20 The Best Marketing Planning Software List
Here's my pick of the 20 best software from the 33 tools reviewed.
There are seemingly countless marketing planning software available, so figuring out which is best for you is tough. You know you want to plan, create, and schedule posts in advance, ensuring consistent and timely content delivery—but now need to figure out which solution is the best fit. I've got you! In this post, I make things simple, leveraging my experience as a marketing expert, and using dozens of different marketing planning solutions to bring you this shortlist of the best marketing planning software overall.
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The Best Marketing Planning Software Summary
| Tools | Price | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrike | From $9.80/user/month | Website |
| GanttPRO | From $9.99/ per user / per month | Website |
| Runrun.it | $8/user/month (annually) | Website |
| Google Analytics | Free to use | Website |
| HubSpot | From $45/month | Website |
| Trello | From $6/user/month | Website |
| Buffer | From $5/user/month | Website |
| Asana | From $13.49/user/month | Website |
| MailChimp | From $13/month | Website |
| ActiveCollab | Starts from $11/month for up to 3 users | Website |
| Hootsuite | From $49/user/month | Website |
| GoodDay | From $6/user/month | Website |
| Keen | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Seismic | Pricing upon request | Website |
| BrandMaker | Pricing upon request | Website |
| MarketPlan | From $9/user/month | Website |
| MyMarketingMate | $29/month (3 users) | Website |
| Mediatool | Pricing upon request | Website |
| Convertkit | From $9/month for up to 300 subscribers | Website |
| monday.com | From $8/user/month (billed annually, min 3 seats) | Website |
Compare Software Specs Side by Side
Use our comparison chart to review and evaluate software specs side-by-side.
Compare SoftwareHow to Choose Marketing Planning Software
With so many different marketing planning software available, it can be challenging to make decisions on what marketing planning software is going to be the best fit for your needs.
As you're shortlisting, trialing, and selecting marketing planning software, consider the following:
- What problem are you trying to solve - Start by identifying the marketing planning feature gap you're trying to fill to clarify the features and functionality the marketing planning software needs to provide.
- Who will need to use it - To evaluate cost and requirements, consider who'll be using the software and how many licenses you'll need. You'll need to evaluate if it'll just be the marketing team, or the whole organization that will require access. When that's clear, it's worth considering if you're prioritizing ease of use for all, or speed for your marketing software power users.
- What other tools it needs to work with - Clarify what tools you're replacing, what tools are staying, and the tools you'll need to integrate with, such as accounting, CRM or HR software. You'll need to decide if the tools will need to integrate together, or alternatively, if you can replace multiple tools with one consolidated marketing planning software.
- What outcomes are important - Consider the result that the software needs to deliver to be considered a success. Consider what capability you want to gain, or what you want to improve, and how you will be measuring success. For example, an outcome could be the ability to get greater visibility into performance. You could compare marketing planning software features until you’re blue in the face but if you aren’t thinking about the outcomes you want to drive, you could be wasting a lot of valuable time.
- How it would work within your organization - Consider the software selection alongside your workflows and delivery methodology. Evaluate what's working well, and the areas that are causing issues that need to be addressed. Remember every business is different — don’t assume that because a tool is popular that it'll work in your organization.
Best Marketing Planning Software Reviews
Here’s a brief description of each of the software that are featured on this top 10 list.
Wrike is a work management platform that provides marketing features and functionalities. The platform can help managers support their team members and ensures they know that every understands what they’re supposed to do. It’s an excellent choice for task management and planning marketing campaigns.
Why I Picked Wrike: Wrike works well as a marketing planning software due to its robust features and user-friendly interface. The free version of Wrike allows users to create tasks, set priorities, and collaborate with unlimited team members, facilitating efficient marketing project management. It provides a centralized platform for marketing teams to plan and execute campaigns, with features like customizable templates, interactive Gantt charts, and shared calendars. The ability to assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress enhances collaboration and ensures accountability. The AI-driven task automation within Wrike recommends priorities and tasks for your teams based on your campaign’s performance and status.
Wrike Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include its dynamic request forms, which allow teams to create custom forms to streamline project intake and request processes, ensuring all necessary information is captured upfront. This feature simplifies project initiation and reduces manual back-and-forth communication. Wrike's advanced resource management enables businesses to optimize resource allocation by providing a clear view of team members' availability, workload, and capacity. This feature helps prevent resource overloading and facilitates resource-leveling.
Integrations include 400+ pre-built native integrations, including integrations with the most popular file management software from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox, along with sales and marketing software from Salesforce and Marketo.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Free plan for unlimited users
- Built-in scheduling & time tracking
- iOS & Android apps
Cons:
- Important features hidden deep in menues
- Feature-packed means learning curve
GanttPRO is a project management platform that can be used to plan and manage marketing roadmaps, campaigns, and individual projects. You can set project timelines, manage and assign tasks, and run reports to understand your team's performance with the software.
Why I Picked GanttPRO: The software has an intuitive visual interface that allows you to easily set up your project plan or craft a marketing campaign. You can then outline your tasks, set task dependencies, and assign specific tasks to specific team members. You can also rank your projects by priority to facilitate a more agile workflow.
In addition to its project management features, the software also has team collaboration tools. Employees can work together on shared tasks, share files and messages, and tag each other in projects. Users receive notifications when they have deadlines coming up, tasks to complete, or they've been tagged in the system.
GanttPRO Standout Features & Integrations
Features include interactive Gantt charts, task and resource management, time tracking, collaboration tools, project templates, integrations with other productivity tools, and a range of reports.
Integrations include Slack, Google Drive, MS Teams and Jira Cloud. More integrations are available through their API.
Runrun.it is a marketing planning software that allows you to organize all your team’s work on one centralized platform. The business intelligence tool inside the platform can also help you track the most vital details so you can make the best decisions and prioritize work. You’ll understand where any bottlenecks are, which tasks are the most time-consuming, and when team members can handle a specific demand.
Why I Picked Runrun.it: RunRun.it offers comprehensive project management functionalities, allowing marketing teams to create and assign tasks, set priorities, and track progress. It provides a centralized hub for collaboration, enabling seamless communication and file sharing among team members. The platform's time tracking and reporting features enable teams to monitor project costs and measure the performance of marketing activities. You can tap into dozens of project templates to quickly build out your strategy and also standardize processes by building templates of your own from scratch.
Runrun.it Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include its AI-powered task prioritization and its integrated time tracking capabilities. RunRun.it's AI-driven task prioritization analyzes factors such as due dates, dependencies, and team availability to intelligently prioritize tasks, helping teams focus on the most critical and time-sensitive assignments. Additionally, RunRun.it's integrated time tracking allows team members to track the time spent on each task accurately.
Integrations include over 4000 other applications through Zapier, which requires a separate subscription and may incur additional costs. These applications include Microsoft Teams, Zendesk, Salesforce, Google Analytics, and Slack. You can also use their Restful API to build your own.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Free plan for 5 users
- Can automate repeating tasks
- Dozens of project planning templates
Cons:
- Mobile app has limited functionality
- Lack of native integrations
Google Analytics is a data tool that collects and displays in-depth website data that marketing teams can use to create more helpful marketing plans.
Why I picked Google Analytics: I wanted to add a solution that can provide this data for you when you’re creating new marketing plans. Google Analytics isn’t a marketing planning tool per se, but it provides in-depth data you can use to create the best possible plan for future campaigns. It automatically detects and surfaces actionable insights from your website’s data, such as new trends, crucial changes, and other growth opportunities you can capitalize on and create new marketing plans around.
Google Analytics Standout Features and Integrations
Features available from the Google Analytics dashboard include the ability to integrate with various tools that will help your teams use the data as necessary to make robust marketing plans. You can integrate the platform with your marketing tools to create a simple workflow to analyze the data.
Integrations available with Google Analytics include over 1,000 options, including GetResponse, Improvado, Jotform, Mailchimp, Orange Logic, Salesforce, SEMrush, Smartlook, Zendesk, Zoho CRM, and other software options. If you have a paid Zapier account or someone on your team with development expertise, you can create custom integrations with Google Analytics.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Simple data exporting.
- Shows where marketing is lacking.
- Top-line data tracking.
Cons:
- Confusing dashboard.
- Steep learning curve.
HubSpot helps marketing teams remove silos to help them work together and achieve unparalleled alignment to create excellent marketing plans.
Why I picked HubSpot: Many marketing teams work in silos where they’re not working together with sales teams due to using multiple different tools, but these employees need to work together to create effective marketing campaign plans. I chose to add HubSpot to this list because I wanted to showcase an option that will allow your marketing and sales teams to work together and create aligned campaigns. Doing so can help you create marketing plans that use steps that have campaigns that increase engagement with target audiences.
HubSpot Standout Features and Integrations
Features that work well for marketing teams are the ability to track complex campaigns with a single source of truth. Typically, marketing team members collect customer data from multiple sources to help them create personalized, targeted campaigns. Since HubSpot’s marketing platform is built on a customer relationship management solution, all of your customer data is available in the same place as your campaign features.
Integrations are available from HubSpot, including over 500 native connections, such as Domo, GetResponse, Improvado, Mailchimp, Monday.com, Nutshell CRM, Pipedrive, PipelinerCRM, Wrike, Zendesk, and other software options. Those with paid Zapier accounts can create custom integrations with their current systems.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Great customer support.
- Easy to use.
- Excellent user interface.
Cons:
- Not many customization capabilities.
- Social media tool needs improvement.
Trello is a simple platform that provides an adapted version of a Kanban board that visualizes marketing plans.
Why I picked Trello: One of the reasons why I started this list is Trello’s Kanban board approach which makes collaboration simple for any sized marketing team. Trello incorporates a system of workspaces that contains boards, which contain cards or lists of cards you can use to add tasks and assign each card to individuals or entire teams. You can use Trello to map your marketing campaigns and workloads in boards, timelines, and other beneficial views to match your needs.
Trello Standout Features and Integrations
Features that are available within the Trello platform include its automation capabilities, where you can create rules, buttons, and commands to handle almost any action. Each plan from Trello supports automation to help improve team performance by allowing you to automate actions, such as task updates.
Integrations are available to help your team get work done by connecting with popular applications you’re probably already using. These include Automate.io, Beeminder, Clockify, Hubstaff, Intercom, Jira Cloud, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Slack, Zoho Cliq, and other software options. Trello also supports custom connections for those with a paid Zapier account.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Excellent third-party integrations.
- Enables real-time collaboration.
- Clean, user-friendly design.
Cons:
- Customizing the platform is complex.
- Creating multiple boards and cards is tedious.
Buffer helps businesses and individuals plan effective content schedules to increase results on social media.
Why I picked Buffer: If you already have an idea of the content you want to publish on different social media networks, Buffer can help you plan out the most efficient posting schedule. Buffer puts you in complete control of what you share and when by helping you queue content using an automated schedule, or you can use a custom time for every post. The calendar view provides a quick overview of the content you have waiting for publishing so you can make any necessary changes.
Buffer Standout Features and Integrations
Features that make Buffer an excellent choice for marketing planning are the in-depth insights the tool provides to help you monitor your social media campaigns’ performance. You get a single dashboard that provides insights into social media networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Buffer can also generate fully customized reports that are shareable with teams and stakeholders.
Integrations from Buffer that will help you create effective marketing plans include over 100 third-party applications. These include Audiense, CoSchedule, Google Drive, Klipfolio, Mailchimp, ProjectManager, PromoRepublic, Slack, Trello, Zoho Flow, and other software options. You can also create custom connections with a paid Zapier account.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Top-notch analytics.
- Straightforward scheduling tools.
- Customizable reports.
Cons:
- Large volumes of data slow it down
- No email notifications.
Asana helps distributed marketing teams orchestrate their campaign plans so they can move faster and accomplish more no matter where they are.
Why I picked Asana: I wanted to add Asana to this article because it has a strong focus on streamlining processes to save time and eliminate older methods like email. It has a real focus on marketing with capabilities that help you manage multiple, real-time creative workstreams. Asana allows you to set marketing goals and quickly assign tasks and track them, which makes this beneficial for those with distributed teams.
Asana Standout Features and Integrations
Features available within Asana that make it an excellent option are its ability to help you organize marketing plans and keep everyone involved on schedule. Asana provides templates to help you fast-track your marketing campaigns, or you can create tailored workflows to match your team’s requirements.
Integrations that are available with Asana include native integrations that are popular with marketing teams, such as Canva, Figma, Google Drive, InVision, Jira Cloud, Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Teams, Power BI, Salesforce, Slack, and other software options. If you have a paid Zapier account or have developer expertise, you can create custom integrations to fit your needs.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Keeps teams on track.
- Ranks what’s most important.
- Intuitive and easy to use.
Cons:
- Free plan is limited.
- Steep learning curve.
Mailchimp helps businesses bright audience data and insights together to help their marketing teams create high-performing email marketing campaigns.
Why I picked Mailchimp: If you’re looking to create an email marketing campaign to add to your current campaigns, Mailchimp can help you map out your campaigns and manage them from one platform. Mailchimp provides a calendar tool that allows you to monitor all of your campaign’s tasks, touchpoints, and reporting through a single source of truth. The software can help you get an overview of your email campaign’s performance across multiple marketing touchpoints.
Mailchimp Standout Features and Integrations
Features that make Mailchimp stand out from the rest include its segmentation tools that simplify processes for targeting audiences based on behavior and interests. This can enhance your marketing plans if you need to focus on specific customers so you can plan your campaign around them.
Integrations in Mailchimp that will help simplify your campaigns include over 300 options, such as Adobe Photoshop, AgencyAnalytics, Asana, Canva, Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Monday.com, SugarCRM, Whatagraph, Zendesk, and other software options. You can also use a paid Zapier account to create custom integrations.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Cost-effective.
- Automated customer journeys.
- Easy to use.
Cons:
- Drip campaigns are complex to establish.
- Managing audiences is challenging.
ActiveCollab is a super easy-to-use marketing planning software that helps you organize tasks, plan your team’s tasks, and monitor everything from one platform. When using the software, you can set priorities and collaborate with clients and team members in real time. You can also track the time it takes to complete tasks and track your budget.
Why I Picked ActiveCollab: ActiveCollab can be effectively used for marketing planning, particularly by agencies, with a strong focus on its billing and invoicing for work done. The platform allows agencies to create detailed project plans, set milestones, assign tasks, and track progress. With its integrated time tracking feature, agencies can accurately track billable hours for each team member, ensuring accurate client billing. ActiveCollab also integrates with payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe, so clients can pay for services rendered with ease.
ActiveCollab Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include comprehensive time tracking functionality, allowing users to track the time spent on tasks and projects effortlessly. This feature helps teams monitor productivity, accurately estimate project timelines, and analyze resource allocation. Additionally, ActiveCollab's integrated invoicing feature streamlines the billing process by generating professional invoices based on tracked time and project expenses. This eliminates the need for separate invoicing tools, saving time and simplifying financial management.
Integrations include Google Drive, Dropbox, Trello, Basecamp, Asana, Wrike, Slack, Hubstaff, TimeCamp, QuickBooks, Authorize.Net, Braintree, PayPal, Stripe, and TestLodge. You can access more integrations through Zapier, but that requires a separate subscription and may incur additional costs.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Useful built-in collaboration tools
- Time-tracking & invoicing capabilities
- Easy to learn & use
Cons:
- More customization options welcomed
- Only one asignee per task
Hootsuite helps marketing teams confidently plan social media campaigns across multiple networks and gain actionable, real-time insights.
Why I picked Hootsuite: As social media’s popularity continues to grow, using platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is becoming a necessity. So, I wanted to add Hootsuite to this list because of how it’s able to help your teams plan, launch, and optimize social media campaigns from one platform. The calendar overview of your content that’s scheduled for distribution will help you map out your campaigns and fill in any content gaps.
Hootsuite Standout Features and Integrations
Features that will help you plan your social media campaigns include Hootsuite’s AI. You can use the OwlyWriter AI to create engaging descriptions in the tone or voice you want it to use. The AI can also create a list of content ideas after giving it a simple prompt.
Integrations are available from Hootsuite to connect your essential marketing tools. These integrations include over 100 systems, such as Bynder, Dropbox, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Microsoft Teams, Monday.com, Rambox, Salesforce, Slack, Zendesk, and other software options. If you have a paid Zapier account, you can create custom integrations with your tech stack.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Excellent customer success managers.
- Simple scheduling and analytics tools.
- Easily delegates roles.
Cons:
- User interface needs updating.
- Data discrepancies between Facebook and Hootsuite.
GoodDay is an integrated marketing planning and work management solution that provides businesses with advanced planning, management, and tracking capabilities in one platform. You can customize workflows with an agile board and unlimited hierarchies, which provides you with an overview of all assignments, tasks, and teams.
Why I Picked GoodDay: GoodDay allows you to manage your marketing processes with a scheduler, task and time tracker, and daily timesheets. The platform can support your entire work processes end-to-end and automate many of your routine management actions. GoodDay’s expansive set of features allows you to build and customize solutions that reflect and compliment your processes instead of making you change them to fit the platform. With GoodDay, you'll be able to fully configure project workflows, create custom task and project types, add unique field types, and set-up custom views.
GoodDay Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include its customizable workflows and its extensive integrations. GoodDay offers flexible workflow customization, allowing teams to design and adapt their project management processes to align with their specific needs and preferences. Plus, GoodDay boasts a wide range of integrations with popular tools and platforms, such as Google Drive, Slack, Jira, and Trello. These integrations enhance collaboration and streamline the flow of information across different systems.
Integrations include Google Workforce, Slack, and Google Drive. The platform also integrates with over 1,300 applications through Zapier, though that requires a separate subscription and may incur additional costs. If needed, GoodDay has an API that can integrate with any existing systems and workflows.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Offers built-in asset management
- Highly customizable
- Robust automation & scheduling
Cons:
- CRM functionality could be better
- Not appropriate for complex projects
Keen is a powerful marketing planning software designed to help businesses streamline their marketing strategies and achieve their goals. With its user-friendly interface, customizable features, and comprehensive planning tools, Keen empowers marketing teams to collaborate, track progress, and make data-driven decisions.
Why I Picked Keen: Keen is a robust marketing planning software that excels in budgeting and financial analytics. The platform offers intuitive budgeting tools that allow marketing teams to create, allocate, and track budgets for their campaigns. With Keen, businesses can easily set budget goals, monitor spending, and make informed financial decisions. Furthermore, Keen provides advanced financial analytics capabilities, enabling teams to analyze the performance of their marketing initiatives, measure return on investment (ROI), and gain valuable insights into cost-effectiveness.
Keen Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include predictive analytics to provide users with insights into future campaign performance based on historical data and industry benchmarks. This feature helps marketing teams make informed decisions, optimize their strategies, and anticipate potential outcomes. Additionally, Keen's campaign performance tracking enables users to monitor and evaluate the success of their marketing campaigns in real-time.
Integrations include AMP and Pixlee TurnTo. Their API offers a further means to build two-way data sync with other platforms but developer/IT support is required in most cases.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Predictive campaign analytics
- Budgeting & financial analytics
- Mixed media modeling + multi-touch attribution
Cons:
- Lack of integrations
- Costly API (no data usage caps)
Seimsic is a powerful sales enablement platform designed to empower marketing teams by providing comprehensive tools and resources to enhance their sales efforts. With features like content management, analytics, and personalized training, Seimsic helps marketers optimize their strategies, boost productivity, and drive revenue growth.
Why I Picked Seismic: Seismic serves as a crucial asset for large teams and enterprises by providing robust support for their sales and marketing strategies. With its centralized content management system, it enables efficient organization and distribution of marketing collateral, ensuring that teams have access to up-to-date and relevant materials. Additionally, Seismic's analytics capabilities allow for data-driven insights, enabling teams to track engagement, measure performance, and make informed decisions to optimize their strategies. The platform also offers personalized training and coaching, empowering teams to enhance their skills and knowledge.
Seismic Standout Features & Integrations
Key features intelligent content automation feature sets it apart from competitors. It utilizes artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to automatically tag, categorize, and recommend relevant content based on user behavior, preferences, and engagement data. Seismic also stands out by offering seamless integration with a wide range of sales enablement tools and platforms, creating a unified ecosystem for sales and marketing teams. It integrates with CRM systems, marketing automation tools, and email platforms.
Integrations include Microsoft platforms, Google services, and the Salesforce suite.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Scalable for large enterprises
- Robust digital asset management (DAM)
- Content creation automation with LiveDocs
Cons:
- Not cost-effective for small teams
- No free trial to try before you buy
BrandMaker is a product management software that enables marketers to plan and manage digital marketing campaigns. BrandMaker is great for product marketers who juggle two or three platforms to keep track of their marketing assets, plan marketing campaigns, and oversee customer engagement data on social media.
Why I Picked BrandMaker: One of BrandMaker’s features I like the most is their approach to global digital asset management (DAM). Their tool, along with workflow and campaign tools, offers a dedicated DAM system with asset control, brand compliance, and metadata tagging features. This is hugely helpful to product marketers who need to distribute photo or image assets to different partners and tightly control the asset proofing/approval stages.
BrandMaker Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include comprehensive DAM system that allows businesses to store, organize, and manage their digital assets in a centralized repository. This feature enables efficient asset search and retrieval, version control, and rights management. Additionally, BrandMaker's marketing resource management functionality provides a robust set of tools for planning, budgeting, and resource allocation.
Integrations are sparse and mostly rely on developers using the BrandMaker API to build their own connections. Instead, BrandMaker encourages users to expand software functionality with their own first-party modules: Media Pool, Brand Template Builder, Job Manager, and Marketing Planner.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- All-in-one marketing solution
- Flexible & scalable platform
- Clean, clear user interface
Cons:
- Lack of integrations
- Slight learning curve
MarketPlan.io can help you plan your customer’s path from visitor to lead and from sale to a lifetime customer. It’s a powerful platform that offers your business the functionalities you need to plan, execute, project, and optimize your marketing strategy. MarketPlan.io has ten built-in marketing applications, such as a blog planner, email sequence, keyword planner, and social plan.
Why I Picked MarketPlan.io: MarketPlan.io helps you align your marketing efforts and align them to help you optimize your customer’s journey by offering dynamic and customizable marketing plan mapping. You can use visuals to plot how marketing assets get made, who touches then and when, and expected platforms they will alnd on (and in what priority). The platform also provides a canvas that gives your marketing campaign a central location for easy management. You can also keep your entire team on the same page, add comments, assign tasks, send files, and provide progress notifications.
Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include collaborative editing, allowing multiple team members to work on marketing plans simultaneously. This feature fosters real-time collaboration, enabling teams to brainstorm ideas, make updates, and provide feedback seamlessly. Additionally, MarketPlan.io's Live Presentations feature enables users to present and share marketing plans in real-time with stakeholders or clients.
Integrations include most payment processors, ClickFunnels, Shopify, and WooCommerce.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Collaborative editing capabilities, text & video
- Funnel planning & visualization
- Generate tracking code & UTMs
Cons:
- Free plan for 1 user only
- Tedious to set up tracking for multiple ads
MyMarketingMate helps business owners and marketing managers of any size and industry create effective marketing plans. The platform allows you to streamline your marketing planning and track your plan’s progress towards your targets. The software is an excellent choice whether you’re a seasoned professional or have never created a marketing plan before.
Why I Picked MyMarketingMate: One of MyMarketingMate’s most interesting capabilities lies in its marketing plan wizard, which helps you create your plan in a few steps. When creating your marketing plan using the wizard, the platform provides tips and ideas throughout the process when creating a plan from scratch. The system also offers a suite of ready-made plans that are populated with proven strategies for specific goals and industries. This makes it a great tool for beginners who might have not used work planning or project managing tech before.
MyMarketingMate Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include its AI-powered marketing recommendations and its integrated marketing calendar. MyMarketingMate leverages artificial intelligence to provide personalized marketing recommendations based on data analysis and industry insights. Plus, MyMarketingMate's integrated marketing calendar allows users to visualize and manage their marketing activities in a single interface. It enables businesses to plan and track their marketing campaigns, schedule content releases, and coordinate cross-channel efforts.
Integrations are not listed on their site.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Completely marketing focused
- Step-by-step wizard to get started
- Plenty of templates to choose from
Cons:
- Lack of integrations
- Not cost effective for small teams
Mediatool is a cloud-based marketing platform that helps marketing teams plan, measure, and report on their activities. The platform gives a complete overview of campaigns’ performance in real-time and helps you make better decisions by combining plans and results from data. When using the software, you can monitor expenses and filter data by brand, market, product, media type, or promotional channels.
Why I Picked Mediatool: Mediatool functions as a comprehensive marketing planning tool with robust media management capabilities. The platform enables marketing teams to efficiently plan, execute, and analyze their media campaigns in one centralized hub. Mediatool allows users to set campaign objectives, define target audiences, allocate budgets, and schedule media placements across various channels. Its media management capabilities include features such as media inventory management, media buying, and performance tracking. Users can track media spend, monitor campaign performance, and generate detailed reports to evaluate the effectiveness of their media efforts.
Mediatool Standout Features & Integrations
Key features include advanced media analytics capabilities, allowing users to track and analyze the performance of their media campaigns in-depth. With detailed insights into impressions, clicks, conversions, and other relevant metrics, users can make data-driven decisions to optimize their media strategies. Mediatool also provides a Collaboration Hub that facilitates seamless communication among team members, clients, and stakeholders. This feature enables real-time communication, task management, and document sharing.
Integrations include Google Analytics, Adform, and Google Campaign Manager.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Create tailor-made reports
- Set budgets & KPIs
- Good for complex, integrated marketing
Cons:
- Cluttered UI difficult to navigate
- Lengthy onboarding process
ConvertKit enables marketing teams to create ideal customer journeys and ensure emails reach the right people.
Why I picked ConvertKit: The automations that you can set up can be set up quickly and be as complex as necessary. ConvertKit provides a visual builder that will help you map out your interactions with an audience and guide them through their journeys. You can use ConvertKit to build automations with single or multiple entry points to ensure your audience goes down the customer journey you build for them. The automations you build can instantly react to your audience’s behavior, so every email they receive from you is relevant to where they are in your customer journey.
ConvertKit Standout Features and Integrations
Features include tools that will keep your emails relevant to your audience, thanks to its audience management system. With these tools, you can tag, segment, and organize audiences based on behavior and interests to keep your messages from ending up in their spam folders.
Integrations are available, including applications such as Acuity Scheduling, AgencyAnalytics, ClickFunnels, Coda.io, DeBounce, Monday.com, Outgrow, Personalizely, SegMetrics, WordPress, and other software options. You can also use Zapier’s paid account or ConvertKit’s API to create custom integrations.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Intuitive list management features.
- Simple navigation.
- User-friendly.
Cons:
- Needs more tracking metrics.
- Pricing can become expensive.
monday.com helps marketing teams plan the workload involved when implementing new marketing campaigns.
Why I picked monday.com: monday.com is primarily a project management system, but I wanted to add monday.com to this list because it provides a library of project templates you can use to quickly create marketing plans. This includes a dozen marketing-specific templates such as a content calendar, social media planner, marketing strategy, and other beneficial templates. These templates can help you put together schedules and workloads that make good use of your resources and maximize productivity without overwhelming your team.
Monday.com Standout Features and Integrations
Features from the monday.com platform include its performance insights capabilities that allow you to visualize project performance and workflows. This will help you manage tasks at the team and individual levels when planning your campaigns.
Integrations are available within monday.com to help marketing teams improve productivity, including Bynder, Canva, Figma, Hootsuite, Klipfolio, Miro, PandaDoc, SEMrush, Supermetrics, Trello, and other software options. Monday.com also provides an API that allows you to create custom integrations with your current systems.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Excellent user interface.
- Very customizable.
- Easy to create workflows.
Cons:
- Limited reporting features.
- Doesn’t track subitems on dashboards.
Other Marketing Planning Software
Here are a few more that didn’t make the top list. If you need additional suggestions, check these out.
- ClickUp
Best for efficient project management and collaboration features
- Semrush
Best for market research
- Screendragon
Best for proofing & approvals
- Planview
Best goals-based marketing planning software
- Productboard
Best for non-technical users
- Aha
Best for product management
- OnTrack Workflow
Best for sales enablement
- Lytho
Best for content creation & management
- Uptempo
Best for growing teams
- Mavenlink
Best for complex projects
- ProWorkflow
Best for client engagements
- Workamajig
Best customer relationship management (CRM)
- Odoo
Best open source marketing tool
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If you still haven't found what you're looking for here, check out these tools closely related to digital marketing strategy that we've tested and evaluated.
- Marketing Software
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Comparison Criteria for Marketing Planning Software
Selecting the right marketing planning software involves a careful evaluation of what they have to offer. Through extensive personal trials and research, I've developed criteria to guide software buyers towards making an informed decision.
Core Marketing Planning Software Functionality: 25% of total weighting score
- Campaign planning and scheduling: Tools for outlining marketing campaigns, including timelines and milestones.
- Budget management: Features for allocating and tracking marketing budgets across campaigns.
- Performance analytics: Dashboards and reports that provide insights into campaign effectiveness and ROI.
- Collaboration tools: Capabilities that enable team members to communicate, share documents, and work together in real time.
- Integration with other tools: The ability to seamlessly connect with CRM systems, email marketing platforms, and social media management tools.
Additional Standout Features: 25% of total weighting score
- AI-driven insights: Advanced analytics powered by artificial intelligence to predict campaign outcomes and suggest optimizations.
- Customizable dashboards: The flexibility to tailor analytics and reporting interfaces to specific business needs.
- Real-time updates: Features that provide immediate feedback on campaign performance and market changes.
- Advanced segmentation: Tools for creating detailed customer segments based on behavior, preferences, and demographics.
- Workflow automation: Capabilities that automate repetitive tasks and streamline the marketing process.
Usability: 10% of total weighting score
- Intuitive interface: A clean, user-friendly design that makes navigation and task completion straightforward.
- Drag-and-drop functionality: Simplifies the process of scheduling campaigns and managing assets.
- Mobile accessibility: Ensures that the software is fully functional on mobile devices, allowing for on-the-go management.
Onboarding: 10% of total weighting score
- Comprehensive training resources: Including detailed videos, step-by-step guides, and interactive tutorials.
- Easy setup process: A straightforward onboarding experience that gets teams up and running quickly.
- Supportive onboarding assistance: Access to customer success teams for personalized help during the initial setup phase.
Customer Support: 10% of total weighting score
- Responsive support channels: Quick and helpful responses through live chat, email, and phone support.
- Knowledgeable support team: Experts who provide insightful solutions and can guide users through complex issues.
- Community resources: Access to a user community for sharing tips, best practices, and advice.
Value For Money: 10% of total weighting score
- Competitive pricing: Plans that offer good value based on the features and capabilities provided.
- Scalable options: Pricing plans that accommodate growing businesses and expanding marketing needs.
- Transparent costs: Clear information on pricing, with no hidden fees or charges.
Customer Reviews: 10% of total weighting score
- Positive user feedback: High ratings for ease of use, customer support, and overall satisfaction.
- Success stories: Testimonials from businesses that have seen tangible improvements in their marketing outcomes.
- Constructive criticism: Reviews that offer balanced perspectives, highlighting both strengths and areas for improvement.
When choosing marketing planning software, it's essential to consider how well the tool aligns with your specific marketing goals and challenges. The right software should not only fit your current needs but also have the capacity to support your marketing efforts as they evolve.
Trends in Marketing Planning Software for 2024
These current digital marketing trends and insights can inspire your marketing planning initiatives. They can speak to the types of marketing planning software you'll need if you spot an area where you're lacking.
- Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to say that user generated content (UGC) is more authentic than brand-created content
- Social commerce (shopping directly on social media) is expected to exceed 100 million buyers by the end of 2023
- 82% of consumers want brands to prioritize people and the planet so plan with sustainability in mind
- TikTok has approximately 1 billion monthly active users; your marketing planning should incorporate short-form video in some significant fashion
- Video content generates 1200% more social shares compared to text or photo content
- Personalized marketing content is 60% more likely to encourage repeat purchases
What Is Marketing Planning Software?
Marketing planning software are software applications designed to aid businesses in developing, organizing, and monitoring their marketing strategies. These tools offer functionalities for setting objectives, analyzing market trends, budgeting, planning campaigns, and tracking performance. The purpose is to provide a structured environment for mapping out marketing activities, ensuring alignment with business goals.
Features of Marketing Planning Software
Key features may differ from software to software, but some or all of these should be present in any good marketing planning tool.
- Market Research: Tools to conduct market research and gather relevant data about target audiences, market trends, and competitor analysis.
- Goal Setting: Functionality to define marketing objectives, set measurable goals, and establish key performance indicators (KPIs) to track progress and success.
- Budget Allocation: Capability to allocate and manage marketing budgets, track expenses, and analyze the return on investment (ROI) for various marketing activities.
- Campaign Management: Tools to create, schedule, and manage marketing campaigns across multiple channels, such as email, social media, advertising, and content marketing.
- Content Creation and Management: Features to develop and organize marketing content, including content calendars, asset libraries, and collaboration tools for content creation and approval processes.
- Analytics and Reporting: Built-in analytics capabilities to track and measure campaign performance, generate reports, and gain insights into key metrics, such as conversion rates, customer engagement, and ROI.
- Collaboration and Workflow: Functionality that enables team members to collaborate, communicate, and share information within the software, streamlining workflows and facilitating effective teamwork.
- Scalability and Customization: Flexibility to adapt to different business sizes, industries, and marketing strategies, with customizable templates, workflows, and reporting options.
Benefits of Marketing Planning Software
Marketing planning software is a transformative tool designed to streamline the strategic planning and execution of marketing campaigns. Here are five key advantages that marketing planning software provides:
- Streamlined Campaign Management: Simplifies the process of planning, executing, and monitoring marketing campaigns. This software allows users to manage multiple campaigns simultaneously with ease, ensuring that each is aligned with the organization's marketing goals and objectives.
- Enhanced Collaboration: Facilitates better communication and collaboration among team members. Marketing planning software provides a centralized platform where team members can share updates, feedback, and documents, thereby improving teamwork and reducing the likelihood of miscommunication.
- Data-Driven Insights: Offers valuable insights into campaign performance and market trends. With built-in analytics and reporting tools, users can measure the effectiveness of their marketing strategies and make informed decisions based on real-time data.
- Increased Productivity: Automates repetitive tasks and streamlines workflows. By reducing the time spent on manual processes, marketing teams can focus more on strategic activities that contribute to the organization's growth.
- Budget Management: Helps in tracking and managing marketing budgets more effectively. Users can allocate resources efficiently across different campaigns, ensuring that spending aligns with strategic priorities and financial constraints.
Marketing planning software stands as a cornerstone for businesses aiming to navigate the complexities of digital marketing with precision and agility.
Cost & Pricing for Marketing Planning Software
Understanding the different plan options and what they offer is crucial in selecting a software that aligns with your business goals and budget. Below is a breakdown of typical plan options, their average pricing, and the features commonly included in each.
Plan Comparison Table for Marketing Planning Software
| Plan Type | Average Price | Common Features Included |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | - Basic campaign planning tools - Limited analytics - Access for a small number of users |
| Basic | $20 - $100 per month | - Campaign planning and scheduling - Basic analytics and reporting - Email support - Access for a moderate number of users |
| Professional | $100 - $500 per month | - Advanced campaign management features - Enhanced analytics and reporting - Integration capabilities - Priority email and chat support |
| Enterprise | $500 - $2000+ per month | - Customizable dashboards and reports - AI-driven insights and automation - Unlimited users - Dedicated account manager and 24/7 support |
When considering which plan to choose, it's important to evaluate the size of your marketing team, the complexity of your campaigns, and the level of analytics and support you require.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here are a few of the most common questions I come across when people ask me about using marketing planning software.
How much does marketing planning software cost?
What are the 9 types of marketing plans?
What are the benefits of using marketing planning software?
Additional Marketing Planning Software Reviews
If you need other marketing planning software adjacent for your organization, here are some other marketing strategy tool lists that will help you find the best option for your marketing strategy needs.
- Marketing Strategy Software
- Marketing Management Software
- Marketing Calendar Software
- Marketing Collaboration Software
- B2B Marketing Software
- Field Marketing Software
The Takeaway
Marketing planning tools are critical to guiding marketing projects from start to finish, brainstorming to execution. Your team will appreciate having tasks, milestones, and goals plotted out visually and management will appreciate more transparency around time spent, budget used, and deadlines met. Overall, marketing planning software can be your sherpa in the fast-paced and ever-changing landscape of the marketing world.
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