This article is from our Agency Growth Handbook—a collection of guides created to help local SEO agencies grow and succeed. It is chapter five of ‘Part Two: Processes and Workflows’.
A busy agency can thrive or merely survive on its choice of project management tools. Old-fashioned spreadsheets and clunky time-tracking apps can seriously hinder your team’s creativity. Too many tools can lead to duplication of effort, cause confusion, and potentially lead to completely inaccurate billing.
Keeping your projects organized and accurately tracking your billable hours is key to working effectively and efficiently. Having the right tools in place also means you can confidently manage your resources and consistently deliver client work on time.
There are two distinct categories of tools you want to look out for: project management tools (to help you keep track of your overall project and enable effective communications) and time-tracking software. Many project management tools include time-tracking, but for many, you’ll need something extra.
So which marketing project management software tools will make your life easier and help you scale your agency business? With so many tools on the market, identifying the best fit is easier said than done.
Why do you need marketing project management tools?
Juggling multiple client projects, incoming briefs, various deadlines, and a team can be a recipe for disaster. Unless that is, you have logical processes for everything from content creation to client reports and actually useful tools in place to do some of the heavy lifting for you.
Project management and time-tracking tools aren’t just nice to have. They can make a noticeable difference to how seamlessly your agency operates:
Organize client briefs
Different clients have different priorities, service agreements, and briefs. A dedicated project management tool makes it easy to keep track of each specific client and their associated briefs, no matter how many projects you currently have on the go. This is especially useful if you often receive ad-hoc or last-minute requests and need a better way to stay on top of them.
Streamline resource planning
A good tool will give you a clear view of each project and its upcoming deadlines so you can allocate resources accordingly. This isn’t just a way to make managing your team easier. It can also go a long way toward controlling costs and optimizing how your agency business operates.
Efficient task management
Assigning specific tasks to individual team members is another way to manage your team’s productivity. It also encourages accountability by making it easier for each person to manage their workload and maintain a clear view of what they need to deliver.
If your chosen tool has status tracking, you can quickly see who’s on track and who’s in the weeds. From there you can intervene, if needed, or assign additional resources to keep client deliverables flowing.
Enhanced communication
The right project management software will enhance collaboration and communication. This isn’t restricted to internal comms, either. Many tools will allow you to control permissions at an individual user level, so you can also grant limited access to your clients. That access could speed up project approval or open up productive new lines of communication between your agency and your clients.
Top Tips for Optimal Project Management
Getting project management right removes much of the last-minute stress and panic that typically accompanies poorly organized client campaigns. It also puts you in a much better place when it comes to client retention and scaling your business.
- Choose the right tools: Marketing project management software and time-tracking tools can streamline campaign planning, resource management, and project execution. They make measurement easier, can automate repetitive processes, keep productivity high, and even support creativity.
- Develop clearly defined processes: Having clearly defined processes helps everyone work in a structured, organized, and logical manner. It also makes measuring performance and results easier and helps your team deliver a consistent standard and output of work. Do you have a specific way you perform local keyword research, for instance? Make sure everyone’s doing it that way.
- Set up logical workflows: Logical workflows keep tasks flowing in the correct order. If you’re managing a local search campaign, for example, your workflow might require keyword research to be completed and signed off by the client before your local landing pages are drafted. Then, they’ll need to review it, and sign it off and so on. Clear workflows help your team to work productively and efficiently while also minimizing confusion.
- Establish a project timeline: Open-ended projects can quickly drift out of scope and over deadline. Establishing project timelines and scheduling task due dates keeps things moving forward at an appropriate pace. It’s not just about assigning everything the delivery date of the final deadline either. Many project management tools offer calendar or gantt chart views to help you view the whole timeline of a project.
- Assign responsibilities: Successfully executing even the most complex projects becomes much easier when everyone is clear on their responsibilities. Assign specific tasks to individual team members so each person knows what’s expected of them and when they must complete a task. This encourages accountability and autonomy.
Features to Look Out For in a Project Management Tool
The specific features your agency business needs will depend on the size of your team, the nature of your client projects, and your style of working. That said, some features are pretty much essential:
- Automations: Automations make it easier to scale workflows and quickly complete recurring tasks by pre-populating certain fields.
- Calendar: An essential for managing upcoming to-dos, a built-in calendar can help you stay on top of annual leave and client meetings for easier diary management.
- Task management: The ability to set up a task, schedule a start and end date, and assign someone from your team to complete that task is non-negotiable.
- Document management: You should also be able to upload documents like keyword research reports and client briefs to support your team.
- Status tracking: Is a task in progress? Ready for review? Or, with the client for approval? Status tracking allows you to answer those questions and keep your project momentum moving in the right direction at a glance.
- Messaging: Whether internally or with your client, messaging improves collaboration and speeds up the delivery and approval process.
- Client view: Having a dedicated client view means you can grant controlled access to your clients. This view provides them with direct access to their account team while ensuring internal communications remain private.
- Time tracking: Accurate time tracking is essential for client billing. It can also be helpful if you routinely work with subcontractors and need to keep track of their working hours for payment purposes.
- Integrations: Plugging in other apps can be a serious time saver and add additional functionality that makes it easier to get the most out of your team.
- Customizable dashboard: A customizable dashboard gives you complete control over what you see, so you can create an optimal view based on how you (and your team) work.
Top Project Management Tools
| Tool | Notable Features | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Monday.com | Template library for speedy project setup Customizable dashboards Task management and status tracking Extensive automation options including 50+ widgets Time tracking Integrations with tools including Zoom and HubSpot Resource management Report generation | From $9.00/mo |
| Asana.com | Project view Task management Custom fields Status updates Custom workflows and automation Reporting dashboards Integrations with tools including Teams, Salesforce, and Slack | From $10.99/mo |
| Trello.com | Template library Built-in automations Customizable views Task and workflow automation Integration with tools including Slack, Gmail, and Hootsuite Task management | From $5.00/mo |
| Teamwork.com | Custom views Template library Automations Resource management Time tracking Collaboration tools Client view Integration with tools including Xero, Slack, and HubSpot | From $10.99/mo |
| GanttPRO.com | Chart views Template library Task management Time tracking Resource management Collaboration tools ROI calculator | From $7.99/mo |
| ZohoProjects.com | Template library Task automation Time tracking Collaboration tools Reporting Integration with other Zoho tools, Microsoft, and Google apps | From $4.00/mo |
Time Tracking Software for Marketing Teams
Time tracking is one of those agency staples that’s easy to take for granted. But it’s also easy to get wrong. Real-time tracking and reporting can seriously bolster your transparency credentials with clients. If you’re managing a team, intuitive tracking also helps you to stay on budget and easily handle contractor payments.
So, what should you look for when shortlisting time-tracking tools for your agency?
- Real-time tracking: Tracking billable hours in real-time can nurture client confidence in your agency and help with retention. It’s also invaluable when it comes to getting the most out of your team and pinpointing productivity drains.
- Reporting: Any decent time-tracking tool will have extensive reporting capability. You need this feature to manage client invoices and see how your team is spending its time.
- Integrations: Integrations just make life easier. Look for tools that can connect with other platforms you use daily to manage your agency workflows.
Top Time Tracking Tools
| Tool | Key Features | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Toggl.com | Automated time tracking Online work timer Timesheet reports Invoicing Integrations with tools including Asana, Trello, and ClickUp Time reporting and analytics | From $9.00/mo |
| GetHarvest.com | Multiple timer options including by client and task Automatic invoice creation Online payment processing Reporting and analytics Integrations with tools including Asana, Slack, and Stripe | From $10.80/mo |
| TimelyApp.com | Automatic time tracking Memory tracking Billable rate setting Time sheet generation Task management Integration with tools including Asana, Basecamp, and ClickUp | From $9.00/mo |
| Timesheet.io | Mobile time tracker for Android devices Automated tracking Project and task management Analytics and reporting Expense management Invoice and cost management Integrations with tools including Chrome, QuickBooks, and Zapier | From $5.00/mo |
| https://desktime.com/ | Automatic and manual time tracking Productivity calculator Project tracking Document title tracking Performance comparison reporting Shift scheduling Integrations with tools like Asana, Trello, and Basecamp | From $7.00/mo |
Choose Wisely and Choose Early
Embedding this sort of tool into a growing business can be easier said than done, especially if you’re trying to do it retrospectively. Adding a project management tool and defining clear processes early can be really beneficial and save a lot of time down the road.
As with any tool, whether that’s a local SEO tool or a project management tool, the key is to find the one that works best for your agency’s needs. Make sure it benefits your work rather than adding more steps for the sake of it.
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