them.
Future planning
If you're a growing business, you need to look ahead and forecast features you might find helpful. Switching between software management platforms is timely and involves uprooting your business and training your team on the new system. Whilst it's all very well implementing a solution that offers everything you need now, it's also essential to look to the future.
Making your decision
Many project management systems will offer trials and demos. Whilst it's tempting to commit to a plan as soon as you're sure it's right for you, we always recommend taking advantage of free trials and demos. Choosing a solution this way may take longer, but it means you can be more confident in your final decision.
Over the past few years, we've trialled several project management systems. Our favourite by far is Productive.io, which we often recommend to our clients.
Productive.io is great for keeping track of our clients, projects, and tasks as a digital marketing agency. CRM and automation features are handy for us. Having these functions integrated with our project management helps things run more smoothly.
If you want advice on choosing a project management system from a digital marketing agency, look no further than Flowbird. Call us today, and we can discuss which method will be best for you and if CRM and automation could be beneficial.
