If you’re a marketer, entrepreneur, or solopreneur, you probably use different tools to carry out your day-to-day work.
Well, so do I.
In marketing, we often work with different creative kinds of butter, and below you have a list of my favorites:
Content
Adobe suite
When I say the Adobe suite I don’t mean all Adobe programs because there are many that I haven’t even tried yet.
I mean strictly the following:
Photoshop
Probably the tool I use almost daily. I learned Photoshop from YouTube when I was in high school and it has served me well in my career as a marketer.
Illustrator
It’s a shame not to learn it if it tempts you to be a graphic designer. That’s how I started with marketing. I entered directly into the creative area, more or less in the role of a graphic designer.
Illustrator is good for prints and creative vector work. The difference between Photoshop and Illustrator is that in Illustrator you create illustrations that can be scaled infinitely, reaching very large sizes (and without losing quality). In Photoshop, working a lot with pictures, it’s clear that you need a very high-quality picture to be able to scale it and use it on buildings.
Premiere Pro
This tool helped me a lot to edit videos. You can find a lot of information, ready-made templates and presets on the Internet that simplify your editing work.
CapCut
Ever since I heard about it I wanted to try it. I use it on both my phone and my laptop and am very pleased with it. It’s super nice software to edit videos quickly and without complications.
I love that they’ve kept updating it and making it so much easier to use lately.
I like using it the most for trimming, as it’s much simpler than in Premiere Pro.
Another super nice thing is that option to automatically add text subtitles based on how you speak (it detects your voice). I am waiting for the Romanian version of the subtitles to appear on the desktop. At the moment I’m content with the ones in English + the ones in English and Romanian on iOS.
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Canva
At first, I wasn’t a fan of Canva. It seemed to me an interesting tool but much too beginner’s. However, lately, I have started using it more often, especially because it also has a mobile version, and all the works are synchronized quickly and easily.
It has many advantages after all:
- cloud storage
- easy to use
- easy to share and work collaboratively
- super many templates
- graphics, illustrations, pictures, videos, and sounds directly from the application
Figma
I mostly use Figma as a marketing tool for 2 broad things:
- I use Figjam to map marketing strategies and funnels
- I use Figma to build web page designs from scratch
I really enjoy working in Figma because I log in with the team at the same time and we all work in the same panel in real-time.
ClickUp
I use it for project management but also for personal task management.
Among Asana, Trello, and other project management tools on the market (that I tried), I decided that Clickup was the best option for me.
Additionally, as of this writing, Clickup v3.0 is about to be released, which comes with many options and interface updates that make it even better than it already is.
Notion
For a long time, I faced the problem of notes.
As a marketer, you have a lot of ideas that you want me to write down. But it’s not just about ideas. Sometimes you want something more… you want to organize your life, you want to structure your files and documents, you want to be able to share and access them quickly, anywhere and anytime.
I’ve tried Evernote, Google Keep, Apple’s Notes, Microsoft OneNote, and a few other apps before.
Notion remained the winner for me.
ChatGPT
Although it’s the latest tool, ever since I heard about ChatGPT in December 2022, I knew it would go mega-viral.
I use it mainly for research and as a personal consultant. When I have questions, I’m stuck for ideas, or in other contexts, I use ChatGPT for help.
Calendly
A super useful tool for digital marketing, especially when doing consulting.
Synchronized with Google Calendar, it is very useful for productivity.
People go to my calendar, and see my availability and schedule when they have time too.
Each of us gets notifications + reminders, which makes it even more useful.
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Google suite
Without a doubt, I use Google tools almost daily:
- Google Calendar for reminders and appointments
- Google Drive for cloud file storage
- Gmail for email
- Google Docs, Sheets, Forms, Slides, etc. for … I don’t think there’s any point in specifying
- Google Analytics
- Google Ads
- Google My Business
- Google Maps
- Google Chrome
- Google Search Console
- Google Search
- Google Translate
- Google Meet
- And so on
Website
I think it’s been more than 15 years since I’ve been using websites as a marketing tool. When I was in grade school I was into multiplayer video games.
I remember creating the first CS 1.6 and SAMP servers in 7th or 8th grade with a former classmate and having our own community with a forum-like website. On that website, we were presenting our community and we had quite a lot of interaction. We were making posts, and giving ourselves features and it was interesting.
Of course, at that time I didn’t know what that marketing was. I didn’t even know that the website would be a marketing tool. Still, I was using it. The world heard about us and went to the website for details.
It’s not much different now than it was then. Instead of games, we have business. We have a community, but it’s on another level. We have a website and we exploit it to the maximum.
Clearly, the website is one of my favorite marketing tools. In the old days, it was a bit more complicated to have a website, but now it’s really simple. All you have to do is learn to do them. There are many tools that help us make our website simple and visually way, without racking our brains.
If you don’t have a website for your business, it’s sad. I believe that the difference now is no longer about having a website. It is already standard to have a website. It matters a lot what you put on that website and how you use it to your advantage. Here is the magic.
Conclusion
Each of us loves to use certain tools, but sometimes we need to change them.
Technology is constantly evolving. There are always new tools coming out that are better than the current ones. The important thing is to adapt.
Sometimes it’s easier to make a Facebook post in 5 minutes with a Canva template than to spend 1 hour in Photoshop to make it from scratch.
Sometimes we work with some tools so often that it is very difficult for us to exchange them for others that are 10 times better. That’s just because we’re used to it. We have created comfort and it is difficult for us to make a new change.
Fortunately, I always kept looking for better solutions to be more productive and efficient. A tool is just a tool after all. What matters is the result of that process of working with the tool. Of course, for a creator, the tool also matters a lot because it can simplify/complicate your work process. That’s why it’s good to frequently adapt to the latest technologies and keep up.
Remember: it’s not so much what tools you use as how you use them.
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