Digital marketing is a dynamic world that forces you to be efficient and adaptable. No one knows that better than Vladimir Milic, the founder and CEO of VM Digital, a successful digital marketing agency.
We sat down with Vladimir to learn more about VM Digital, the challenges they faced, and how they used Plaky to help overcome them.
Founded in Novi Sad, Serbia in 2019, VM Digital successfully works with clients both from Serbia and abroad. Their services often depend on the client's specific needs, and according to Vladimir, include paid ads, design, and social media maintenance.
When they realized it was high time they started taking project management more seriously, Vladimir and his team signed up for Plaky.
The positive impact it had on their business was evident almost immediately.
So, let’s learn how this digital marketing agency improved their efficiency with Plaky!
How Vladimir discovered Plaky
Before Plaky came out, VM Digital used 2 other tools built by the same company, CAKE.com — the time tracker tool Clockify and the business messaging app Pumble:
“I have used Clockify for 4 or 5 years. In the meantime, Pumble was also released, and we used Pumble as well. I signed up for Plaky as soon as there was an option to do so.”
Vladimir also says that they tried another project management tool before Plaky, but weren’t satisfied:
“Plaky helped us a lot with the organization part. We tried Trello before that, but it somehow didn’t make things easier for us. Plaky really did help out a lot.”
Top 3 challenges VM Digital resolved with Plaky
For Vladimir, success didn’t come overnight. It was a bumpy ride — but in spite of many challenges, his business managed to thrive.
Plaky is the tool that has helped out significantly throughout Vladimir’s business journey so far — and still continues to do so by improving their:
- Workload management,
- Team communication, and
- Time management.
Let’s find out how!
Try Plaky + Pumble + Clockify#1 Workload management
If a CEO were to address every minor issue that occurred during a project, they would soon be overburdened with the workload, leading to inevitable burnout.
To avoid that scenario, clear hierarchy should be established so that each team member is accountable for their own tasks:
“I try to reach that point where I don't have to say anything and instead have employees find solutions on their own. Tools such as Plaky help us with that.”
Vladimir adds that employees should be encouraged to develop a sense of responsibility. A higher level of accountability can actually be achieved with Plaky’s custom fields.
Thanks to Plaky’s custom Person field, you can add different roles to tasks, like “Assignee”, “Reviewer”, “Supervisor”, etc. This way, everyone knows who is in charge of what task and who they can go to if they have any questions.
#2 Team communication
In the hybrid work environment, communication is a constant challenge, especially since, as Vladimir explains it, face-to-face and virtual communication are entirely different.
Vladimir adds that, in his experience, apps like Plaky prove to be particularly helpful for establishing proper communication:
“If the communication is challenging — which is predominantly the case among younger people as they haven’t been in the business for that long — then, of course, apps such as Plaky prove to be of tremendous help. The flow of information and communication — we used to have a serious problem with that. We had to change something, so we introduced project management tools like Plaky.”
Plaky enables efficient communication thanks to the well-designed comments section in tasks, where you can ask questions or leave instructions for all subscribers to see. This not only ensures quick responses but fosters transparency as well.
And, with the reply in thread option, you can lead several conversations at the same time, without any confusion!
#3 Time management
Plaky has contributed to time-saving at VM Digital too — in combination with Clockify, the time management tool they currently use. Vladimir emphasized that, to them, Clockify was “especially important because of the deadlines. And Plaky built on that.”
He explained exactly how Plaky saves their time:
“What we would otherwise have to discuss on a 30-minute call, in this case, I can open Plaky, tag the person I need, ping them, Plaky notifies them, and that's it. If I need to participate in the comment [section of a Plaky card], I simply enter the relevant information. Basically, it made us more efficient and saved our time.”
A Plaky feature Vladimir calls ‘a revelation’
Apart from other useful Plaky features and the platform’s customizability, there’s one thing that Vladimir likes best about the app — it’s Plaky’s pre-made templates:
“I don’t know who at some point said ‘Let’s make a social media template’ — but that’s how I would have made it myself if I bothered to make one. … However, I don’t have to do it — with a simple click, I enter the data I need [in a Plaky template], and that’s it.
Those templates are quite a revelation for us. They helped us because they sped things up and made everything easier for us.”
Vladimir further explains why Plaky templates are useful:
“With them you get, more or less, everything done — from social media tasks to to-do lists. There’s this specific one — the marketing one — which helped us quite a lot with client communication and internal communication.”
Create powerful project boards in seconds
Don’t waste precious time on creating your project boards from scratch. Choose one of Plaky’s customizable templates and start managing your projects right away!
Who would Vladimir recommend Plaky to and why?
When asked whether he’d recommend Plaky to anyone else and why, Vladimir had this to say:
“I have already recommended it to 2 or 3 agencies that are sort of like sister companies. I think some of them have already started using it. People mostly go for those conventional tools, and it's a classic story — everyone will go to the same café in the neighborhood. This is the same story — everyone goes for Trello. But, what do you get out of it?”
Vladimir explains that he especially recommends Plaky to those struggling with proper organization.
“Every time I would meet up with some of my colleagues who are in a similar business, it would be the same story – complaining about the organization, about projects… Plaky really worked out for us. So, I recommended it mostly to colleagues who are in a business similar to mine because I am aware of how much it helped me.”
Plaky is exactly what VM Digital needed
Plaky helped raise project management at VM Digital to a higher, more mature level:
“Plaky allowed us to sort some things out in terms of projects, to-do lists, some day-to-day matters, and certain interpersonal and organizational capabilities and protocols.
We managed to achieve all sorts of things with Plaky templates — plus, we managed to communicate certain matters internally. It’s that one thing that made things easier for us.”
Vladimir concludes that his team didn’t look for a tool that’s too complicated. On the contrary, they wanted a creative project management tool that suited them specifically:
“It doesn’t have to be too complex in terms of functionalities — what matters is that it’s suitable for us — that it does what we need it to do, the way we need it.”
And that’s precisely what Vladimir and VM Digital recognized in Plaky — a straightforward project management app that satisfies their unique preferences and working styles.
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