Marketing has experienced rapid growth in the past decade. The Internet has made marketing a diverse field of talents and specializations that more and more people are eager to join every year. And with COVID, SEO marketers are being forced to work remotely.
The good thing about working from home is the plethora of software available to remote workers, especially marketers. Marketers are no strangers to automated tools and trackers that help them do their job efficiently.
But digital marketers can take advantage of other software, not just marketing software. From simple calendar apps to productivity tools, a ton of software will help you work remotely and keep your productivity intact.
5 Software Recommendations for Digital Marketers
Use a Secure, Encrypted Network
There is nothing digital marketers love more than public Wi-Fi. It’s free Wi-Fi that gives them an excuse to leave the house—what’s not to love? The problem is, public networks lack proper security protocols. If you connect to a public network, nothing is preventing a cybercriminal from stealing your data.
If you use a public network often, be sure to use a VPN. With a VPN (Virtual Private Network), your data is encrypted; your presence is hidden from everyone else on the network.
Organize Your Work and Assignments
One of the biggest reasons remote workers may feel overwhelmed with work is the organization’s lack of organization. After all, you don’t have a supervisor in your home keeping up with what you’re doing and what you have done. No, you alone are responsible for getting your work done and keeping up with your projects and assignments.
Fortunately, there are many apps designed to organize your work and keep you from getting overwhelmed and unorganized, the best being Trello. With Trello, you can assign projects, create deadlines, and keep up with your team via Trello’s card system.
Stay Focused on Your Work
Working from home means carving out a place in your home that you can use to work in peace. However, the knowledge that you can get up from your desk at any point in time and distract yourself with TV, music, video games, or vice versa haunts many remote workers. These distractions are the prime suspects for a sharp lack of productivity.
If distractions are keeping you from focusing on your work, there are a few ways to prevent that. For one, you can download Todoist, an app dedicated to productivity and keeping you in check.
There are a few ways to use Todoist; you can set reminders for work, add notes, and even track your productivity. The latter feature is what you should focus on.
Tracking your productivity and seeing what times you’re experiencing a decline will help you optimize your schedule and productivity and encourage you to drop any distractions that may be around while working.
Take Advantage of Do Not Disturb
Productivity is key to becoming a satisfied remote worker, but there is a time and place for it. Burning yourself out—never giving yourself time to pause work and relax—will not only stifle productivity but also your passion for your job.
If notifications plague you at all hours of the day, then it may be a good idea to silence those notifications for a while. It’s easy enough to do that on your phone—turn on Do Not Disturb (or Night Mode for iPhones). For those of you looking to silence notifications on PC, however, you have a few options. Many remote workers recommend Daywise.
Daywise is a simple app that aims to do one thing: keep notifications from interrupting you outside of work hours. With it, you can schedule notifications to pop up only during certain times of the day.
It’s a good, free app that takes only a few minutes to set up.
Keep in Touch With Your Team
Remote work has tons of perks attached to it, but one of the things you’re missing out on is being able to catch up with your team. Sure, you can send an email or shoot them a text, but the fact of the matter is that remote working takes away that personal touch of seeing your team in person.
Fortunately, there are a few ways you can keep in touch with your team and make it feel a bit more personal than an email. Zoom, for example, is an excellent way to talk to your team face-to-face.
If you need a way to communicate with your entire team, Slack is a good option. The best way to describe Slack is a forum but for your team only. You can create “rooms,” send direct messages, and customize the Slack room to put a personal touch on it!
And there are more communication tools than Slack and Zoom, but you’ll get a lot of mileage out of both of those apps, and if you’re not using them already, try them out. See how you and your team like them.
Conclusion
Being a digital marketer in an age of remote working can be a freeing, motivating experience. But for all the benefits that working from home brings to the table, there are also a few problems, ranging from productivity issues to staying in touch with your team. Fortunately, there are plenty of apps dedicated to helping you find your footing with remote work and keep you in touch with your team.
