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It’s easy to think of commuting as a total waste of time. When you’re standing on the train platform or waiting at a traffic light, every minute that ticks by can seem like a minute lost from an already jam-packed day at work. But there’s good news for those of you who wish you could spend that time more productively.

There are a lot of fun, creative apps out there that help you make use of that time — whether it’s a 10-minute walk or a 60-minute bus ride. (Drivers: We don’t advocate the use of any of the apps on this list that involve reading or typing.)

Check out this roundup of 15 easy ways to make your commute more productive, and the apps that will help you make it happen. Try them out, and hey — you might even start looking forward to your trips to and from the office.

15 Ideas for Increasing Productivity on Your Commute

1) Create your to-do list for the day.

Apps: Wunderlist, Evernote, Dragon Dictation

If you’re the kind of person who likes to get organized first thing in the morning, spend some time listing the things you need to accomplish that day. Taking that extra time to think about each task can help you prioritize and set realistic expectations.

There are a number of to-do list apps out there, but Wunderlist and Evernote are among the best. They sync between your mobile devices and your personal computers and allow you to drag and drop tasks between days and categories, as well as set alerts and due dates. You can even share lists and notes with others. Here’s a look at the Wunderlist app:

For you drivers out there, you can use the free app Dragon Dictation to get your to-do list (and any other thoughts) down on your phone. Simply speak while the app is recording, and your text content will appear. If you’re an avid Evernote user, note that Evernote also has a voice recording function, too.

Source: OT’s with Apps & Technology

2) Clear your inbox.

Apps: Gmail, ASAM

There’s something so satisfying about arriving at the office with a clean inbox. That’s why I like to go through emails and delete anything extraneous before I even get in to work. It saves me at least a half hour and a loss of momentum during my most productive time of day.

If you’re driving, you can use ASAM — a free app from AgileSpeech — to “read” your emails. The app will read your emails out loud and word-for-word. (And when I say word-for-word, I mean it reads everything — disclaimers, signatures, and other information you might’ve skipped otherwise.) When the message is finished, the app will “ding” and you have the option to dictate a reply.

Source: Google Play

3) Set and check in on your goals.

App: Coach.me

Believe it or not, there’s a new year right around the corner. And if you’re into resolutions, checking your progress regularly and finding ways to stay motivated is key to maintaining them. The free version of the Coach.me app lets you set personal and professional targets, get reminders, and choose whether to make your achievements visible to a community of active users so you can give and receive support. And starting at $15 per week, you can hire a coach to actually help you achieve them.

Source: iTunes

4) Learn a language.

App: Duolingo

Once upon a time, maybe after college, you were almost fluent in Spanish. Or French. Or something else you learned in school. But then, you stopped practicing.

Want to get your language skills back on track? Duolingo is a fantastic (and free) app that makes (re)learning languages fun. Each lesson is short, painless, and super visual. Slate called it “the most productive means of procrastination I’ve ever discovered.” Be warned, though — it can get addictive.

Source: iTunes

5) Listen to a podcast or audiobook.

Apps: Stitcher, Podcasts, This American Life, Audible

If you’d rather not spend any more time staring at a screen during your commute, then listening to a podcast or audiobook can be a really pleasant way to spend any length of time. Plus, you’ll learn a lot of really cool information you can impress your friends with later.

The free app Stitcher lets you make playlists of all your favorite podcasts.

As for which podcasts to listen to, our favorites include:

• Radiolab
• TED Talks
• The Growth Show
• Stuff You Should Know
• Stuff You Missed in History Class
• Any NPR podcast — especially This American Life and their hit series Serial.
• The Economist‘s audio edition

Looking for something else? Take a look at Stitcher’s list of Top 100 Podcasts.

6) Read an actual book.

Apps: iBooks, Kindle, Zinio, Apple News

I don’t know about you, but I constantly lament how little time I spend reading. You know, actual books, newspapers, or print magazines. And while I also enjoy turning a physical page, I always forget to pack my print materials before I leave for work.

Luckily, there are numerous apps that address that issue, and let you read any book, newspaper, or magazine you choose from a mobile device.

For news and magazines, we like Apple’s News app, which lets you choose from a vast catalogue of publications that you can read right from your phone. You can store your favorites and choose from them with a simple tap.

But for actual books, there are the Kindle and iBooks apps, which let you download full reading materials and enjoy them from your phone or tablet. Kindle transfers any ebook purchases you’ve made on Amazon right to your device, so you can take in whatever great literature you please, right from the bus or subway.

7) Read the articles you’ve bookmarked.

App: Pocket

Using the Pocket app, you can save articles (and videos, and pretty much any type of content) in one place for easy reading on your commute. You can save content directly from your browser, emails, or from over 500 apps like Twitter, Flipboard, Pulse, and Zite. So while Evernote is a great app for long-term content storage, Pocket is perfect for bookmarking stuff to read later.

Source: iTunes // Just the Best Apps

8) Read the newest posts from your favorite online sources.

Apps: Feedly

We’ve covered how to catch up on the latest content from your favorite publications. But what about your favorite blogs or other online news sources? Feedly is an RSS reader that lets you subscribe to the publishers whose posts you never want to miss. You can separate them into different lists, mark articles as “read,” share your favorite pieces, and even browse for new content.

Source: Google Play

9) Get your social media fix out of the way.

Apps: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more …

Not all of us are lucky enough to include browsing and posting on personal social media accounts in our job descriptions. Help resist the urge to check your news feeds and notifications at work by doing it to your heart’s content during your commute.

10) Brush up on your marketing & sales progress.

App: HubSpot Mobile

Remember those days when you absolutely had to be at your desk to get your work done? Those days are close to being gone, thanks in part to the new HubSpot Mobile app. 

With this app, you can take advantage of your HubSpot software, even if you’re on the go. It starts with a customizable dashboard that gives you an at-a-glance breakdown of the most important metrics to you — landing page, blog, and email performance, as well as deals and sales tasks.

You can also easily access your contacts database, marketing insights (like email analytics) and your sales pipeline. For that last part, you can use the app to add notes, activities, or tasks, and keep track of deal stages.

11) Clean your house.

App: iRobot HOME

Weekends: The perfect time to catch up with friends, family, the TV you missed last week and house-cleaning. Okay, how many of us really get around to that last one? (Hint: I don’t.)

But my colleague, Eric Peters, let me in on a little secret about the internet of things. Thanks to its HOME app, if you own a iRobot device like Roomba, you can remotely clean your house from your mobile device.

“My new favorite productivity app is from iRobot,” he told me. “I can turn on my Roomba and clean my floor, and not have to vacuum later.”

What’s more? You can even set a cleaning schedule for the week, in case you forget to spontaneously turn on your devices.

Source: iTunes

12) Clean up your Twitter feed.

App: Twindr

Ever scrolled through your Twitter feed and realized you’ve been just a bit too generous in how many people you follow? Twindr is a free app that works kind of like Tinder, but for unfollowing people on Twitter. All it takes is a few quick swipes to clean up your follower count.

Source: Gizmodo

13) Get zen.

Apps: Insight Timer, Personal Zen, Headspace

Mondays, amirite? Suddenly, in the midst of pre-workday standing nap among the subway masses, you find your mind flooding with a mental to-do list of all the stuff you didn’t get done when you left the office early last Friday.

If this scenario sounds familiar, you’ve got to breathe — which can be tough to do on a Monday morning. But there are apps out there that can help you get zen during your commute, no matter how long it is.

We especially like Insight Timer, since — as its name suggests — you can actually set a timer for the window you have to meditate and select a combination of ambient sounds to use in the background. Or, you can select from any number of the app’s guided meditations. Om…

14) Set a step goal for the day.

Apps: Fitbit, Withings, Jawbone UP, Apple Health

A great way to get more exercise and burn more calories throughout the day is by building incremental physical activities into your daily routine. If that sounds like your style, use an app like Fitbit or Withings to set step goal for each of your commutes. (While these companies sell expensive devices that sync with their apps, they have the ability to measure your steps for free.) And if you have an iPhone, the Health app will track any steps you take when you have your device with you.

Each morning and afternoon, try to hit your goal. If you drive, park your car some distance away from the office and walk the rest of the way. If you take the train or a bus, get off a stop or two early and walk the rest of the way. If your mode of transportation gets delayed, get your steps in by walking back and forth on the platform.

Source: Jawbone

15) Plan your meals.

Apps: Eat This Much, Pepperplate, BigOven

You work hard. Your days are long. That’s why it’s so easy to resort to something that’s quick and already prepared for dinner. But you don’t have to fall victim to the easy way out — if you plan ahead. There are apps out there that can help you do that, by making it simple to plan your meals for the week in advance.

We get especially geeked-out over the Eat This Much app, in part because it’s linked to grocery-delivery apps, if they’re available in your area. Plus, it lets you set nutrition goals and set parameters for any dietary restrictions you might have, like vegan, gluten-free, or specific food allergies.

Source: iTunes

Get Appy

See? Your commute doesn’t have to be so bad, after all. 

And even if you’re lucky enough to love your work, it never hurts to have that time to yourself to take care of the things that these apps are made to do. So get happy, get healthy and get “appy” — it’s one of the best ways to make the most of your precious time.

What do you do to make your commute more productive? Share with us in the comments below!

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in February 2015 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

 

Not every marketing success comes from a big campaign. When you’re a nonprofit operating under budget constraints, big campaigns aren’t always even an option. Sometimes, it’s the little tweaks that can yield a boost in results. In some cases, the tweaks correct an issue that’s been holding your website back.

We’re going to dive into three areas where you can make some quick changes that can kick off strong change. 

1) Maximizing Your SEO Strategy

You have a clear SEO strategy based on your research of your prospects most pressing questions and concerns. You’ve identified what words and phrases they’re using to search for information online. But is it being executed as completely as it could? Each page on your website and each blog post should be optimized around a single keyword or phrase that your ideal constituent is searching for on Google. More keywords than that can dilute the organic power of your main keyword.

If your organization isn’t blogging yet, get going ASAP. A blog is the constant stream of fresh, SEO-focused content that search engines will use to drive traffic to your organization’s online presence. 

For a quick overview of blogging for nonprofits, check out this free ebook >> 

Take a look at some pages and posts that aren’t attracting as much traffic as anticipated. Review them to make sure they’re focused on a current, high performing keyword. If they are focused on a single keyword, this is a good time to re-assess if that keyword should still be a part of your SEO strategy.

You can also optimize your high traffic pages and posts. Have you optimized each element on the page? Many people overlook optimizing their images for SEO. Look at everything from the image’s filename to its alt text and title text to its loading time.

If you’ve seen an overall drop in organic traffic or your place in search results, it’s probably time for a more comprehensive review of your keyword strategy.

• Have you done your SEO research based on what your prospects want to know, or only what you want to tell them? Inbound works because of an “educate first – ask later” approach.
• Perhaps your current keywords have gotten stale. Are they focused on what constituents and prospects are concerned about now? Prospects interests and pain points may have changed since you last created your keyword list.

2) Creating More Opportunities to Convert Visitors

Inbound marketing is a journey, just like the one your future constituents take. If your only calls-to-action (CTAs) on your website are calls to join, donate, or get involved – you’re ignoring a lot of conversion opportunities.

Most of your website visitors aren’t ready to make any sort of commitment to your organization just yet. That doesn’t mean you can’t get them into your database. 

Pick one of your high-value, free resources and make it gated content. This could be a report on how use different credit union resources to rebuild poor credit or a 10-year outlook forecast on the direction of your cause. 

Whatever the topic, it should be of sufficient interest and value to prospects that they’ll happily give over their email address to get it. It’s the starting point of an active relationship between your organization and a prospect that enables you both to learn more about each other, which ideally ends with the prospect joining your organization.

Placing CTAs to your gated content throughout your website and blog provides a low stress entry point for people who are still just looking for information and aren’t quite yet ready to commit.

3) Treating Mobile as Mobile

Your mobile site can’t just be smaller version of your primary website. Part real estate, part use case, the ways visitors interact with a mobile site are very different than a desktop site. Slightly more than half of all digital media is consumed via mobile, so optimizing your organization’s mobile experience is critical to capturing and converting mobile traffic.

Let’s start with real estate. Do use responsive design so your website design works on mobile screens. Since mobile visitors will see less with a first view than on your desktop site, make sure that first impression clearly communicates who your organization is and why the visitor wants to explore more.

When you visit your mobile site, do you see a lot of text? Consuming blocks of text is difficult and off-putting for mobile visitors. Break up monotonous text with bullets, color, or an image.

Your phone number should be click-to-call, for people who want to reach you immediately on their mobile device. Yet many people visiting your mobile site don’t want to call you.  They want information. So make sure your mobile CTAs reflect mobile usability — you’re your requests simple — ask only for an email address. A CTA to apply for membership or donate now should make it clear they’ll get a link they can use to apply online that they can complete later from anywhere.

Last, Google constantly changes how it optimizes its mobile search results and user experience. Its latest approach is cracking down on annoying mobile pop-ups. If you have liberal use of pop-ups on your mobile site, or use big pop-ups that block out the content behind it, you’ll want to get rid of them. 

Staying Ahead of the Curve

It’s easy to lose track of the little things when producing a lot of content, especially when the best practices of digital marketing change so quickly. Optimization is a never-ending process. But that just means you can always find ways to get some quick wins off your website when you’re in-between running larger campaigns.

As marketers, we know that the term “mobile optimization” can sometimes seem like just another hot button term these days. And the actual process of optimizing your brand’s site can be somewhat intimidating.

In hopes of making the whole process a little less daunting, we teamed up with Localytics to bring you The Marketer’s Guide to Mobile.

This five-part kit will walk you through the best practices of mobile marketing, help you decide whether or not your brand should have an app, and bring you up to speed on how mobile has evolved over the past couple years.

More specifically, you’ll learn:

• The state of mobile marketing today and the importance of getting your marketing completely mobile optimized.
• How to optimize your website and the most important factors to keep in mind when working with your web team or freelancers.
• Best practices for mobile marketing and ensuring your efforts are passing the test.
• How to tap into the app ecosystem and why that matters for your business.
• What’s next in mobile: How to keep on top of mobile trends so your business continues to rank on search engines and bring in leads and customers.
• *Bonus* Flowchart: Should you build an app or not?

Download your copy of The Marketer’s Guide to Mobile now.

You nailed the pitch, closed the account, and now it’s time to roll up your sleeves and get to work. Everyone on your team is ready to dive in, and the client couldn’t be happier to have an agency bringing fresh ideas and new energy to the table.

What could possibly go wrong?

As you probably already know, quite a lot. The client onboarding process might seem cut-and-dried, but there are a lot of moving parts to manage to ensure the relationship gets off to a solid start. The groundwork you and your team lay in the first 90 days with a new client will either support a profitable long-term relationship, or lead to frustration and flopped projects.

To help you avoid the financial and psychological pain of a botched relationship down the line, we’ve put together a list of common client onboarding missteps to avoid at all costs. Read on to make sure your agency is doing everything possible to prevent the new relationship from going sour before it even has the chance to get off the ground.

6 Client Onboarding Mistakes to Avoid

1) You don’t set realistic expectations or goals.

Right from the start, agencies need to manage expectations with their clients — even (or perhaps especially) when it feels uncomfortable. Remember: It’s always better to under-promise than to over-promise.

Setting reasonable expectations begins with discussing what your client wants to achieve, and comparing it to what your agency is actually able to deliver. Think of it like a venn diagram: In one circle, you have your client’s dream website, and in the other circle, you have your agency’s area of expertise. During the kickoff, it’s up to your team to find the overlap between the two circles, and set goals around that.

If you don’t set reasonable, attainable goals from the get-go, your clients will fill in the blanks themselves — and you’ll find yourself being held accountable for achieving too much in too little time. It’s better to explain from the beginning that it isn’t realistic to build a fully-functional lead-generating powerhouse website in 2 weeks, rather than explain why your team couldn’t deliver later down the line.

2) You aren’t transparent about your team’s process.

During the kickoff meeting, it’s typical for agencies to provide a estimated timeline of the project — usually explaining the different phases or components that the team will be working on. This gives the client a good idea of what to expect during the process, but it might leave some critical information gaps.

To make sure the client fully understands all the work that goes into the project, it’s beneficial to give them some basic information about your team structure, and go more in-depth on how your team actually functions.

It might seem unnecessary at first to get into these nitty gritty details, but full transparency about your team’s process and work schedule will make the client more understanding if anything goes wrong — such as a deadline being pushed back or a request taking longer than expected to be addressed.

Transparency also means telling the client upfront how your team handles uncomfortable issues like out-of-scope work and billing, so it isn’t a surprise to them if these issues arise in the future. It’s always better to address these details as early as possible to avoid potentially relationship-killing drama in the future.

3) You don’t build rapport with the client’s team.

Amidst all the housekeeping, scheduling, and project management that goes into onboarding a new client, it can be easy to forget that your new clients are just people — and people like to converse and connect.

The key to establishing good rapport is to keep momentum going after the initial meeting or call. Starting with the kickoff, make a conscious effort to establish common ground by asking open-ended questions and learning as much as you can about your new client. Once you have a feel for how your client likes to communicate, focus on keeping that positive energy going through subsequent meetings and check-ins.

Developing a positive rapport doesn’t just make meetings less awkward, it also helps foster an early sense of trust and understanding between your team and your new client. If you stick solely to the technical details of a project and fail to relate on a social, human level, you could be setting the relationship up for avoidable tension or stress.

Any project setbacks or other potential issues that arise in the future will be much easier to diffuse if you’ve already put in the work to cultivate an authentic connection from the beginning.

4) You under-communicate in the first few weeks.

Over-communication is better than under-communication — especially in the critical first weeks of a new client relationship. If you under-communicate or lag in your responses early on, you’re basically saying that the project isn’t a priority for your team.

During the kickoff meeting, establish how your client prefers to be contacted (Phone? Email? Carrier pigeon?) and who your main point of contact will be. It’s important to decide on a clear communication framework right off the bat, so there’s no confusion about who will be contacting who, and when/how the check-ins will take place.

In the early stages of the project, keep your new client consistently in the loop — even on decisions that seem minor to your team. This shows the client that you’re fully committed to providing clear, actionable information throughout the project.

Worst case scenario? The client asks you to update them a little less frequently. At least they know now the project is meaningful to you, and you’re taking it very seriously.

5) You don’t ask useful questions.

You probably already learned a lot about your new client during the pitching process — whether through research or directly interviewing them — but once the deal is closed, there’s still a lot more to learn.

Now that you’re essentially part of the client’s team, you might be privy to more sensitive information about their business — information that can help you better understand and accommodate their needs and goals. The key is asking the questions that get you the relevant information you need.

Start by asking questions to assess the client’s existing marketing assets, e.g.: What marketing tactics have you found success with in the past? How do you currently generate leads? If you’re working on a website redesign project, check out these 90 questions to ask before getting started.

If you don’t use the onboarding period to ask insightful questions, you could encounter information gaps further into the project. Ask your questions upfront to get a clear picture of your client’s business and marketing program before diving into the project.

6) You don’t provide immediate value.

Never underestimate the positive impact a well-executed quick win project can have in the early stages of a new client relationship. As you probably know from experience, real marketing results can take a long (long) time to see, and all the time spent waiting for numbers to rise can make clients restless — particularly when they’re fresh off the exciting promises of your agency’s winning pitch.

A quick win project in the first few weeks of the relationship can demonstrate your agency’s capacity to provide value, and validate the client’s decision to pick you. It can also help clients feel more comfortable when bigger projects take a longer to produce tangible results, since they’ve already seen your team succeed before.

A quick win project doesn’t have to be a big strain on your agency’s time and resources. Consider developing a content offer or auditing the client’s existing marketing assets to identify new opportunities. For more advice on creating a quick win project early on, check out this article.

What client onboarding mistakes has your agency made in the past, and what did you learn from them? Share with us in the comments.