Running a business for 12 years has been pretty gruelling, with lots of lessons learnt along the way! Once we started to get enough money to improve our processes and service, naturally we looked into a load of different software and apps to help us overhaul things.

Turns out, if you find the right software it can really transform the way you work. Especially in a marketing agency environment when you’re often highly reliant on technology, it’s almost impossible to keep up with the ever changing tech landscape. So finding the right software can really help with the heavy lifting of running an agency.

So here are my top picks for software that can level up your marketing in 2025. I haven’t been paid by any of these companies, these are genuine pieces of software we’ve found to be the best over the years through trial and error.

1. ClickUp
We’ve tried so many project management tools over the years, and ClickUp seems to be the best out of the bunch. It combines so many different tools into one, and also gives you some nice custom functionality to fit it round the way you run your service. We use it for project management mainly, whether it’s smaller graphic design jobs or larger web builds that have multiple stages – it does the job well!

It also has a time tracking feature which really helps us to work out how long projects are taking and which clients are going over their budgeted times. Over time we’ve developed the way we use the software, actually making us more efficient in the long run. ClickUp FTW.

2. PandaDoc
Probably one of the most important decisions that we’ve made in improving our sales process, PandaDoc has totally levelled up our proposals and pitches. Rather than just sending a PDF, it’s a dedicated platform that gives potential customers an interactive document that they can view online and actually sign off there and then.

For people like me who have terrible memories, it also automatically follows up the client to remind them to review the proposal before it expires – making it a lot easier to manage all the sales documents in one place. We’ve tried others, this is the best.

3. Xero
Slightly more dull to me than the above 2, but possibly one of the most important that we’ve ever used. It’s pretty much common ground for businesses to have online accounting software. We’ve always used Xero in conjunction with our accountant, and this creates a powerful dashboard to figure out where the business is financially. Which ultimately, is the most important thing.

The payment reminders that users can set up to automatically send, made a considerable difference to our cash flow, so I’d recommend setting those up right from the start. You’ll thank yourself later!

4. Google Workspace
Google Workspace handles our day-to-day operations, pretty much. Gmail, Google Drive, Google Meet etc. all work to a very consistent level and are easy for our team to pick up and use from day 1. We’ve generally always had a great experience with the Google Workspace platform and would recommend it over other big providers.

Sorry IT firms everywhere, but whenever I’ve tried to use Microsoft’s opposing software it has always given me a headache. Why is Teams so terrible? Why does the Authenticator app never seem to work? These are questions I’d rather not ask myself again if I had the choice!

5. Slack 
It took a while for our team to fully get used to the idea of a ‘work chat’ but so far, Slack has been the front runner in enabling the team to have separate work chats to discuss separate projects and clients. Hey, it’s a lot better than just spamming Facebook Messenger. 

The ‘channels’ Discord-esque feature works, but in my opinion could be way easier to use and organise. There’s no way of organising these in an easy way and sometimes for new team members this can be confusing and overwhelming. Would love to see a better option on this side, or Slack improving their UI a little. Saying that, we still use it daily.

I could go on! But I probably should stop there… 

If you’d like any more info on the way we use these platforms drop me and DM on LinkedIn and we can chat there!