Gone are the days when project management was done on pen and paper or by manually inputting copious amounts of data into Excel sheets. Today, it would be concerning if you didn’t have multiple pieces of software to manage your vital business information.
If you’re running an advertising agency, you know how challenging it can get to keep every client’s information updated and ensure that each receives the unique treatment they deserve. Furthermore, you have to do all that while juggling multiple clients, each demanding your utmost attention so they don’t fall behind in brand outreach.
That’s where advertising agency project management software comes in to save the day. By utilizing cloud-based tech with tailored management solutions, you can give your project management a helping hand. The right software ensures you have a reliable platform to store and track all that’s happening to your clients.
Read on to learn all the benefits project management software can give your agency and which solution will fit you best.
Project management software is a centralized platform that allows teams, big or small, to access vital project information efficiently and keep track of their pipelines. It’s a pivotal tool for ensuring the entire team stays on track and the critical waypoints in the project’s lifetime are being met.
The actual specifics of the software—i.e., what it can do—highly depend on the software in question and sometimes even the industry it targets. However, most project management software takes a generalistic approach with minor customization to ensure it flows well regardless of the type of business you have.
For an advertising agency, project management software usually helps allocate the right tasks to the right people and ensures that any given client’s marketing campaign is tightly controlled. Apart from that, feature-rich project management software can also include elements of customer relationship management (CRM) software. It allows the entire team to keep track of and contribute to client profiles and ensure their needs are being met appropriately.
Project management software streamlines more repetitive tasks such as data entry. According to Monday, roughly a quarter of project managers believe this kind of rote inputting is eating away at their time and making them unable to focus on what truly matters in projects.
As a result, the ultimate goal of any project management software is to streamline agency operations and ensure the team works at peak efficiency. It allows a business to save money and time that would be spent manually inputting and sourcing data into clunky sheets.
Like most software, project management tools are not one-size-fits-all solutions. But the broad range of options you can get with any given tool ensures that you probably can find one that suits your needs excellently.
Additionally, there are so many solid tools available it can be challenging to find the best fit. Use these criteria to help you figure out if a given tool is right for you.
Before you can dive into the first advertising agency project management software you find online, you’ll need to perform a thorough project and marketing audit. Determine the common denominator in the clients and projects your business is currently handling. Then, construct a pipeline that fits most of the projects you operate and see how it’s structured.
Answer the following questions:
Once you’ve figured out exactly how you work on projects, you can use the answers as a checklist when figuring out new project management tools to use.
The goal of every project management software is to solve a problem a company is facing somewhere in its service or production pipelines. But to really make the most use of any given tool, you have to understand the biggest issues your company is experiencing.
Perhaps your team lacks proper organization to make the most use of their time, and you have assistants unsure of who to respond to when issues arise. Or, you have recently expanded your operations so much that it’s hard to keep track of what your personnel is doing and how they are contributing to your clients’ successes. While this might seem unassuming, it can be a significant issue for small businesses. Uncontrolled expansion is one of the primary reasons new businesses fail.
Some companies simply struggle with scheduling and budget organization. This can lead to overspending on things you don’t need. It can also lead to another common reason for startup failure – not being able to deliver results that the clients expect due to time constraints.
Once you figure out your biggest challenges, you need to explore any limitations or considerations specific to your company. It also helps to consider your industry or the industry of the clients you’re working with. Are there any compliance issues that you must abide by?
If your main limitation is technological in your advertising agency, project management software is a great first step. It provides you with a much clearer overview of the inner workings of the team and how each puzzle piece fits to solve your issues.
Be careful not to focus too much on solving every single problem you have. It can be helpful to enlist your stakeholders and team members to figure out which challenges are urgent and which can be left for later. Otherwise, you run the risk of trying to find the perfect solution for all your issues, which can be prohibitively costly to implement or even entirely unavailable. In those cases, try to get the most versatile option available for agencies—like Bonsai—and reassess how you can integrate it with problem-specific solutions.
When you have a list of the biggest challenges and what makes your projects “tick,” you can define the features your project management tool needs. For example, if time management is your most pressing, you’ll need a scheduling and time-tracking tool. It provides a quick overview of what each team member should be doing at any given time.
Refer to the lists you made before. See what it would take to manage challenges, if not eliminate them entirely.
It goes without saying that a tool should have most key features built-in to be even considered in the running. Here are some top condenders for the features to look out for:
When determining which feature should take priority, look inward. Talk with your team to find out what they think has the most issues in the current project pipeline. Also, discuss what features would help them do their jobs best. If you improve company productivity and morale, the rest will likely follow.
Even if a tool looks good on paper, you’ll never know how it will work for your company unless you try it. But there’s only so many tools you can try.
Use the following to cull down the list of features to a more manageable level:
Most modern tools offer a 7- or 14-day trial of their most impressive options before you need to commit to using the software. It’s a great way to see if the tool works as advertised. However, keep in mind that you have limited time to make your choice. Additionally, endless free trials will likely make it impossible to manage the company during the nearly constant adjustment periods.
It might be better to start small at first. Use the software on only one client or project to see how it functions and whether its features and benefits could work for your company. Use simple use cases to figure out how easy the tool is to navigate:
Use easy test cases, but design them in such a way that you can tangibly measure the efficacy of the tool.
After that, you can test the tool with a few team members and see how well it meshes with your team.
While you might think that the cost of new advertising agency project management software lies solely in the subscription plan you choose, the reality is a bit more complex. You have to consider the initial adjustment period and training, as well as integration costs with additional software that you’re currently using.
You may need multiple days or weeks to transition from an old system—or no system at all—to new software. This can cause disruptions to multiple project pipelines and sidetrack project management members while they juggle teaching other employees how to use the software.
Expect your team members to start a bit less productive than usual. Some might even abhor the notion of using the software you chose, but the long-term positive effects should greatly outweigh this cost.
Based on Capterra’s findings, the basic version of project management software can cost you as low as $5 per user and as much as more than $5,000 per month. This colossal price range means that you need to carefully consider how much you’re willing to spend on the tools. Perform a cost analysis to determine how much you’re expected to pay for your software long-term.
With all these considerations, it can still be daunting to go through piles of data and reviews to pick a project management solution for your company. Let us introduce Bonsai as your perfect choice.
Bonsai is an all-inclusive project management software, CRM software, and bookkeeping assistant. It provides you with pretty much everything you will ever need to turn your business from a one-person startup to an international corporation.
Here’s what you can expect with Bonsai:
Once you’ve found a tool that checks all these boxes, it’s time to commit. Press that purchase button and contact the software development team to help you set up the platform for your company.
Now that you know that Bonsai is definitely the right pick for you, start your free 7-day trial and see how much your business can improve with project management software that delivers a great client experience.
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