I know you’re too lazy to spend all day reading this, and I don’t blame you. But what if I told you that spending just a few minutes scanning this post could help you save hours over the course of your week, ensuring you could actually spend less time working? …. I thought that might interest you.

You see, I don’t like spending time doing things either. Which is strange, I know, because working in marketing makes me spend all sorts of time on things that I’d like to spend doing nothing at all — whether it’s creating content, posting to social media, analyzing competitors, getting mentions in the news, advertising, and digging into our data.

But I’m starting to figure it out. Because every time I agonize about having to do a marketing task, I find out there’s a tool to do it for me. So with that, I give you my 8 favorite tools that enable me to be a slacker.

Dasheroo:

If you’re like me, updating metrics is what makes you call in sick to work [cough, cough]. But Dasheroo makes the process surprisingly bearable. It’s a platform that syncs up all of your metrics into a single, visually appealing dashboard. Now all of our social media progress, Google Analytics information, and Adwords goals can be found in the same login. It even links up with Google Spreadsheets.

A glimpse at part of JotForm’s Dasheroo dashboard.

Help a Reporter Out (HARO):

There is no tool on the planet that gets you in the news easier than HARO. It’s literally a service where reporters are asking YOU to be in their story; not the other way around. If PR is part of your marketing strategy, HARO is an absolute must — especially if you intend on doing things the lazy way.

JotForm:

Yes. I work for JotForm. I’m not trying to pull one over on you. But does using it make me an even lazier marketer? You bet! Customer feedback drives marketing decisions, and what’s an easier way to collect all the feedback you need than sending a form? Emails get unwieldy and require digging around in my inbox. But JotForm’s central dashboard and integration with Google Sheets make it simple to have responses in one, tidy place without requiring any work to put it all together. It’s also makes collecting leads mind-numbingly easy.

The University of Cincinnati uses JotForm collect important information in exchange for e-books. Such a lazy move.

Word It Out:

Once you collect customer feedback, what then? Try making a word cloud using Word it Out. It allows you to create a visual report of a large grouping of text so you can quickly, and lazily, spot main themes without actually having to get your hands dirty. And all you have to do is copy and paste a block of text to make it happen.

What this entire article looks like broken down into a word cloud. I think the main theme is pretty obvious.

Google Alerts:

Google Alerts will make you so lazy that you’ll never actually search for important news again. If it’s important to you and your company, just have alerts sent to your inbox. Perfect for knowing what your competitors are doing, staying on top of industry trends, and monitoring when you’re mentioned in the news — all without actually having to do additional searching.

Unsplash:

Want to use a free picture that looks like it cost you big money, and scores of time searching? Unsplash only features beautiful, non-cheesy stock images on their site. You seriously can’t miss. Just pick any one of them for your next blog post or landing page and you’re set. I just saved you hours.

Seriously, where else can you find free images like this?

PressFriendly:

Pitching reporters is the absolute worst. It takes time, crafty language, and even follow-up emails. That’s why I’m a fan of PressFriendly. It walks me through my pitches so that they doesn’t read like they were written from a rambling 4th grader on a sugar rush, and it gives me a whole list of reporters that match the topic that I’m pitching. It’s painless. Then all I do is click “send.”

Buffer App:

Imagine spending an hour on a Monday scheduling all of your social media posts for the entire week. Facebook and LinkedIn posts as well as Tweets can be taken care of in a single batch and scheduled for optimal times — even if those times are when you’re normally sleeping. And I just don’t know what’s lazier than being asleep while my work is being done for me.

So are you lazy enough to try these? Are you too lazy to even let me know in the comments?