Best marketing tools for startups are an important part of your startup business. If you are just starting out, you have to spend your time wisely. That is often difficult when you are being bombarded with advice from friends, family, co-workers…pretty much whoever is willing to talk to you!
I’ve compiled a list of all the marketing tools that I use for my own marketing efforts in hopes that it will make your life easier. The list is divided up by category to help make it easy to identify the best marketing tools for your needs.
Hotjar
A leaking sales funnel can be frustrating. After all, it takes time, effort, and money to build one so it has to convert, right?
Hotjar goes further–it gives you data on activities visitors take on your website, like clicks and scrolls. You get insights into how users are interacting and, most importantly, where they drop off.
Plug those leaks with Hotjar. Like Google analytics, it’s a web analytics tool.
Source: Hotjar
While Hotjar is a paid tool, it’s affordable–pricing starts at $89/month for websites with up to 20,000 visitors a day. Not ready to commit? You can sign up for a 15-day trial. But if you’ve got a bit of money to spare, Hotjar is one of the best marketing channels to invest in.
Google Analytics
Data is crucial in your marketing strategy. While many data analytics tools come with a hefty price tag, Google Analytics comes free, making it our first pick. Powerful enough to give you insights into where traffic on your website comes from, what they do there, and much more, Google Analytics is one tool every startup should have in their toolbox.
Source: Google
So why is data important in marketing? Data helps you understand your target audience better, which gives insight into what types of marketing campaigns will perform best. These days, people consume content on a variety of devices, so you’ll need to know which devices are most used by your target audience. Then, you can put more emphasis on those platforms.
Seasoned marketers will tell you that data has the power to greatly increase the return on investment (ROI) on your marketing. A good example of this: Mumzworld saw a 300 percent ROI on their ad spend thanks to insights from Google Analytics. Need we say more?
Emma
Email boasts of ROIs of up to 4400%. Effective as this marketing platform is, it’s also affordable, particularly if you opt for a platform like Emma.
Source: Emma
Emma’s high deliverability rates also ensure that the chances of your emails landing in the right inbox are close to 100%.
Emma is a powerful email marketing tool that allows you to easily build an email list, connect to your audience on a personal level, and execute effective campaigns. With its ease of use and powerful features (like advanced segmentation and analytics tools), you can be up and running in no time.
If there’s one thing you need to help you push your startup off the ground, it’s a targeted audience that you can pitch your product to. Email is the best platform to help you do that as it gives you direct access to your ideal customers. That’s why Emma ranks high on this list of the best marketing tools for startups.
Other features include:
- Emma HQ: Emma HQ allows for approval and monitoring of email campaigns across multiple locations.
- An analytics dashboard: Get insight into how people interact with your emails.
- A/B testing: Send the best email by split testing different elements of your emails and amalgamating the ones that perform best.
- Landing page builder: Build landing pages as easily as you would compose an email with Emma’s drag-and-drop landing page builder.
Autopilot
Autopilot captures new leads from your website, app, or blog and then nurtures them with personalized messages. You can also use it to automate repetitive sales funnel tasks, such as lead assignation, appointment setting, and customer onboarding programs.
Pricing
Free 30-day trial; plans start at $1 per month for up to 500 contacts, with purchasable upgrades for premium support.
Alternatives
Zapier
Zapier is an automation tool that allows you to move data between your web applications, meaning lead generation flows and alert notifications can be seamlessly automated between your marketing tools.
Send form data to Mailchimp or HubSpot, and while on the way in, use Zapier to trigger automated email alerts with Sendgrid, validate visitor data using Full Contact or Clearbit, and trigger an alert to your sales team in Slack — all using Zapier. You can even connect Leadfeeder to Zapier.
Pricing
Free; paid plans start at $20 per month for more complex automation paths.
KWFinder
Content marketing is another necessary (and cost-effective) marketing strategy. Content marketing simply means producing content to help people find you and your product online. To achieve your desired results, you need to conduct keyword research. This helps you learn what your ideal customers type into search bars when looking for the solution you provide.
This is where KWFinder comes in.
Source: KWFinder
KWFinder not only gives you keywords you should aim to rank for, but it also gives you insights into where your competitors rank with those terms.
Armed with that knowledge, you can create an effective content calendar and write high-ranking content that drives traffic to your website and boosts your bottom line.
Hello Bar
Hello Bar is a simple WordPress plugin that does one thing really well—website pop-ups that drive conversions. Whether triggered by exit intent or page and content interaction, Hello Bar can be setup to ensure you engage site visitors effectively and drive lead captures on your site.
Pricing
Plans start at $4.95 per 100 click throughs.
Alternatives
Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an email marketing and automation platform that allows you to effectively grow and manage your newsletter and product subscribers.
Pricing
Free, up to 2,000 contacts with limited advanced features; plans start at $10 per month up to 500 contacts for advanced features.
Alternatives
Campaign Monitor, Drip, Active Campaign, Sendgrid
Leadpages
Building high-converting landing pages is essential to growing your business. If designed and built well, a landing page can be the best lead generation tool. Leadpages is an easy-to-use landing page builder with hundreds of well-designed and optimized templates to choose from.
Source: Leadpages
As a bootstrapped startup founder, you may not have the resources to hire a designer to create your landing page for you. This is where Leadpages comes in. Even without design knowledge, creating something beautiful from scratch is easy. With a great support system (which includes weekly group coaching), you’ll be generating new leads in no time.
And Leadpages does more than landing pages. It comes with loads of other tools–like pop up boxes, tracking and analytics, and more–to help you optimize your online presence. Pricing starts at $25/month, but a free trial is also available.
Hootsuite
Social media marketing is a great way to build buzz around your brand and drive sales. But posting regularly on social platforms your customers frequent can be time-consuming–especially since you have to switch between platforms.
Source: Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a great tool that allows you to schedule your posts without having to switch between social media accounts. From one dashboard you can:
- Publish/schedule posts
- Monitor all your feeds
- Like, comment, and share
Hootsuite also integrates with several other marketing tools and gives basic analytics. It stands out as one of the best marketing tools for startups. And the best part is the price: It’s free (although you have to upgrade to access advanced features).
Bannersnack
Creating brand awareness is one of the biggest challenges faced by startups. Getting eyeballs on your product can be a bear. Fortunately, tools like Bannersnack are available to help you create eye-catching online banners. Bannersnack is an intuitive drag-and-drop builder where you can create banners from scratch or use a template in the extensive template library.
Source: Bannersnack
With banners that display well on all devices (and platforms) and powerful call-to-action buttons, Bannersnack is a stellar tool to help showcase your product and drive traffic to your website. For those on a shoestring budget, pricing starts at $7/month–but you can definitely get some traction on the forever free plan.
Leadfeeder
Leadfeeder is a website visitor tracking tool that tells you which businesses are visiting your website, even if the visitor does not fill out a form or download a resource.
Using a website visitor tracking tool (which is similar to analytics, but with the ability to identify which individual companies visit your website) is an effective method of lead capture.
By identifying the businesses visiting your site and monitoring the pages they visit and the content they read, you can develop outreach and engagement opportunities based on their actual site engagement.
Pricing
Free 14-day trial; paid plans start at $69 per month.
Product Hunt
Product Hunt is now the go-to launch platform for startups and enterprises putting a new product into the market. It has a pre-existing community of testers and early adopters willing to try new products.
Adding a product is free, but the Product Hunt team also offers the Ship product, an all-in-one launch package that includes a landing page, email subscription tools, email messaging tools, analytics, A/B testing, and webhooks for lead captures.
Pricing
Free; Ship pricing starts at $80 per month.
Alternatives
Conclusion
Best marketing tools for startups are the best free marketing tools, software, intangible assets that are necessary to market a startup business. Take advantage of them.