Continuing our theme of getting the most out of your time and talent I want to focus on the tools campaigns should use to stay organized and get the most out of their limited time.
I’m always looking for new tools to try out, so send recommendations my way on Twitter @ericwilson.
GSuite
Every time I start a new project, I also set up GSuite (formerly Google Apps). Not only is it an easy, affordable way for everyone on your campaign to get a secure email address, it comes with a host of other tools to collaborate with your team.
In light of the increased need for cybersecurity for campaigns today, it’s important that you have your entire team on secure email services, even turning on required two-factor authentication.
Google Docs
I’m drafting this blog post in Google Docs (part of GSuite) and I write all of my fundraising emails here as well. It’s easy to share an email draft with members of your team and make sure everyone’s edits are made and captured in a single location.
It’s the best way to create a collaboratively edited document internally and you can even share documents, like training manuals, talking points, and more, externally. With Google Docs you don’t have to worry about keeping track of different version of the same Word document.
Google Sheets
This is the last Google product, I promise. Google sheets have most (if not all) of the functionality you rely on from Excel, but like everything else, it’s collaborative and easily shareable.
The real benefits of Google Sheets come into play when you use it in combination with services like Zapier, IFTTT, and Google Data Studio
Slack
Slack is a great tool for real-time communication between your team and it can help keep your email inbox clean. It’s one of the tools companies are using to manage remote teams, something most campaigns deal with also.
Slack also gets better when you use it in combination with other apps, like Google Drive and Twitter.
Evernote
I use Evernote as a second brain to keep track of things I want to remember, articles I’ll refer to later, etc. Essentially, whenever I read something interesting, it goes in an Evernote notebooks where I can later search for it. The way campaigns move, you’ll want to save little things that you see like a press release or a data point, but if you don’t save it, you won’t be able to find it when you need it.
You can also make some notebooks shared with other users if you want a shared workspace.
Throttle
Keep your inbox sane with this tool to sign up for lots of different email newsletters, marketing lists and the like to keep tabs on the competition without missing important information in your inbox.
Feedly + Google Alerts
I use Feedly to follow the blogs and other websites I want to keep track of. You can also create custom feeds using Google Alerts, which will help you stay on top of important news about your candidate and campaign issues.
Campaigns are hard enough without trying to fight your way along without the right tools, which can make all the difference. If you’re keeping up with BestPracticeDigital.com it’s because you want to run the best campaign possible and these tools help you do that.
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