The Tech Tools Every Creative Agency Administrator Should Have in Their Toolbox
Jeanette Leech, Assistant Studio Administrator
When managing many projects, deadlines, and clients at a creative agency, it’s essential to have sure-fire ways of keeping things organized. Every manager and administrator should have a tried-and-true set of tools on their tool belt that help them manage their workload and keep all the projects running smoothly.
Luckily, there are platforms and integrations that have made management easier than ever if you know how to use them. This has the added benefit of making remote work far more possible as an administrator. Here’s a list of tools that help our company administrators manage their projects and can help you manage yours too!
Luckily, there are platforms and integrations that have made management easier than ever if you know how to use them. This has the added benefit of making remote work far more possible as an administrator. Here’s a list of tools that help our company administrators manage their projects and can help you manage yours too!
1. Managing Leads
Before any project begins, creative agencies have to draw potential clients in with their website, social media, and Google presence. And once they are interested, there must be a contact form located in all these places that they can fill out. It’s better if it is a page on the company website. Once they make contact, it’s all about handling those leads and giving them quick, friendly replies. Now, if you’re looking for a slick platform to help you handle those leads and manage your projects, check out Honeybook! It even hooks up your email so you won’t miss any new leads (no, we aren’t sponsored). This platform is also very good at managing leads since it allows you to create automation for each type of project that you can apply with just a click. Many automation can involve sending emails to keep your business at the top of their mind.
2. Initial Contact
Once on Honeybook, it’s all about handling those leads and the conversation flowing to keep the project moving forward. We’ll want to get face-to-face with the interested party and schedule an initial meeting. Having a place to schedule meetings while keeping your availability and schedule in mind is a very useful tool – Calendly is the industry leader and a good option for this. That way, the client can schedule the meeting themselves once you share a link to your Calendly with them. After the meeting, you will most likely know if the project will move forward or not.
3. Contracts
Once the client has shared what they want in the initial meeting, you can start working on a proposal and potential contract. Honeybook is also very good for this since it allows you to have many contract templates and email templates that are easy to customize (we love Honebook if you can’t tell). After the meeting, it shouldn’t take very long to draft up a contract and send it overall on that platform. It will also allow you to continue using email automation at every level of the project. The contract can be signed via Honeybook as well, but there are other ways of executing contract agreements if your client doesn’t want to sign that way, such as DocuSign.
4. Project Initiation
Now that the contract is signed and the lead officially becomes a client – project initiation is taking off! We need to set things in stone using project management tools and communicate with the team. Communication internally can be via email, such as Google, which integrates many different applications, or via company direct messaging like Slack, which can have many different channels to message about specific projects, as well as one-on-one messaging.
Once the project is clear with the team, another meeting must be held with the client to get all the pertinent information and details about the project deliverables. We call this the discovery workshop. Recurring meetings may be necessary as well to keep the client’s eyes on it and to review the deliverables at different stages – Google Meet/Calendar and Zoom are good places to manage many different client meetings and keep them in a regular cadence. Most importantly, the project tracking tools must have all the steps of the project listed and the timeline and deadline represented, and it must be viewable to the team. Monday.com is a great tool for this. And just like that, we have a project rolling!
Once the project is clear with the team, another meeting must be held with the client to get all the pertinent information and details about the project deliverables. We call this the discovery workshop. Recurring meetings may be necessary as well to keep the client’s eyes on it and to review the deliverables at different stages – Google Meet/Calendar and Zoom are good places to manage many different client meetings and keep them in a regular cadence. Most importantly, the project tracking tools must have all the steps of the project listed and the timeline and deadline represented, and it must be viewable to the team. Monday.com is a great tool for this. And just like that, we have a project rolling!
5. Tracking
We’re going to use Monday for tracking this project, but other project management tools could work too (Trello is another one to check out)! Monday has many benefits since it can have company areas and boards for each client or type of project and then also groups and sections for tasks within each board. You can review projects from many different views, like a calendar or Gantt chart, or based on who has what on their plate and how close they are to wrapping this up. Many people can collaborate on Monday, and like many of these platforms, it can integrate with different apps like Google and Slack.
Speaking of Slack, keeping projects visible for the internal team is also very important – statuses can be shared on channels for specific clients, and also deliverables can be shared quickly so the team can review. Keeping things transparent and efficient – that’s the name of the game!
Speaking of Slack, keeping projects visible for the internal team is also very important – statuses can be shared on channels for specific clients, and also deliverables can be shared quickly so the team can review. Keeping things transparent and efficient – that’s the name of the game!
6. In Progress
As the team works on the deliverables of the project, there are many different tools for sharing the work amongst the team that make it easy to review and leave comments. With videos, for instance, when an edit is made, Vimeo is a great platform to upload it on since you can create a review link that allows others to review and leave time-coded comments, and when a revised edit is made, you can upload the new version on the same link with the comment history still there.
For graphic design work, Figma and Canva are also tools that allow you to make many different assets using templates and stock images with varying amounts of customization and also allow others to work on the same designs together. To have complete creative freedom over an asset, though, either static or motion, the Adobe Creative Suite is a very necessary tool and very common in the creative world. Animations, videos, print media, and graphics can all be created there with your company’s own creative twist.
For graphic design work, Figma and Canva are also tools that allow you to make many different assets using templates and stock images with varying amounts of customization and also allow others to work on the same designs together. To have complete creative freedom over an asset, though, either static or motion, the Adobe Creative Suite is a very necessary tool and very common in the creative world. Animations, videos, print media, and graphics can all be created there with your company’s own creative twist.
7. Delivery
Once the project is approved by the team and ready to share with the client, these tools are best for making the asset look great during delivery. For videos, Vimeo and Dropbox will be the easiest to share a link to the edits and also allow the client to review videos and download a high-resolution version; however, Vimeo is better for leaving notes for revisions.
For photos, PASS Plus is a great way to create large and small photo galleries that look great and are easy to organize – the client can also get their own special links to review and download images and even purchase prints if they want. If the delivery is print media or graphic design, Google Slides is a great way to present the final asset to a client.
For photos, PASS Plus is a great way to create large and small photo galleries that look great and are easy to organize – the client can also get their own special links to review and download images and even purchase prints if they want. If the delivery is print media or graphic design, Google Slides is a great way to present the final asset to a client.
8. Continuous Projects
With marketing projects like paid advertising campaigns or organic social media management, there is not just one delivery but a continuous workload to make ads that the client approves of that serve their marketing objectives and that need to be posted to their social media accounts.
First, social media platforms that have advertising and trackability must be used, like Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Linkedin, and TikTok – usually, this will be through a client’s accounts. Other tools must be integrated to schedule posts, especially with organic social media – Buffer and Later are both good options. All these posts will follow a schedule and timeline that must be tracked continuously on Monday. We can get into marketing and social media tools later in a separate article.
First, social media platforms that have advertising and trackability must be used, like Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Linkedin, and TikTok – usually, this will be through a client’s accounts. Other tools must be integrated to schedule posts, especially with organic social media – Buffer and Later are both good options. All these posts will follow a schedule and timeline that must be tracked continuously on Monday. We can get into marketing and social media tools later in a separate article.
And there you have it – an administrator that has many tools working to make their job easier and more efficient! There are so many tools that can work for the purposes we have described, but the platforms listed here have been the most effective for our team at Filmtwist Creative Agency.
If you wish to learn more about our business and what work we do, please check out our website and the services we offer, and feel free to reach out if you have a project you wish to work with us on.
If you wish to learn more about our business and what work we do, please check out our website and the services we offer, and feel free to reach out if you have a project you wish to work with us on.