Managing a marketing campaign can be tricky without the right project management tool. This is mainly because of the number of distinct channels that a marketer handles. A PPC project involves collaboration with an agency who take care of activities like copywriting, landing page design, keyword generation and so on.

On the other hand, a tradeshow campaign has internal stakeholders take care of tasks like printing brochures, getting product samples ready and so on. An ideal project management tool is something that provides the marketers with the flexibility to handle these various marketing channels seamlessly and comes with the ability to collaborate. In this article, we will discuss project management tools that are best suited for these needs.

Hubbion

Price: Free (unlimited)

Hubbion is a project management and collaboration tool that is quite useful for marketers. To begin with, users can create categories and status levels. This offers marketers with the flexibility to handle projects relating to multiple channels over a single dashboard without having to create separate boards every time. Also, the tool is free to use with no limitations on users, projects or file sizes. This can come in handy if you are a marketer handling dozens of large sized brochures and design documents. A number of alternate project management tools have a limitation on the file sizes or storage that can be a problem for marketers. Hubbion also has a ‘Calendar’ view to let you have a bird’s eye-view of the various pending projects and their progress.

Trello

Price: Freemium (paid plans start at $9.99/user/month)

Trello is by far the most popular project management tool among marketers. The free plan lets you collaborate with an unlimited number of users and also permits you to create an unlimited number of projects. File uploads are however limited at 10 MB and that can be a problem for marketers. You may pick their paid plan if you want to upload large file sizes. Premium plans also come with other features like third party integration and two-factor authentication.

Basecamp

Price: $99/month (for unlimited users and projects)

If you do not want to be bothered with incremental pricing packages, then Basecamp is a good project management tool for marketers. At this price point, users get to work on an unlimited number of projects and with an unlimited number of users. In terms of features, Basecamp lets you create multiple to-do lists and users may have as many checklists as they would want in each of these lists. This lets you organize your projects in terms of the various channels you handle. Alternately, you could also create to-do lists for each month and check them off as you progress. Basecamp also has a message board to discuss topics with your collaborators as well as a ‘Ping’ feature to chat with those who are live.

Wrike

Price: Freemium (free for up to 5 users. Paid plans start at $9.80/user/month

The free version of Wrike is limited to five users, but has relatively more features than the free version of Trello. The tool offers basic integration with third party tools like Google Drive, Dropbox and Office 365 and also comes with two GB of storage. But unlike Hubbion and Trello, Wrike does not let users collaborate with multiple teams at the same time. This can be a problem if you are a freelance marketer working with multiple client teams. Also, similar to Hubbion’s Calendar, Wrike also has a ‘spreadsheet view’ feature that lets you view the status of all open projects in one dashboard.

Slack

Price: Freemium (paid options starting at $6.67/user/month

Slack is more of a collaboration tool than project management but is still popular among a number of marketers. The free version of the software lets you collaborate on as many teams as you would like but with limitations like five GB storage limit and 10 apps or service integrations. Paid versions have more features like unlimited integration and 10 GB storage per team member. While Slack is popular among a number of marketers, it is not the best when it comes to campaign management. Users can create multiple channels to work on. But these channels are not the same as ‘projects’ and so opening too many channels could clutter the system. Also, the discussions within each channel has a streaming layout that can get you feel lost in case of too many collaborators.

Each of these tools are great in their own right. While the likes of Hubbion provide a minimalistic and clutter-free environment to manage your campaigns, others like Basecamp offer more features albeit at a higher price point. All these tools inevitably come with a free trial (or are free to use) and so try these tools and pick one that works best for your team and projects.

Source: business.com