Messaging platforms have been around for quite a bit. In fact, never would my middle school self think something better than AIM would come along or that I would be using it at work, nonetheless.
But sorry AIM, my heart now belongs to Slack.
As a marketer and remote employee, Slack has played a large role in keeping me connected to my team, and strengthening communication around client work.
If your company hasn’t started using Slack just yet, you should definitely consider it.
In addition to it’s basic functions, Slack also integrates with hundreds of other tools and has a ton of little hacks to help you be more productive.
Instead of having a million tabs open and having to hop from platform to platform, chances are there’s an integration you can install on Slack that can bring everything into one place.
This allows you to spend less time hunting down information and more time analyzing stats and strategizing your campaigns.
Just as you would automate your marketing, you should automate your daily tasks as much as possible.
Here are the top 15 Slack apps for marketers to help!
1. GrowthBot
GrowthBot is a tool developed by HubSpot that generates information for sales and marketing teams and makes it easy to ask questions and get answers through chat interactions.
You can ask questions like what keywords a competitor is buying or how your organic traffic last week.
GrowthBot pulls the data shared from a variety of tools like HubSpot Marketing, HubSpot CRM, Google Analytics, and Mailchimp, among others.
Not only can you access data by asking questions, but you can also schedule reports to be sent directly to your Slack chat.
Think about the amount of time GrowthBot can save you!
Long gone are the days where you have to search out answers to all your marketing questions, now they can be served up right in Slack. It’s like having a virtual assistant.
2. Drift
Chatbots have transformed customer experiences on websites, but benefits aside, managing them can quickly turn into a time suck.
Fortunately, integrating your chatbot with Slack can save you a lot of headache.
Drift is one of the more widely used chatbots and, you guessed it, they have an integration with Slack.
What’s great about this integration is you can get notifications and chat with visitors right through the app. You’ll see notifications come through instantly which allows you to respond and engage with them right away.
If you don’t use Drift, chances are there is an integration for the chat service you use. Search for it in the Slack App Directory.
3. Arc
As a marketer, Google Analytics is probably one of the tools you use most, but it can also easily become a black hole when trying to find/compare and analyze information.
Luckily, Arc takes your Google Analytics and pulls info into Slack so that you can stay up-to date and make informed decisions.
Also, instead of having to go back through and determine what percent increase or decrease has occurred, Arc will inform you of the difference in your analytics so that you can take the information and either optimize on it or change your strategy.
It also adds a color code and breakdown.
For instance, you’ll see things that are in red are areas that can be improved, whereas green are areas that are performing better.
Without even having to compare or look back at data to see if there was a percent increase or decrease it tells you all in one spot. You can get these updates daily, weekly or monthly.
4. HubSpot Blogs
Do you have HubSpot blogs bookmarked on your browser? Now instead of having to go back to the site frequently or waiting for emails to come through, you can get notified through Slack.
This integration will send you weekly posts, all picked by the HubSpot editorial team.
You’re also able to search archived blogs for specific resources and articles. All you have to do once you have the app installed to search is chat /hubspotblogs marketing [search term] or /hubspotblogs sales [search term].
5. Trello
Project management is a foundational component of every marketer’s life. There are typically a million things going on at once, and to avoid things falling through the cracks, teams typically use project management software to keep things organized.
If you use Trello, one of the most popular tools for project management, you should consider installing it as an app within Slack which lets you create cards, update due dates, attach Slack conversations, just to name a few of its capabilities.
Again, if Trello isn’t your go-to project management software, check out the other integrations in Slack’s directory. Chances are you’ll find an app for the one you use.
6. Zapier
Zapier for Slack allows you to automate (or “zap” as they call it) activities in any of their 1,000+ apps including HubSpot, Evernote, Google Sheets, Gmail and Basecamp.
The best part, it’s easy to set up quickly and no coding is needed on your part.
You can create new tasks for project management, get notifications on event registrations, contact forms, the list is endless. It all comes down to what app you are setting up.
With so many app integrations, chances are one or more of the tools you use can be integrated through Zapier for Slack. You can check them out here.
7. HootSuite
Over 10 million people manage their social media through HootSuite, which makes scheduling, managing, and reporting a lot easier than having to do it through each social platform individually.
Through the Slack app, you can send social media posts to your team members to review or check out, instead of having to direct them back to HootSuite.
Having everything in one place, and easy to access if you ever need to refer back can save you a chunk of time each day.
8. Statsbot
Next up, Statsbot offers a new approach to SQL analytics by using Slack and natural language. Through its app, you are able to track metrics and build funnels and cohorts, even if you aren’t familiar with SQL.
You can connect it to pull analytics from platforms such as SQL, Google Analytics, Salesforce, Stripe and Mixpanel and set it up to send you reports on a regular basis as well as notifications when certain metrics spike or drop. Another great feature of the Slack app is that it can notify you when a goal you set in the tool’s dashboards is going off-track. This makes it super easy to stay in the know and pivot!
9. Zoom
At IMPACT, we use Zoom for all of our internal company meetings as well as our client meetings. With a large amount of our staff being remote, we rely on this to throw meetings on calendars quite often.
By installing the Zoom Slack app,you can easily start a meeting, upload a recorded meeting, and add meeting topics or Zoom right within Slack.
10. Invision
Another tool we use heavily at IMPACT is Invision.
With Invision, we can collaborate and share design files with each other and clients and through the Slack app, we can get notifications whenever someone leaves a comment or resolves an issue.
We can even share projects (a.k.a. prototypes) and share them directly into Slack instead of having to manually do it.
11. Mention
Ever miss a notification from social media and wish you didn’t?
With our busy schedules, it’s easy to miss mentions of your brand if you’re not constantly watching, but Mention helps solve for that.
Mention is a real-time monitoring platform that, when setup with Slack, will send you notifications whenever your brand or a competitor is mentioned online. It also pulls in daily recaps to keep you up to date with analytics around your mentions.
This allows you to quickly engage with the person mentioning your company, right within Slack.
This is a great tool for crisis management. Instead of finding out from someone else that there’s a negative situation you need to remedy, you can be notified right away of anything coming through so you can address it promptly.
In addition to this, it also allows you to enter competitor information so you can compare key metrics and identify influencers through your keywords. It pulls the influencer and gives them a score so you can begin putting together outreach for your influencer campaigns.
12. AskAdStage
Paid search and social campaigns can be a full-time job on their own.
Both change regularly and it’s critical that you stay looped in with their metrics so that you can shift/ and adjust campaigns quickly to get the most out of your efforts.
The AskAdStage app helps make that easy by giving marketers instant access to campaign performance right in Slack.
By linking it up to your teams, the app also allows you to keep other team members looped in instead of having to create your own reports to share.
Through the app you can setup granular reports, choose how you want it visually represented, and take actions on accounts by pausing or enabling campaigns. AskAdStage connects to Facebook, Instagram, AdWords, LinkedIn, Bing, Yahoo Gemini, and Twitter.
13. Influencer Bot
If you’ve invested in using Influencer marketing, Influencer Bot can provide data from a list of Instagram handles to be tracked including influencers, competitors, and even partners
With it, you’re able to monitor when posts go live, track the best time of the day to post, and look at what user engagement is like.
These metrics will then be sent directly to your Slack channel for your team to view easily.
All the details that are tracked are also stored in a live Google spreadsheet that you can access so that you don’t have to transfer the information coming through.
Keeping track of metrics for influencers can really be a job on it’s own, but this saves you time, allows you to make quick decisions, and loops everyone in on efforts.
14. RandomGrowth Marketing Ideas Bot
I’m sure you’re no stranger to the topic of growth marketing.
Knowing that, the RandomGrowth Marketing Ideas Bot will send you growth hacks and actionable marketing ideas used by some of the most successful startups.
Hunting such tips down can take a chunk of time out of your day, but this app keeps them coming with no effort.
15. Now for some fun…
Slack can’t be for all work and no play.
In fact, there are so many fun apps for Slack available right at your fingertips, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a couple.
Giphy
I truly hope this is something you are already using and that it isn’t the first time you’re hearing about it.
Not all days are easy, but the thing that personally puts a smile on my face and keeps things light are gifs.
Once the app is installed, you simply type in /giphy and add a word or phrase and it will generate a random gif in your conversation, when you hit “enter.” That’s if you’d prefer it be random of course (which personally I find to be the most fun.)
If you do want to be able to select the gif you use you can turn on previews so that you can personally view it before posting. It’s as simple as that!
Order Food
You read it right. You can actually order food directly through Slack too. If you’re working late on a marketing project and feeling hungry, Domino’s has you covered. You can either order within a group chat, or directly message Domino’s to place an order.
After the order is placed, you can even track your order right from Slack.
Not in the mood for pizza? There are a couple other food delivery apps, but some of them have limitations in terms of what cities they serve.
Don’t Worry A-bot It
Just as automation saves us time in our marketing activities, integrating the tools you use into a platform such as Slack can also save you time and help you worry less, so you can do what you do best – analyze, strategize, and produce powerful content.
There are endless Slack Apps out there, and I only named a few. If there are different tools you’re using each day, chances are there is a Slack integration for it. All the apps can be found right in the Slack App directory here. If you’re using anything amazing you think we should know about, tell us about it in the comments section!
Happy slacking!
