Small business owners need a competitive edge. When you're running a business, you're probably looking for ways to differentiate yourself from your competitors. To do that, you need a good marketing strategy and access to the best digital marketing tools.
This post outlines different digital marketing tools you need in running your business. You may be familiar with a marketing tool or two here. Others may be new to you. From simplifying social media marketing efforts and project management to finding freelancers, each of these tools can help you get the competitive edge you need.
1. Mailchimp
Get this: Email marketing is used by 8 out of 10 marketers.
Don't wait for it. Instead, you should implement an email marketing strategy from day one. With over 12 million customers, MailChimp maintains its position as one of the leading email marketing providers and digital marketing tools worldwide. There are alternatives, but this tool is one of the best for many reasons.
They started way back in 2001. This was long before most businesses started using email marketing.
Self-service support options to quickly find solutions to all your inquiries
Free plan for those with less than 2,000 subscribers and less than 12,000 monthly emails sent
You probably won't have more than 2,000 subscribers when you start your business. MailChimp can get you an early start by using the tool for free while you're taking your first steps in email marketing, then switch to a paid plan as you scale.
2. Hubspot
HubSpot has emerged as one of the top players when it comes to marketing, sales, and CRM software. Let's focus on that marketing software solution in this post. Here's what the company says about this digital marketing tool: “From visitor acquisition to customer conversion, HubSpot orchestrates your entire marketing funnel.” You know how important it is to have a well-functioning marketing funnel. This software gives you access to tools that help you:
Blog
SEO
Social Media
Website
Lead Management
Home Page
Call to Action
Marketing Automation
E-mail
Analysis
With HubSpot's all-in-one marketing software, you can do it all. That is why it is the first choice for those starting a business. Everything you need is in one place so you don't have to drag yourself in different directions. This will help you succeed in the early stages and support your growth.
3. Mobile Monkey
MobileMonkey is a must-have chat marketing automation tool that allows your customers to automatically chat with you. With 75% of customers saying that chatting or texting with a business is a better way to connect than email or phone, setting up a chat interface with your customers can't be ignored. MobileMonkey is perfect for marketing and support because it connects you to all your customers' favourite messaging channels, including:
Instagram DM
SMS
Live Chat
Facebook Messenger
With MobileMonkey, everything you need to chat with your customers is available on one platform, from Instagram marketing tools, and Facebook messaging lead ads to live chat. Not only can you use a single inbox to view and reply to incoming messages from all your messaging accounts, MobileMonkey makes it easy to set up automation to reply to, collect lead information, and send leads that can be routed directly to your marketing system. We use MobileMonkey's Instagram marketing tools to automatically reply to comments and story mentions on Instagram posts. Improve your Instagram engagement rate, expand your content reach and get more followers.
4. Trello
Trello is a digital marketing tool that helps you manage projects and keep track of your team's progress. Solid digital marketing practises if you want to save time and avoid frustration. For example, you can share your blog post on Trello before publishing it. This allows other members of the team to review the post, get involved with their thoughts, and make changes that can enhance the post before it's published. Before Trello and similar programmes, email was the best way to collaborate with your team. While this is still useful, it can cause some confusion, missed messages, and frustration. Trello lets you share everything related to your online marketing strategy in one place. Setting up the board only takes a few minutes. Even better, you can invite your entire staff right away and everyone can jump into the action without delay. His Trello isn't the only digital marketing tool of this kind, but he's one of the best. When it comes to collaborating with others on marketing tasks, nothing beats this tool.
5. Hootsuite
Social media plays a huge role in the success of any business, regardless of size, age, or industry. I would argue that social media marketing is essential for success in this digital age.
With a digital marketing tool like Hootsuite, you can plan your social media posts and save a lot of time. Hootsuite has many features to help you grow your business. For example, you can:
Identify influencers for your marketing team and leads for your sales team
Reply to comments and mentions from your dashboard - no need to visit individual platforms
Use canned responses
Schedule posts when your audience is most active (even when they're sleeping!)
Social media marketing isn't as hard as it sounds, especially when we rely on tools like Hootsuite. This particular tool allows you to schedule and manage social media profiles for over 30 platforms.
Imagine doing this manually without being guided to a central dashboard. It can baffle even the most experienced entrepreneur, let alone a new business owner. Let Hootsuite take over like a social media marketing manager.
6. Google Analytics
One of Google's best free tools, analytics should be part of your digital marketing strategy from the start. I think it's one of the most powerful digital marketing tools out there.
It only takes a few minutes to add the analytics code to your website and you can track every action of every visitor. Many people think of this as just a traffic tool, but if you know what you're doing, it can have a big impact on your marketing strategy. For example, consider the ability to see where your traffic is coming from.
You may find that certain social media campaigns drive a lot of traffic to your website. You can use this data to adjust future strategies to achieve the same results. Or you may find that certain keyword sets work surprisingly well for organic traffic. Again, pay attention to these keywords and keep them in mind when creating your content. Google Analytics is not one of those digital marketing tools that you can ignore. Installing early is an important decision regarding your digital marketing strategy. The data that can be collected is invaluable.
7. KISSmetrics
The slogan for this digital marketing tool says it all. See what's happening on your website or app to accelerate growth. It's good that you want to spend a lot of time on digital marketing in the early stages of your business. But do you want to make decisions that have no impact? You need to track and analyse each step you take so you can focus on the tactics that provide the best return on investment (ROI). KISSmetrics makes it easy to see what works and what doesn't for all your campaigns. Take the company's analytics products, for example. The funnel report allows you to see if there are any "leaks" in your organisation.
Starting at $120 per month, KISSmetrics isn't the cheapest digital marketing tool on this list. With a variety of products at your disposal, the insights you gain are invaluable to your business growth.
8. Followerwonk
Are you planning to spend a lot of time on social media marketing? It's a great way to engage your audience and drive traffic to your site, but it only works to your advantage if you have a solid plan.
Tools like Followerwonk are designed to help you improve your social media marketing strategy, including sifting through Twitter analytics data. We have included this digital marketing tool on our list for two reasons. Easy to use and very effective. Followerwonk classifies its services into three different categories.
Find: Use this tool to search Twitter bios and compare accounts.
Analyse: Sort your list of followers by bio, location, who you follow, and many other criteria.
Optimise: Adjust your strategy based on your follower gains and losses to understand what types of content work best.
The only drawback of Followerwonk is that it cannot be used with other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. However, if you have big plans for Twitter, this is a digital marketing tool that you should use often. Even if you don't use it every day, it will come in handy once in a while. Finally, understanding your audience is essential.
9. All-In-One SEO Package
If you have WordPress as your content management system (CMS) of choice, don't hesitate to install the All-in-One SEO Pack plugin. Most of your digital marketing strategy should be based on search engine optimization (SEO). With this digital marketing tool, you can always make the right decisions about your content and its appeal to search engines. Some of the main features of the plugin are:
XML Sitemap Support
Extended Canonical URL
Automatic Generation of Meta Tags
Compatible with most other plugins
Automatically notify major search engines like Google and Bing of website changes
All of these features are exciting, but there's another reason why they're one of the most popular WordPress plugins of all time. It's the ease of use.
You don't have to make many decisions to get started. Help is available if you're not sure what to do. The All-in-One SEO Pack plugin has over 1 million active installs. You don't have to look far to find your competitors, but there's a reason so many people use this digital marketing tool.
Not only is it free and easy, but the results are undeniable. It helps your website in terms of SEO. This is what every new business needs.
10. BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a big deal for those who need to gain knowledge about their market. It's safe to say that when starting a business, he knows a thing or two about the industry and the major competitors. But dig deeper and you'll find a wealth of data that you can use to your advantage. If you want a better understanding of your competitors and the types of content that resonate most with search engines and audiences, you don't need another digital marketing tool.
This information is useful in many cases, such as when creating content for your blog. Why guess what will perform best in your niche? With BuzzSumo, you can answer this question with 100% accuracy. This search shows that the top results have about 20,000 social shares. You will know what to strive for if you want to achieve the same success. As a big BuzzSumo fan, this is the digital marketing tool I use regularly. With each search, you gain a better understanding of your competitors and your target audience without much manipulation of the data at first.
11. Crazy Egg
What's working on my girlfriend's website and what's not? This is where Crazy Egg can step in and offer assistance. There are two keys here.
You can use Crazy Egg to make changes to your website that will give you better results.
Little IT help is required to get started.
When you're just starting your business, you don't want to spend countless hours on IT problems. Unfortunately, this often happens with split testing. Unless, of course, you use Crazy Egg. This tool is packed with features such as:
Heatmaps and mouse recordings
Analysis and reporting
Platform and Integration
Targeting and personalization
Research and User Feedback
A tool that helps you understand what your website visitors like and dislike so you can maximize your sales and leads means you should try Crazy Egg. It's one of those digital marketing tools you don't see the need for until you use it.
12. Ubersuggest
Not only is keyword research a daunting task, but it can also be costly due to the price tag of his premium keyword research tool. You don't get much out of typical free software, but Ubersuggest is not typical free software.
Overall, this digital marketing tool is easy for beginners as the dashboard is easy to navigate and you can quickly find the data you need. First, enter the root keyword or domain you want to research. The free version allows up to 3 free searches per day, or you can upgrade to paid software.
Ubersuggest provides useful keyword information such as total search volume, difficulty, and paid difficulty if you are looking to run an advertising campaign on that keyword.
Scroll down to see historical data showing how that keyword performed over time. This helps determine seasonal keywords or keywords that are currently popular but may die out over time.
You'll also get keyword ideas and suggestions related to what you're looking for, so you can update outdated content or create a content marketing plan. Overall, Ubersuggest is a great free keyword research tool, a great choice for beginners, and as a paid tool, well worth it even for those scaling.
13. CoFoundersLab
CoFoundersLab is a great digital marketing tool for small businesses that are growing but need a little help to take it to the next level. AI can be used to find co-founders, additional members, or advisors based on specific criteria. The best digital marketing tools make life easier. CoFoundersLab aims to help build a large ecosystem of business owners, entrepreneurs, consultants, and advisors, making it easy to find what you need at the current stage of your business.
For example, you can search and quickly find people with a particular set of skills without posting on job boards, conducting interviews, or onboarding. If you're looking for an SEO content creator, just enter these criteria and you'll be instantly connected to someone who can fill the role.
Similar to other freelance platforms, the difference with CoFoundersLab is that you can find people at your level. If you're looking for someone to support your business financially or to support your business equally, this may be the place for you.
14. Adobe Sign
When it comes to must-have digital marketing tools, Adobe Sign does more than just throw a wrench into the job. This is a cloud-based e-signature service that helps reduce paper usage, save time, and get signatures with an automated signature system. Send, sign, and manage the entire process from your desktop or mobile device.
There's also an integration to keep a record of all signatures you've received, so you can refer to them if you lose something important. This simple but useful tool solves a big problem many companies have. More and more people work remotely and may not have access to printers and scanners. This can create delays in your workflow and frustrate your customers by not getting what they want while waiting for signatures and approvals.
Adobe Sign works anywhere, on any device. When someone is driving to a meeting, they can use their fingertips to sign in to their mobile device. No need to print, scan, fax, etc. All digital, safe and secure.
15. Dropbox
DropBox is an integral part of modern digital business. Eliminate clutter and save time looking for things by having all your company's work items in one place.
Organisation is the key to a successful business, and downloading and sharing files is no longer enough. Working from home, anyone can download, misplace, or misuse company personal files on their computer. DropBox, being a fully cloud-based document-sharing platform, prevents this by allowing you to set permission levels so that specific people can only see what they want.
You can also connect other tools like Slack and Zoom to DropBox to keep everything in one place. All company data is stored in one place, so it's organized, secure, and traceable.
If you prefer to manually download files to your computer, attach them to emails, and send them to spaces, you'll find DropBox to be a much more efficient and secure way to track and share documents. increase.
16. Gmail Product Suite
I don't know where I would be without the full suite of Gmail products. Previously, the content was created on the Word platform, downloaded, and sent as an email attachment. The next person marks it up with notes and adjustments, sends it back, and the process starts over.
Thankfully, those days are long gone. With Google Docs and Sheets, you can share documents in real-time and mark up the document as the author looks at it to see what the document is doing. There is also a chat feature and a suggestions section where you can ask and provide answers as to why certain adjustments were made.
Again, there is some security and protection here. Different permission levels from 'view' to 'edit' give you complete control over your documents. If you send a document as a reference to something, you may not want that person to modify it without making a copy for themselves. His Gmail suite of products can do this.
And everything syncs to your Google Calendar. If your email is talking about a call in three days, you can instantly schedule that appointment in your calendar and get a reminder on all your devices.
17. ODeskWork
oDeskWork is a freelancer platform that connects you to the right virtual assistant or freelancer to support your business. At some point, every company has to start hiring. No matter what business you run, you can't do everything, so you need a support system to grow and expand. This is where digital marketing tools like oDeskWork come into play. You can upload current projects that need to be completed, browse profiles, and communicate with potential candidates.
The platform also offers payment protection so you can be sure you are getting the service you expect. Payments are not released to freelancers until you are satisfied with the work completed.
oDeskWork has experts and freelancers in everything from Digital Marketing, Virtual Support, Transcription, Proofreading, Writing, Editing, SEO, WordPress, and more.
18. Upwork
An essential digital marketing tool, Upwork is a freelancer platform that connects you with qualified candidates who can help grow your business. What I like most about Upwork is the transparency it gives and the fact that you can see all types of work done by freelancers. For example, looking for someone to build a WordPress website? If so, you wouldn't hire someone without first checking what kind of work they do, right?
The platform shows examples of their work, job success rates, skill descriptions, hourly wages, and the badges they've earned for their ongoing performance. If you're looking for digital marketing agency tools, don't waste your time on people who aren't getting results. Upwork prevents that from happening with escrow protection. The money you paid for the job will not be released until you are satisfied with the job.
I also think Upwork is a great place to find long-term relationships with freelancers that you can use on an ongoing basis, rather than one-off jobs.
19. Fiverr
We can consider Fiverr as Upwork's little brother. If you want to build long-term partnerships and hire people who can provide truly quality service, you need to turn to Upwork.
However, sometimes you are just looking for an easy job that is affordable and someone can do it quickly. For example, if you need to create a simple logo for your affiliate site for $5, Fiverr is perfect.
One of the things I like about Fiverr is the ability to quickly browse freelancers using the search feature. Enter the service you're interested in and you'll see information such as overall rating and average initial cost.
Fiverr also gives certain freelancers titles such as Top Rated Seller and Tier 2 Seller. These will help you determine what level of experience you're looking for for the job you have to do. The best digital marketing tools offer that kind of trust.
While this tool is great for low-budget, not-too-hard one-off jobs, we don't recommend using Fiverr for heavy lifting like building links or creating content.
20. OmniFocus
Need to keep working? This digital marketing tool can help you do just that. OmniFocus is a task management tool that lets you manage all your issues in one place. Follow everything that's happening from your browser or mobile device. You can mark specific projects, assign them to people you want to complete, and set deadlines to make your week as productive as possible. As work comes in, you can assign support staff to handle the task and complete it when done.
One of my favorite things about OmniFocus is the forecasting feature. This gives you a holistic view of what will happen in the future, including recurring tasks that only happen quarterly, semi-annually, or once every few years. This ensures that no one forgets anything.
The main drawback is that this tool is currently only available to Apple users. For all you Windows and Android folks out there, you should settle for something like Trello or ClickUp for now.
21. Zoom
Zoom is known as video conferencing software that brings people together anywhere in the world. We all face unique situations of working remotely, but sometimes we still need to be connected, and Zoom makes that possible. The best digital marketing tools can help bring your business together.
You can share your screen, draw on the screen, record meetings, and invite others. Zoom offers free video conferencing for up to 40 minutes and up to 100 participants. If your 1:1 meeting is longer than 40 minutes, Zoom often allows you to extend the meeting for free with no time limit.
22. Toggl
Toggl helps us put together this list of digital marketing tools. All the work you do, the freelancers you manage, the documents you share. You should have an idea of how long it will take. This tool does that with time tracking, reporting, and project planning. Toggl allows you to accurately represent how long a task or project will take, so you know how many resources to allocate next time.
Toggl offers several different tools for time tracking, project planning, and candidate selection, making it a comprehensive tool for companies managing remote teams.
Summary
Starting and growing a business isn't easy, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming either.
The first step is to develop a strong digital marketing strategy, including social media marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, and consistent and valuable content that resonates with your audience. To ensure the success of your business, you need the right digital marketing tools at the right time. If you need further support, DigitalxMarketing can help you in your digital marketing efforts and bring you the success you desire.
DigitalxMarketing Ltd has its head office in Wellington NZ with its support and resource centre based in the Philippines. DigitalxMarketing implements the latest digital strategies, tactics, tools, platforms and technologies to deliver integrated digital marketing services so your digital footprint can be found online.
Contact DigitalxMarketing today!
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