17 Tools For Helping Mobile B2B Marketers Be Productive

In January I’m planning to move to Athens to be united to my wonderful bride to be. This move will officially christen me into the mobile workforce that we are constantly told via forward thinking Richard Branson-esque Linkedin articles is going to inevitably take over the world.

But is this really sustainable? Isn’t it inevitable that mobile workers are going to just end up binge watching Game of Thrones in their PJ’s? Partly to ensure my employers this is not the case, and partly to give some ideas to other marketers teetering on the brink, or in the midst of the mobile workforce, I’ve decided to compile a list of tools that can help you combine the accountability of office work with the flexibility of mobile work.

First lets look at what these two options have to offer.

Pros of working in an office:

1. It’s a more professional environment, and thus there are probably less distractions.
2. You’re forced to physically interact with your coworkers.
3. There’s some level of accountability, even if it’s just that people know when you come in and when you leave.

Pros of working mobile: 

1. It’s usually a more casual environment, so you can work more stress free.
2. You save time and money by not driving to work.
3. You get to wear your PJ’s and watch Game of Thrones

If you’re considering ways to make mobile work a viable option, there is a host of tools out there that can help combine the pros of office and mobile work. Warning: this might get a little Brave New World/1989.

Here goes…

1) Sococo

A virtual office space, it allows you to see who is logged in to your “office” talk to them, video chat with them and schedule meetings. This is a very new solution, and there’s a lot of new features to be released in the near future.

*I chatted with someone on the support team that told me that they are thinking of giving admins the ability to see when everyone else is logging in and out of the program (would help keep workers accountable for “getting to work on time”).

Pricing: Sococo has an extremely functional free version that is great for smaller teams. They have a paid version for $15 a user a month that allows more people to meet in a room an some other added functionalities.

2) Trello

A project management tool that makes working with geographically separated people much easier. Trello allows you to create boards to visualize projects from start to finish, assign tasks and give feedback.

Pricing: a free option, $8.33 per user per month or $20.83 per user per month. Unless you have a large mobile team, the free version will probably be all you need.

3) Asana

Similar to Trello, Asana is a project management tool that allows you to collaborate on projects, assign tasks, track progress and communicate. Asana also allows features analytics for seeing how quickly projects are completed.

Pricing: They have a free option and a paid option. The paid option depends on how many user you have. There is a monthly payment calculator on their website.

4) Evernote

Evernote is useful for more than mobile work. It  allows you to take notes, snip content from the web, communicate with other users and present your notes as slides straight from Evernote.

Pricing: Free, $24.99 a year and $49.99 a year. Turning notes into presentations is only available in the last option.

5) Ace Project

Looking for a project management tool that keeps track of how much time each person is spending on each part of the process? This is the program for you. You can even create Gant charts to visualize projects. Heck this tool is even useful for office workers.

Pricing: Ace Project offers a free version and four paid versions ranging from $19-$99 a month.

6) Clarizen

Similar to Ace Project, but more customizable and detailed, Clarizen offers different solutions for Project Managers, IT, Marketing, Professional Services and Agile Development. Clarizen is more of an enterprise solution.

*Ontop of being a project and time management tool, Clarizen also contains revenue reporting and shows how the time people spend on projects is connected to your bottom line.

Pricing: Clarizen doesn’t offer a free version. They have three paid versions for $30, $45 and $60 a month.

7) 10,000ft

10,000ft is like Clarizen’s better looking little brother. It features a visual display of every task everyone is working on, how long it’s taking and ties this to your company’s revenue. This makes it incredibly intuitive to assign tasks, manage time, manage budget and understand your team’s workload and availability with a glance.

Pricing: 10,000ft offers three paid plans: $10, $20 or $45 per month per user.

8) Redbooth

Redbooth offers project management, chatting, video chatting and screen sharing and file and content management.

Pricing: they have three paid plans: $5 and $15 per user per month. The third option is a custom enterprise option that you have to contact Redbooth to get details on.

Video chatting: Webex, GotoMeeting, Speak, Skype, Google Hangouts

There are a lots and lots of video chatting and conferencing software solutions. The above are just a few commonly used ones.

Other useful tools: Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Dropbox