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How to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Productivity
Marketing 5 min read

How to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Productivity

Social media marketing can be extremely time-consuming. Monitoring mentions, responding to comments, managing your engagement on multiple profiles and doing everything possible to ensure you get the best results from social media—it all adds up to a lot of time spent using and switching between different apps. A good social media management tool can save you a lot of hours, while also improving your results. This infographic lists 5 top social media management tools on the market right now, rated by customer reviews. Infographic brought to you by Seriously Social and G2 Crowd. Credit: Ian Anderson Gray   The real trick when finding social media management tools is to find the one that has the features you need, whether based on the social channels you use, or the goals you have for your social media marketing efforts. From there, it’s a case of finding the perfect plan for your dashboard that provides the features you want at no extra cost. Sometimes this can prove problematic, as many tools have hidden costs that you may not know to look for. Let’s examine how you can use social media management tools to improve your productivity. Customer Relationship Management Social media has always offered a way for businesses to have a closer relationship with their customers, but now, it’s more important than ever to not only respond as promptly as possible to any inquiries, comments and customer service issues, but also to create a more personalized experience for your followers. Social media management dashboards are now incorporating more complex CRM tools. For example, you can organize and segment your audience by tagging users. Many tools also allow you to see all of the past conversations you’ve held with a certain social media user. This way, you’re always in the loop and by showing you remember past discussions you give that personal touch that can help build stronger connections with your followers. More and more businesses and marketers nowadays are using influencer marketing to reach a bigger audience and get more traffic, engagement and make more sales, and a social media management tool can help you in those efforts. You can use it to identify any influencers that are already in your list, as well as other influencers in your niche. From there, it’s just a question of engaging as much as possible with them, in order to build mutually beneficial relationships. A social media management tool with a strong CRM function can help you not only with customer service on social media, but it can also help you develop stronger relationships and to find more potential leads. Set Up an Editorial Calendar In order to be successful on social media, you need to post updates often and at the right times. Being organized with your content can help with this in the long run, especially if you’re using an editorial calendar, which is a feature I’m seeing more and more in social media management tools. Up until recently, one of the biggest draws of social media management tools was that you could easily schedule updates for your social media accounts. Now, though, tools make it easier to schedule your content more intelligently and help you make sure you don’t miss any opportunities to raise your traffic and engagement. Evergreen content is also on the rise, with more and more marketers striving to create content that will remain relevant months and even years from now. If you have any evergreen content, make sure to add it to your editorial calendar in order to re-publish it regularly and get the most out of it. Collaborate with Your Team When you have multiple social media profiles to manage and don’t want to work 24 hours a day, the best thing to do is to get some of your team members to help. Find a tool that has team management capabilities – the more, the better. This will not only free up some of your time, you might find that some of your team members are better at social media and getting better results. Most tools will allow you to assign tasks to team members, which they can see when they open their own accounts. For instance, if you’re get a lot of mentions and comments, you could have someone from your team assigning the most important ones directly to the head marketer, while they respond to all the other mentions. Some tools also include a breakdown of analytics by team member, so you can see what each person’s response time is, what kind of engagement they’re getting, and more. How Are You Using Social Media Marketing Tools? Social media marketing has evolved a lot over the years, and marketers’ needs are changing as well. Social media management tools are evolving to meet those needs, and are becoming more than just tools for scheduling and publishing to a few social accounts. How are you using these tools to become more efficient and productive? Share your favorite tools and tricks in the comments below. Author Bio Highly regarded on the world speaker circuit, Lilach Bullock has graced both Forbes and Number 10 Downing Street with her presence! Listed in Forbes as one of the top 20 women social media power influencers, Lilach has been crowned the Social Influencer of Europe by Oracle, and is a recipient of a Global Women Champions Award for her outstanding contribution and leadership in business.  

Online Marketing 101 (Infographic)
Marketing 3 min read

Online Marketing 101 (Infographic)

“Welcome to the team! Have you met John and Rita in SEM & SEO? You’ll be working closely with them. Oh, and make sure you connect with Nancy, she’s in charge of lead scoring and nurturing. The email and mobile marketing teams are in these rooms. How much experience do you have with marketing automation, again?” Woah. Who knew there were so many pieces to the digital marketing puzzle? If you’re new to the world of online marketing, don’t fret. We’re here to help you fit the pieces together — and figure out exactly where you fit in.  Check out our new infographic cheat sheet on the basics of major online marketing approaches: Like this infographic? Embed it on your site with this code:  Wrike Social Project Management Software Related Reads:6 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch in 20157 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team (FREE eBook)

10 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs
Marketing 3 min read

10 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid At All Costs

With the business landscape forever in flux and changing at a rapid pace, it's tough being a marketer. You have to constantly learn and master new technologies, communication platforms, and audience pains all at the same time. And it's dreadfully easy to make a mistake. In the Slideshare below, we list 10 marketing mistakes that can be fatal for companies. With proper planning, careful execution, and the appropriate tools to help, you can make sure your team doesn't make these mistakes in your next marketing project! 10 Marketing Mistakes You Should Never Commit The 10 Marketing Mistakes to Avoid 01. Trying to be everything to everyone You can't solve everyone's problems. You have a target audience, an ideal customer. Segment your lists. Aim for the sweet spot. Don't try to be a Swiss army tool. 02. Trying to go it alone Activate your network, followers, influencers, or partners to grow your brand's presence. Get them involved in helping you create and promote inspiring stories, great visual content, or helpful resources. 03. Ignoring SEO If you ignore SEO, you’re chances of being found on the web diminish considerably, and your business will never gain the online credibility it needs for search engines to send you the right visitors. 04. Following each new trend Do you look into each and every new trend or strategy before making moves? That could be burning your team out and severely limiting the impact of your marketing. 05. Promoting your brand on social media all the time Nothing's more boring than the dinner guest who only talks about himself. Don't be that guy. Instead, be helpful, be genuine, share stuff which your contacts will find useful. 06. Running your campaigns with email/spreadsheets Using the wrong tools will result in lost productivity and inefficiency. The quality of your work and the swiftness of your response time will suffer. Instead, use a proper work management tool — like Wrike. 07. Working in silos Are your Lead Gen, Content, SEO, Web, and PR teams working from the same playbook? Are you aligned with the Product and Sales priorities as well? Working in silos will kill your growth potential. 08. Not measuring your efforts Always measure and adjust your plan according to the results of previous performance. Make sure your efforts are not being wasted by posting/emailing at the wrong time or to the wrong segments. 09. Forgetting your current customers Do you stress about growing awareness and bringing new prospects into your sales cycle, but forget about who's paying the bills today? Don't ignore your current customers — keep them happy, focus on repurchase and retention, and don't forget about upselling when it will benefit your current clients! 10. Forgetting "calls to action" Do readers of your blog know where to go when they're done reading? Do you give visitors to your web pages a place to click next? Do you have CTAs on key social sites and profiles? A few examples of good CTAs: — When you create an eBook landing page, clearly let your visitors know that they can download the book. — When you write blog posts, end with suggestions: "read this article next", "share your thoughts", or "give our product a try". What do you consider a deadly marketing mistake? Hit the comments and tell us what other marketing mistakes can tear a company down.

Wrike's Ultimate Guide To Marketing Management
Marketing 5 min read

Wrike's Ultimate Guide To Marketing Management

Learn about the role of marketing management and its philosophies and processes. Plus, discover why Wrike is the best marketing management software available.

Award-winning Marketing Communications Agency Efficiently Manages Multiple Projects with Wrike
Marketing 3 min read

Award-winning Marketing Communications Agency Efficiently Manages Multiple Projects with Wrike

To improve the collaboration on multiple projects, Viva’s managers started looking for easy-to-use project management software that would help to manage the workload. Members of the distributed team at Viva Creative needed a convenient way to stay up-to-date with project schedules and a handy tool to track their own assignments. For the managers, it was hard to monitor the team’s progress and get a global overview of all the activities. With Wrike, team members at Viva Creative have found an easy and efficient solution to keep the dynamic workflow well-organized. “Wrike has become an irreplaceable tool that we rely on as we grow our business,” says Lorne Greene, CEO at Viva Creative. Read the whole interview with Lorne to discover why Wrike has become such a valuable tool for Viva Creative and how the team members benefit from using this innovative project management software.  

Agile Marketing: Buzzword or Top Strategy for Fast-Paced Marketing Teams?
Marketing 7 min read

Agile Marketing: Buzzword or Top Strategy for Fast-Paced Marketing Teams?

Is "Agile marketing" really just an overhyped term for what marketers have been doing all along? Or is it the effective method for managing campaigns that believers say it is?

7 MarTech Blogs to Follow
Marketing 5 min read

7 MarTech Blogs to Follow

As the world of marketing continues to expand and the user experience becomes an increasingly critical focus for businesses everywhere, marketing operations and marketing technology (a.k.a., MarTech) become crucial areas to focus on. What better way to stay on top of this subject than by reading the thought leadership of the bloggers in the space? Here is our list of 7 MarTech blogs you should be reading: 1. Marketing Land's Martech Today: http://marketingland.com/library/channel/martechRun by Matt McGee and the same team that produces Search Engine Land, Marketing Land reports on everything marketing-related. But it is Marketing Land's MarTech Today channel that falls within the scope of this post. The channel is well-stocked and updated daily with the latest in the marketing technology space. Sample content: Mobile Marketer FollowAnalytics Follows The Trend Toward Messaging “Moments” Marketer’s Guide: B2B Marketing Automation Platforms 2. Brian Solis: http://www.briansolis.com Brian Solis, futurist and digital analyst at Altimeter Group, studies the effects of disruptive technology on business and even society in general. His posts may tackle marketing and disruptors in the MarTech space, but will also touch on the customer experience, and Silicon Valley behind-the-scenes. Sample content: How To Unify Your Sales, Service and Marketing Departments Around Customer Experience Wolfpack App is a Mobile Social Nichework for Guys to be Guys – Is this the Dawn of Social Nicheworks? 3. Marketing TechBlog: www.marketingtechblog.comThe Marketing TechBlog run by the team at DK New Media and founded by Douglas Karr, is another news source that covers a wide range of topics — from advertising and analytics to automation, mobile, ecommerce, and much more. Sample content: Including Instagram Photos Increased Email Engagement 7x 10 Essentials Elements for Efficient Content Production 4. Chief Marketing Technologist Blog: http://chiefmartec.com/blog Written and edited by Scott Brinker, this blog was started in 2008 back before MarTech was a common term. Check out the breadth of coverage in the blog's archives and you'll see how much the space has grown, and how Brinkner has consistently been at the forefront of discussions involving data software and marketing/sales. Sample content: The 5 digital dynamics that are transforming marketing Marketing isn’t alone — HR software landscape with 547 products 5. Inspire MarTech: http://inspiremartech.com This is the blog of digital evangelist Mayur Gupta, who was one of the first high-profile marketing technologists at major brand Kimberly Clark. Aside from being at the forefront of discussions related to marketing technology for the past decade or so, he's also passionate about the usage of Agile methods within marketing organizations. Sample content: Consumer – The Missing Seat in the C-Suite Data Convergence – The Marketing Glue For The Omni-Channel Reality 6. The Hub: The Marketing Technology Resource: http://www.thehubcomms.com/ While the other blogs have categories for everything MarTech-related, The Hub limits its "channels" to six: customer experience, marketing cloud, social media, analytics, mobile, and content marketing. But that's not to say they cover less. At least twice a month, they release podcasts as well. They also have a long-running feature called "Five Minutes With..." where they interview other marketing thought leaders. They do a good job of profiling companies in their space as well. Sample content: Five Minutes With: Julie Ginches, CMO at Kahuna Celebrity-Generated Content is Priceless 7. MarTech Advisor: www.martechadvisor.comThe blog touts itself as the world's leading source for marketing technology news, research, product comparisons, and expert views. And they don't kid around. This is the go-to source for news on technology and tools for sales and marketing professionals. Their blog post categories are exhaustive and cover everything from AdTech to social media, content marketing, event marketing, and email marketing. Sample content: Ensure These Measures to Avoid Failure of Your Content Marketing Plan Why Remarketing is Highly Effective A final tip: Subscribe to the email newsletters of the blogs you like so you get updates directly to your inbox. And if you're concerned about inbox bloat, use Unroll.me to compile all your marketing-related newsletters into one. Turn Your Marketing Team Agile If you want in-depth strategies for making your marketing team Agile, download the free eBook: 7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team.

Wrike for Marketers: New Features to Deliver Flawless Campaigns Faster
News 5 min read

Wrike for Marketers: New Features to Deliver Flawless Campaigns Faster

Wrike for Marketers is revolutionizing the end-to-end work lifecycle for marketers and creatives with these new and improved features.

New Image Viewer in Wrike to Help Marketing and Creative Teams
News 3 min read

New Image Viewer in Wrike to Help Marketing and Creative Teams

Creative teams, as well as other marketing department roles who frequently add images to tasks in Wrike via email, will be pleased with Wrike’s great new task management feature: the image viewer. This tool gives you a quick and nice-looking view of your images, screenshots and photographs in the task description.  When you send an email to Wrike, Wrike elegantly converts it into a task. Thanks to the new image viewer, you can see neat thumbnails of all images that were inserted in that email (1) while browsing your tasks in Wrike (2).   You also can get full-size views of these images in a single click! To see the image in detail, you simply click on its preview to zoom in. The new viewer is really handy for working with several images that were added to a task description via email. In the image viewer, you can quickly switch between the images by simply hitting the arrows on your keyboard,  play a slideshow (3) and drag images around the screen (4). Many marketing and creative teams work with images on a daily basis in Wrike. With the new image viewer, there is no need for you to download tons of design mocks, screenshots and photographs to examine each of them. The full-size images are only one click away! Such a quick and convenient way to view images will help you save time and make your task management experience with Wrike even more enjoyable. You are welcome to try the feature today and share your thoughts and feelings with us!

Is Agile Viable for Marketing Teams?
Marketing 3 min read

Is Agile Viable for Marketing Teams?

When the Agile software development methodology came into prominence in the early 2000s with its own Agile Manifesto, it changed how software companies managed their work mindsets and production processes. To put it mildly, it electrified the industry and started spawning unbelievable success stories. Eventually other industries realized Agile could be adapted to their own workflows. Marketing teams especially found it essential due to these Agile methodology advantages: 1. Customers' needs and tastes constantly change. Success means delivering products that customers need and want to pay for. But if customer needs are always in flux, marketing teams need a way to adapt quickly otherwise they doom their campaigns to failure or irrelevance. 2. Company priorities are perennially shifting. With marketing teams bombarded by requests for collaterals, or social media viral hits, or email marketing tactics, there is a real need to stay flexible enough to serve EVERYONE in the organization while still maintaining its own metrics for success. 3. Marketing technologies are always new. Shifting to new technologies often means changing the way work is processed. While it's never a good thing to try every shiny new gizmo that comes along, without testing new technologies marketers might miss out on the tech that truly makes their work more efficient. Agile marketing answers all the above needs, providing marketing with the framework to be customer-centric and also entirely flexible enough to handle sudden changes in strategy, direction, or even tools. How does Agile do this? • By promoting adaptive planning • By working in iterations • By promoting communication and transparency• By allowing rapid response to change These four benefits are tackled in more detail in the Slideshare below: 4 Reasons Why Marketing Needs to be Agile. Follow us on Slideshare! If you want truly in-depth strategies for making your marketing team Agile, download the free eBook, 7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team.

The Beginner's Guide to Online Marketing (Free eBook)
Marketing 3 min read

The Beginner's Guide to Online Marketing (Free eBook)

In the past decade, the number of people connected to the internet has exploded. Now, almost 3 billion people are online, sending over 100 billion emails, posting 500 million Tweets, and watching 3 billion YouTube videos every day — and the numbers keep growing! As more customers flock to the internet to socialize, conduct daily business, and make purchases, marketing departments are also evolving to incorporate new online marketing approaches and teams. With so many new marketing roles, strategies, and tools popping up, it can be tricky to keep track of them all — or understand exactly how they all relate to each other. Click through the Slideshare presentation below to learn the essentials of 5 popular online marketing approaches, then download the full eBook for a complete guide to digital marketing. Beginner's Guide to Online Marketing   Download the free online marketing eBook to read tips on creating or improving your strategies, gather new tool suggestions, and get a better understanding of the online marketing world.

Leverage the Power of Data and Process With Wrike for Marketers Performance
Marketing 7 min read

Leverage the Power of Data and Process With Wrike for Marketers Performance

Wrike for Marketers Performance unifies teams and campaign insights in one workspace by centralizing data from 50 popular tools, enabling you to better monitor marketing efforts.

The History of Marketing Operations (Infographic)
Marketing 3 min read

The History of Marketing Operations (Infographic)

Marketing Operations is on the rise, with many companies turning to marketing ops teams to make their marketing efforts more efficient and effective. While Marketing Ops is still a relatively new field, its beginnings stretch back to the 1920s, and its evolution through different marketing disciplines provides insights into its importance, benefits, and increasing popularity. Keep reading to learn all about the hot new field that’s been identified as one of the fastest-growing professions in marketing. Share this infographic with fellow marketers on social media, or use this embed code to post it on your own site: Infographic brought to you by Wrike Current Marketing Ops Trends Learn more about marketing ops with this overview of popular strategies and common practices: State of Marketing Operations and MarTech in 2015

Get Ahead of the Competition with The New Rules of Marketing and PR (Book Review)
Marketing 5 min read

Get Ahead of the Competition with The New Rules of Marketing and PR (Book Review)

Make marketing language uniquely you. Every brand should have its own identity, which means your marketing strategy should not be the same as your competitor's. This applies to concepts both large and small, from major marketing campaigns to the language used in promotional material. Whatever angle you choose, make sure the rest of the company is on the same page.

Best Marketing Books You Need to Read
Marketing 10 min read

Best Marketing Books You Need to Read

Every month it seems like there are new marketing tools being introduced and new trends to stay on top of. But in the constant mad hunt for what's cool and trending (the legacy of all social media), marketers sometimes forget to revisit relevant lessons from classic marketing books. Below, we've put together a roundup of the last few marketing book reviews on the Wrike blog:

4 Ways to Arm Your Team for Content Marketing Success
Marketing 3 min read

4 Ways to Arm Your Team for Content Marketing Success

The Content Marketing Institute recently held its annual conference, Content Marketing World, and also published their B2B Content Marketing Study. Some trends that became very clear from both the survey and the event. We’re going to be increasingly flooded with content from brands Content marketers will continue to hone their skills, so content will get better and better To stand out, your content needs to be both unique and consistently delivered You’ll need a management approach, tools, processes and people in place to have an effective Content Engine To focus on the last point, and to arm your marketing plan for content marketing success, the effective management and operations of the content marketing team requires four things: 1. An Agile management approach to adjust to constantly changing demands from both internal stakeholders and customers. (See 7 Steps to Developing an Agile Marketing Team.) 2. A tool to manage communication, workflows and project management. (Learn more about Wrike for marketing team collaboration.) 3. Appropriate resources and access given to the content creators, designers and web developers to support rapid and regular content creation. 4. A collaborative relationship with the marketers who handle social media, advertising, email marketing/marketing automation. Learn more about the approaching content wave and the key takeaways from Content Marketing World 2014 in our Slideshare.   Standing Out: Content Marketing World 2014 Takeaways #CMWorld Is your marketing team ready? How is your marketing team approaching the increasing need for high quality content? Let us know in the comments!

Ready, Set, Go Pro: 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional (Book Review)
Marketing 5 min read

Ready, Set, Go Pro: 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional (Book Review)

Eric Worre reveals the secret to succeeding in this industry in his book, Go Pro: 7 Steps to Becoming a Network Marketing Professional. Are you ready to maximize your network marketing investment? Read this book review.

Building Visibility in a Global Marketing Team
Marketing 7 min read

Building Visibility in a Global Marketing Team

Today’s marketers must deliver consistent, personalized, compelling experiences across all channels. They’re tasked with developing new ways to generate leads, manage campaigns, as well as create and maintain a strong brand. 

Nail the Basics with Marketing for Dummies: 4th Edition (Book Review)
Marketing 5 min read

Nail the Basics with Marketing for Dummies: 4th Edition (Book Review)

This updated work covers an extensive set of topics, from social media best practices to building brand loyalty. It lays out everything you need to know to avoid wasting time on potentially costly, ineffective initiatives and focus on what matters. Most important, Marketing for Dummies offers more than just marketing research. It gives readers the necessary tools to take actionable steps forward to achieve results and meet their goals.

5 Bad Marketing Habits (and How to Avoid Them)
Marketing 10 min read

5 Bad Marketing Habits (and How to Avoid Them)

Are you guilty of unproductive routines? Here are five bad marketing habits to keep an eye out for—as well as ways to overcome them.

Don't Just Say It, Do It! Marketing (Book Review)
Marketing 5 min read

Don't Just Say It, Do It! Marketing (Book Review)

The book contains 77 instant actions, giving you a complete marketing playbook that can help take your small business to the top. Plus, Newman provides a 21-day marketing launch plan to apply those skills you learned.

How To Combat Marketing Bottlenecks With a Streamlined Intake Process
Project Management 5 min read

How To Combat Marketing Bottlenecks With a Streamlined Intake Process

Eliminate project bottlenecks by improving your marketing intake process. A better client intake process means fewer missed deadlines and less project confusion.

5 Marketing Operations Myths Debunked
Marketing 3 min read

5 Marketing Operations Myths Debunked

Marketing operations is a hot topic, especially for businesses looking to stretch their marketing dollars farther. And yet misunderstandings abound concerning what marketing ops teams do and how they do it. So, we're tackling 5 common misconceptions surrounding marketing operations to set the record straight.   First things first: what exactly do marketing operations teams do? They work to increase the efficiency and agility of the marketing department, aligning marketing efforts with both overarching business strategy and other departments (like sales and IT). Marketing ops manages strategic planning, budgeting, MRM marketing, process development, professional development, and marketing technology/data in order to measure and improve marketing performance and identify best practices. Myth 1: Marketing Ops' main goal is to justify marketing efforts. Fact: Marketing ops teams are objective. They don’t have quotas, so they can look at campaign results objectively to measure performance and attribute credit impartially. Their main goal isn’t to prove the ROI of marketing efforts, but rather to boost ROI through improved processes, analytics, etc. Myth 2: Marketing Operations is part of demand generation, and Marketing Operations managers come from traditional marketing roles. Fact: Marketing Operations teams are completely independent from other marketing departments, and marketers aren’t necessarily the ones filling marketing ops roles; they’re coming from finance, IT, sales ops, and other analytical, process-oriented positions. Myth 3: Marketing Ops is all about technology and data — automating processes, analyzing results, and crunching numbers. Fact: Gathering data isn’t enough, good marketing ops means interpreting it, understanding the business' objectives and how the marketing organization fits into the larger organization, and driving change within the organization. Marketing operations teams need to consider first and foremost the customer experience; only then can they determine how to tailor the marketing approach to improve that experience and boost engagement. Myth 4: Revenue generation is the realm of Sales Ops. Fact: Good Marketing Ops teams consider their marketing organization's process and strategy by considering this question: how does it contribute to revenue generation? At the Marketing Operations Executive Summit, they shared that "Marketing is now the strategy arm that is leading, and sales is following.” Marketing ops and Sales ops teams need to be closely aligned when it comes to revenue generation, not participate in hand-offs or operate independently. Myth 5: Your company needs a full-fledged Marketing Operations department in order to have effective marketing operations. Fact: You can improve your company's marketing operations right now, with the resources you already have. This article gives tips on identifying someone within your current marketing team who would be a good fit for taking on some marketing operations/marketing technologist responsibilities. And this article covers 6 ways your current marketing leaders can improve your marketing operations processes without hiring a marketing ops role (or spending any money at all). Learn About Marketing Operations Facts and Figures Find out which skills are most desired among marketing operations managers, the top challenge facing today's marketing departments, and how high-performing companies are boosting marketing revenue contribution by 69% in this overview of current marketing operations statistics. Sources: Marketo blog, Venturebeat, Wikipedia, Allocadia.com

11 Top Add-Ons for Adobe Illustrator
Marketing 5 min read

11 Top Add-Ons for Adobe Illustrator

As a creative professional, you're always looking for new ways to bring your designs to life. Add-ons offer more tools, effects, and workflows to help you do more with your Adobe Creative Cloud apps. While there are countless plugins and add-ons available for Adobe applications, we asked our own design team to share some of their favorites. These 11 add-ons will save you time and effort on your designs — and add some cool new visual styles to your arsenal. 1. Dragstrip Illustrator Brush Kit - RetroSupply Co. Price: $15 Give your vectors the look of hand-painted brush strokes with this add-on. Includes 26 illustrator brushes, including TIFF versions, painterly and splatter texture overlays, and two examples of professional quality reference art so you can see exactly how to use the brushes for best results.  2. Handmade Linocut Brushes - Guerillacraft Price: $8 35 lino cut brushes and 12 vector textures to give your work a handmade, hand-printed look, along with a set of brushes to create a unique woodcut effect.  3. Vintage Comic Press - AI Actions  Price: $19 Inspired by comics from the 1950s, this add-on uses yellow, magenta, and cyan overlays to produce an authentic vintage look in vector format. Also includes halftone variations, 3D shadows, text outlines, coloring tips and cheat sheets.  4. PosterPress for Illustrator - Ian Barnard Price: $16 Give your designs the look of beautiful vintage travel posters with this add-on. You’ll also get 18 vector textures, a visual font list plus links to download them, and 13 beautiful photographs to use in your work.   5. Gold Rush for Illustrator - Studio Denmark  Price: $18 All the metallic, glitter, and foil effects you could possibly want, in every shade of gold, rose gold, black, silver and copper. Over 200 swatches that include crumpled foil, gold leaf, metallic paint, textures, glitter, confetti, and geometric patterns. 6. Watercolor Fantasies Quick Styles - Creators Couture  Price: $18 140 raster pattern swatches, each with a light and intense style variation. Apply it with a click and it pulls your current vector color as the base color, then adjust the style via the appearance panel.  7. 300+ Real Markers for Illustrator - Hejbrush.com Price: $9 Realistic marker brushes—over 300 actual markers scanned in 2400 dpi, cleaned and sharpened, then taken back to original size at 300 dpi.  8. VectorScribe - Astute Graphics Price: $78 Edit vector paths with precision, create dynamic shapes and corners, convert and delete points, extend and trim paths, and more. Included is a smart remove brush tool to remove excess points, a path extend tool, dynamic corners and shapes tools, a PathScribe tool to edit vector paths, the dynamic measure tool for quick and accurate measurements, and a protractor tool.  9. Magic Exporter - Kodlian.com  Price: $25 Export objects from your AI docs to PNGs for all devices and screens. The add-on exports objects separately, so you can export artwork with a graphic layout behind it, and you can export designs scaled precisely for various devices and screen sizes.  10. CADtools 10 for Illustrator - Hot Door Price: $349 Easily draw, edit, and dimension vector your artwork with these 87 tools and 12 panels. Hundreds of editable symbols for architecture, people, and landscapes that automatically scale to the target layer, plus a built-in dashboard to control CAD features in Illustrator.  11. Wrike Adobe Creative Cloud Add-In - Wrike Price: Free Trial Attach previews of your work to Wrike, update and track file versions, update task status, and quickly find instructions, creative briefs, and feedback comments without leaving Illustrator.  More Tools and Resources for Creative Professionals Whether you’re a novice designer or have years of experience under your belt, there are always new shortcuts and techniques to learn. Check out our list of free online training resources for Adobe Creative Cloud to sharpen your existing skills or learn the ins and outs of a new tool. Then see how Wrike's solution for marketing and creative teams can streamline administrative tasks and free your time to focus on creative work.