Freedom when you buy the right tool for the job (Adobe Creative Cloud)

Since I’m all professional and full time marketing agency owner now, I bit the bullet and got Adobe Creative Cloud. The thing is, it’s the real deal. I can limp along with Canva and Microsoft Publisher all week long, but seriously, just buy the dang professional tool and get to work paying for it.

1. Graphic Design: With software like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, I can create graphics, logos, infographics, banners, brochures, whatever. These are the tools professionals use. One time I was at MacWorld in San Francisco and a guy gave a tutorial on layers in Photoshop. What did he open for his sample? The Lord of the Rings poster! He was the guy that made it. He made it in Photoshop. He was a professional.
2. Video Editing: Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects allow you to edit and create professional-quality videos for advertisements, product demos, tutorials, and social media content. Even if you only make one little thing a year with these, having them tag along with Photoshop, Illustrator, and Acrobat is worth it. I used to use Final Cut Pro a few careers ago, and it was great, but having a video editor on hand as a part of the other tools I use is as helpful as an organized tool drawer.
3. Social Media: Adobe Express helps you create stunning social media graphics, videos, and web pages that are optimized for various platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X. What I didn’t know until I started using it was that it has a scheduler built in. That means I don’t have to also pay for Hootsuite or mess with Meta Business scheduler. I can schedule the post right from inside Adobe Spark and let it go. This is their Canva competitor, and that makes me glad. My favorite thing about Canva is that it’s giving Adobe some competition. It’s also a cheap and easy way for people to make simple graphics.
4. Email Marketing: Tools like Adobe Dreamweaver can assist you in designing custom email templates, ensuring that your email marketing campaigns stand out in users’ inboxes. (The AI wrote this sentence and I’ll take it’s word for it, but I SELDOM user Dreamweaver anymore. Most of what I do is able to be done in WordPress directly. But if I deal with code, it’s Visual Studio Pro. But I get it. If the native editor for your email program was lacking, Dreamweaver would give you a good preview to edit.)(Also, if you use a real modern tool like Mailchimp, you won’t ever see any code. So yeah, use the professional tool like Mailchimp in this case, not Dreamweaver.)

The same thing happened when I started building up my business and bought Outlook 365. Having real Microsoft Word and Excel helped me work so much faster than limping along with Google Docs. That is EASILY worth $8 a month or whatever it is.

When I deliver a professional SEO audit, it’s built in Excel. It’s shared securely and my client doesn’t see Google Docs anonymous animals also looking at their data. Seriously, why is there always an extra Anonymous Alligator or Anonymous Axolotl at the top of my docs? How serious will you take me if I give you reports on a bunch of free tools?

When my contractor came to rebuild my front porch, he didn’t pull out a rock to drive nails. He used the real tools to do the real job. (Dude even had a sweet Milwaukee tumbler that locked into the top of his toolbox.) If you have to get by with Canva and Google Docs, go ahead, but paying for the professional tools is worth it.