Inside this post, I’ve listed all of the best marketing tools available on the net. I’ve broken them into 6 different categories; email, blogging, social media, website design, content creation and advertising. These are my favorites that I use for my business.
If you use any of these tools please make sure to comment below and let me know how they work for you.
Marketo
Marketo is perhaps the best known marketing automation tool, and for good reason. It’s one of the most mature tools, with a full suite of features that not only help marketers manage email campaigns, but also provide excellent tools for sales teams. Marketo also has a marketplace, called LaunchPoint, with dozens of integrations.
Whom it’s for:
Marketo is great for companies who are going to make use of the tool’s many features that go beyond basic marketing automation. It’s not the most expensive tool, but it’s certainly not the cheapest either. If you’re not going to use the advanced functionality of the system, you can get similar results with one of the less expensive tools. However, if you want to start with the basics and move into the more advanced functionality in the near future, it could be a good idea to start with a tool like Marketo so that you don’t have to switch over all your data and campaigns down the line. We also like that Marketo has a very large and active knowledge base, which is a great resource for new users.
It’s closest to:
Eloqua
Pricing starts at:
$1,195/month
Omnisend
Pricing: Includes a free plan for basic email marketing. Automation ranges from $16/month to custom Enterprise pricing, based on features and number of contacts.
For marketing automation, it’s hard to find a more comprehensive tool than Omnisend. What sets this platform apart from the others on this list is the omnichannel functionality: you can add several channels to the same automation workflow: email, SMS, push notifications, Facebook Messenger, and more. This means that you can create an immersive omnichannel experience for your customers, which automatically sends them the message via the channel they’ve opted in for. With advanced targeting, split automations, and an easy drag-and-drop builder, Omnisend is definitely a marketing automation tool worth a look.
Mention
Pricing: Ranges from free to over $600 per month, based on the scale of your social listening operation.
Leaning hard into the social listening aspect of social media marketing, Mention enables brands to track mentions across the digital media landscape. You can keep track of how your campaigns spur conversations throughout the web—not just on social media. Plus, Mention makes it easy to automatically track competitors and industry trends, too.
Eloqua
You can think of Eloqua as the Ferrari of marketing automation. It’s fully loaded, provides an exceptional level of service, and comes with a matching price tag. One of Eloqua’s key differentiators is the amount of time they spend teaching and helping their customers get the most out of the product. Like Marketo, Eloqua also has a great marketplace with plenty of integrations with third party services.
Whom it’s for:
Don’t look at Eloqua unless you’re really going after enterprise-level software and you have the budget for it. Now, if you do, Eloqua is a great option, especially if you like having a lot of guidance from your technology vendors. You should also consider Eloqua if tight CRM integration is important to you.
It’s closest to:
Marketo
Pricing starts at:
$2,000/month
Omnisend
Pricing: Includes a free plan for basic email marketing. Automation ranges from $16/month to custom Enterprise pricing, based on features and number of contacts.
For marketing automation, it’s hard to find a more comprehensive tool than Omnisend. What sets this platform apart from the others on this list is the omnichannel functionality: you can add several channels to the same automation workflow: email, SMS, push notifications, Facebook Messenger, and more. This means that you can create an immersive omnichannel experience for your customers, which automatically sends them the message via the channel they’ve opted in for. With advanced targeting, split automations, and an easy drag-and-drop builder, Omnisend is definitely a marketing automation tool worth a look.
Customer.io
The main reason we love Customer.io is its flexibility. This is a tool that will really let you get what you want out of it. While it’s not all out of the box, if you’re willing to put in some developer time, you can really customize your Customer.io experience. Another great thing about this tool is its lightweight UI and fast, personal customer support. Customer.io is one of the newer players, but they’re growing very quickly and are definitely a company to watch. Unlike most of the older tools, Customer.io is built to trigger emails based on events, rather than just pageviews.
Whom it’s for:
Customer.io is great for two kinds of uses: 1. Companies that are looking to get started with marketing automation and appreciate a lightweight UI (i.e. not your typical enterprise software) and 2. Companies that are looking for some more advanced functionality that requires flexibility and customization, and are willing to devote the developer resources to implement it. We happen to fall into the second category, which is why we chose Customer.io for our marketing automation needs at Woopra.
It’s closest to:
Userfox
Pricing starts at:
$75/month (and they offer a free plan)
Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a well known email marketing tool for small businesses. It does a great job of providing basic functionality in a way that is very easy for even non-technical users to take advantage of. The ease of use and affordable cost are its biggest differentiators.
Whom it’s for:
Constant Contact is for the small business owner who wants to quickly get started with organized email marketing and doesn’t anticipate needing any advanced functionality down the line. The tool is a great choice for you if you fit this description, but if you plan to expand your marketing automation efforts in the near future, this isn’t the tool for you.
It’s closest to:
HubSpot
Pricing starts at:
$15/month
Automizy
Pricing: Pricing: Ranges from $9 – $119+ per month, based on the number of active subscribers.
Automizy is an email marketing platform that is designed to increase your open rates, by providing a bundle of features that supports growing email open rates such as an artificial intelligence subject line tester, resend unopened emails, AB testing, and segmented email automation. Using Automizy keeps your messaging consistent and personalized.
Customer.io
Pricing: Ranges from $150 – $1,000+ per month, based on features and support.
Built for subscription-based businesses, Customer.io’s email automation tool is all about engaging customers throughout the customer lifecycle. Tons of integrations make it easy to funnel data from across your technology stack and turn it into automated segments and email campaigns that resonate.
Drip
Pricing: Ranges from $49 – $122+ per month, based on active subscribers.
Drip’s email marketing automation is built for eCommerce businesses—meaning it works with all of the other eCommerce tools you use. You can create personalized content and automate campaigns based on customer behavior. Drip also offers more than email automation, so all of your messaging stays consistent and works together to drive customers toward a purchase.
Leadfeeder
Pricing: Ranges from free to over $55 per month, based on features and the number of unique leads.
Companies and their employees visit your website, but those potential leads can vanish into the ether if they don’t fill out some kind of form while they’re there. That means your team could be missing out on tons of valuable potential leads who may be a great fit to become customers.
Leadfeeder helps you surface that information, by showing you all the companies that visit your website. You can create Custom Feeds to narrow that list down to your best fit leads, and have notifications of new leads automatically sent to email and Slack for the right team member.
Our tool is best for B2B and enterprise marketing teams who need a better way to both identify new leads and better target their marketing to the best-fit prospects. Additionally, web personalization can be performed using our IP address data.
Note: Want to generate more leads from your website? Sign up and try Leadfeeder free for 14 days to see all the companies that visit your site, plus info on the pages they looked at, how long they spent there, and more.
Hootsuite
Pricing: Ranges from $29 – $599+ per month, based on social profiles, users, and more.
Hootsuite is one of the most comprehensive and full-featured social media automation tools. With features to help you schedule content, curate from a pre-approved library, and monitor conversations about your brand and industry, Hootsuite has everything you need to create a social media presence that makes a difference for your brand.
Buffer
Pricing: Ranges from $15 – $99 per month, based on the number of social accounts, users, and posts.
Originally a social media content scheduling tool, Buffer has grown to reflect the way today’s brands really use social. The tool still makes it easy to schedule and curate content, but additional ‘Reply’ and ‘Analyze’ solutions help connect social media with all the other teams they need to work with in modern organizations.
Conclusion
Marketing automation tools are the next big thing in email marketing. We’ve gone way beyond traditional marketing where marketers would spend their time finding new leads, nurturing them over weeks or months, then finally trying to close them. That was known as direct response where marketers were manually chasing down leads themselves. Well now automation tools are doing that work for us! This means non-stop leads converting into closed customers.