Print and promo distributors juggle multiple tasks—managing clients, organizing orders, tracking deadlines, and everything in between. Having the right apps can make a huge difference in your day-to-day operations. Whether it's automating repetitive tasks or keeping your team connected, the right software can streamline your business and free up time to focus on growth. Here are five essential types of apps (and ideas for automating them with Zapier) that every distributor should consider using, along with some specific tools that we recommend.
1. Web Form Builders
Web forms are a Swiss army knife for distributors. Whether it’s collecting t-shirt sizes for a campaign, running a quick redemption program, or managing client intake forms, form builders like Formstack, JotForm, and Zoho Forms offer a flexible, easy-to-use solution. They can be used to gather information, streamline internal requests, or even receive customer support tickets.
Once you pair these tools with automation, they become even more powerful. A simple web form can be the first step in an entire workflow—triggering emails, updating your CRM, and notifying your team.
Zapier’s Role: By connecting your forms with Zapier, you can automate almost any task that follows a form submission. Send a thank-you email, notify a specific team member, or push data to a spreadsheet.
Consider: After being a diehard Formstack user for over a decade, we’ve fallen in love with Zoho Forms. It’s got advanced features like validation and personalization that I haven’t seen elsewhere, and the price is right! Formstack and Jotform are also great options.
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
2. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems
Your CRM is more than just a place to store contact details. It can be the backbone of your entire operation, providing each department with the tools they need to manage their part of the order lifecycle. In fact, we've seen distributors make their CRM the primary working app for everyone in the company.
Zoho CRM, for example, offers features that allow marketing, operations, and analytics teams to have tailored experiences within the same platform. Whether you need it to track sales leads, automate client follow-ups, or analyze performance, a CRM can be customized to suit your specific needs.
Zapier’s Role: With Zapier, you can automate updates across multiple platforms, ensuring client data is always synced, tasks are automatically assigned, and important emails or reminders never fall through the cracks. This reduces double data entry and ensures that everyone is working with the latest information.
3. Project Management Platforms
Managing client orders, timelines, and team responsibilities is essential for distributors. Project management platforms help keep everything organized, track progress, and make collaboration easier, so nothing falls through the cracks.
While tools like Trello and Monday.com are great for tracking tasks and deadlines, we like Basecamp for its intuitive and flexible approach. Basecamp combines task lists, message boards, document storage, and even team communication, making it an all-in-one platform that’s easy to learn and use. It’s especially useful if you want an app that doesn't require much setup and works for everyone, no matter their role.
Zapier’s Role: With Zapier, you can automatically create tasks from incoming orders, set reminders for deadlines, and sync data between your CRM and project management tools to ensure that both platforms are always aligned.
4. Team Communication Tools
Staying connected with your team is crucial, especially when working remotely or engaging with multiple teams at once. If your company has adopted Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace, you're likely already using Teams or Google Chat for internal communication. Chat apps offer more than just messaging, though; they support bots and slash commands that can integrate with your workflows, bringing information and automation directly into your chats.
Bots and commands let you retrieve data, update tasks, or trigger automations without ever leaving the conversation. For instance, you can use bots to notify your team when a new order comes in or to summarize daily tasks.
Zapier’s Role: With Zapier, you can take these tools even further by automating notifications for project updates or creating new tasks based on chat activity. It’s all about ensuring that important and actionable information reaches your team in a timely manner.
5. Workflow Automation Tools
Last but not least, workflow automation tools like Zapier are the glue that ties all your other apps together. From automating repetitive tasks to ensuring data flows seamlessly between your CRM, project management, and communication tools, automation is essential for running an efficient business.
By creating workflows between different platforms, you can automate everything from sending follow-up emails to updating client information in your CRM based on form submissions. These tools ensure that your apps don’t work in isolation but as part of a seamless, integrated system.
Our Experience with Zoho One
At PromoPilot, we use Zoho One. At just $444 per year (per employee), it’s an incredible deal. This subscription gives us access to over 40 apps in the Zoho One suite, covering all the categories of apps mentioned in this article—CRM, project management, web forms, team communication, and even workflow automation.
One of the standout benefits is that PromoPilot’s website and email hosting are included in that same subscription. It’s rare to find a platform that can handle so many aspects of a business for such a low price. While not every app is top-tier, the CRM is definitely a premium tool. Plus, having all these tools in one ecosystem under a single vendor makes managing my tech stack so much easier.
If you're looking for a comprehensive, affordable solution for your distributorship, Zoho One is worth checking out and you'll be joining a growing number of distributors who are augmenting their industry apps with Zoho.
Conclusion
The right combination of apps can transform the way you run your business. Whether you're looking to automate workflows, streamline communication, or keep your projects on track, these five types of tools are a must-have for every distributor. Start by experimenting with one or two apps from each category, and you’ll quickly see the benefits of using technology to simplify your operations and focus on what you do best—building relationships and delivering great products.
