If you’re in the software business, you already know how difficult it can be to expand and grow your company. You’ve got lots of decisions to make and very little information to guide you along the way. There is a lot of confusion and uncertainty when it comes to marketing and advertising your software business. Just setting up digital marketing for software companies alone requires smart planning and knowledge of what works best. After years of research, we’ve come up with our own approach that will help you get started with marketing for it companies (and other B2B).
Software development companies today incorporate digital marketing into their business strategy. Software development companies can work with a variety of mediums and channels to achieve this. They can work with social media, search engines etc. If you belong to a software development company and want to create and implement a digital marketing strategy, Digital Marketing For Software Companies should be your ultimate guide.
Marketo
Marketo is one of the biggest and most established marketing automation companies, which makes it easy to launch and manage marketing campaigns. Marketo offers everything marketers need including tools for automating inbound marketing, lead management, social media marketing, sales management dashboards as well as analytics. In 2012, the company generated revenue to the value of $58.4 million and was recently registered on NASDAQ.
WASK
Best for beginners, small business owners, digital marketing professionals, corporates, and agencies.
WASK is an all-in-one online software that enables you to easily manage all your digital ad accounts on a single platform. Users start to design, create, manage and optimize their Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads immediately after connecting their ads account1 into WASK.
One of the best qualities of the software is being super easy to use. Even beginners and those who want to start from scratch can place ads in minutes using WASK.
Features
- Finding the perfect audience with AI. Based on data of website and social media accounts. Also integrated with Facebook Pixel.
- Free design tool. Free templates, layers section, lots of stock images, background colors, shapes, emojis, and story borders. Simply everything you require when you design for social media.
- Automation features such as Autopilot, Scheduler, and A/B Test. Buys you extra time.
- Optimization features such as performance comparison and reporting tools. Increases your ad efficiency.
- WordPress integration enables you to use the data of your website.
Pricing
WASK offers three types of different pricing plans:
- Basic: For those who have only one ad account ($9 per month).
- Premium: Up to 4 ad accounts ($19 per month).
- Professional: For professionals, marketing teams, and brands ($99 per month).
Every plan can benefit from all the tools. WASK also offers 15 days of free period for those who want to try. The software does not require billing info before the free trial ends.
Verdict: Suitable if you are a beginner and want to learn fast. Definitely cheap compared to what it offers. Good to see the data from every ad account on a single screen.
Iconosquare
Make data-driven decisions about future activities across Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn! Save time and money with Iconosquare’s in-depth analytics, automated reporting, and post scheduling.
MailChimp
This isn’t something you should wait on. Instead, you should implement an email marketing strategy on day one.
With more than 12 million customers, MailChimp has claimed its spot as one of the top email marketing providers and digital marketing tools in the world.
While there are alternatives, this tool remains one of the best, for many reasons:
History dating back to 2001, well before most companies began using email marketing
Self-service support options, ensuring that you can quickly find answers to all of your questions
Free plan for those with less than 2,000 subscribers and those who don’t send more than 12,000 emails per month
When starting a business, it’s not likely that you will have more than 2,000 subscribers. For this reason, you can get started with MailChimp early using the tool for free as you get your feet wet with email marketing and then move to a paid plan as you scale.
Vocus
Vocus is a leading cloud-based marketing software which helps with customer acquisition and retention by making it easier for marketers to reach out via social media and other online media channels. Vocus offers a comprehensive suite of tools which integrate social media marketing, search marketing, email marketing as well as effective PR. Vocus reported 2012 revenue of $170.8 million, a 49% increase from the previous year.
Ahrefs
According to the marketing experts we surveyed, the best digital marketing tool for deep diving into your SEO metrics is Ahrefs.
“Before using Ahrefs, we used SEMrush, BuzzSumo, and various free keyword tools,” says Sam Zastrow of Madison Marketing Group. “But Ahrefs has the richest and most helpful set of keyword data that we’ve seen.”
“Its domain-based link, keyword, and traffic reports are super helpful for sales prospecting and calls, and the content reports help us research top-performing content for blog posts,” Zastrow says.
Angela Han of Sharp Growth also recommends Ahrefs for its large dataset and says that “it’s good for competitive analysis and finding out what your clients’ competitors are up to.”
“Its SEO audits are a massive help in identifying issues on our site, but the main advantage of Ahrefs is the backlink opportunities that can be found with it,” says Louis Watton of Shiply. “Everything from broken links to competitor backlink research is not just possible—it’s also easy—which saves us time.”
“I hate to be an Ahrefs fanboy, but we simply could not live without it,” says Adam Copley of MediaSkyscraper. “It’s the second biggest crawler on the internet and has been crafted with UX in mind at every turn. It drastically reduces the time incurred to run our SOPs, and it just works – no bugs, no downtime, no issues.”
HubSpot
HubSpot offers a powerful inbound marketing solution as a personalized and more effective alternative to traditional marketing strategies which can tend to harass consumers. It has developed a host of marketing apps which include tools for blogging, social media, lead management and even marketing analytics that people love and respond to. Founded in 2006, the company recently raised $35 million.
Whatagraph
Best for marketing agencies, freelancers, small & medium businesses.
Whatagraph is a powerful reporting tool that aggregates and visualizes data from multiple sources. The tool can automatically pull data from the biggest social media platforms and Google Analytics, Google Ads and other Google products, several mailing tools, and over 30 different platforms with more on the way.
Whatagraph produces powerful, visual reports that can be sent out automatically. It also provides free reports and dashboard templates, but it’s entirely possible to build your own reports and track campaign performance. With an in-depth onboarding process, Whatagraph is the leading choice among digital marketing reporting tools.
Features:
- Whatagraph provides cross-channel reporting in a single dashboard. Everything from social media engagement to Google Ads goals to even Mailchimp campaign success – all campaign KPIs can be tracked at a glance.
- Client-facing reports can be delivered automatically, straight from the platform. Mailing can be set up regularly and send updates on your client’s digital marketing success.
- Although you will find the most popular data integrations available, Whatagraph also allows connecting custom data from Google Sheets or public API.
Pricing:
Pricing is quite flexible, providing annual and quarterly billing options. Above are annual pricing packages. Quarterly pricing is 119 EUR/mo for Professional, 269 EUR/mo for Premium, and 659 EUR/mo Growth. With the Growth package, it’s also possible to have custom integrations configured.
Verdict: Whatagraph is geared towards marketing teams running digital marketing campaigns on different channels. It’s perfect for tracking campaign progress and regularly reporting to customers.
Yesware
Yesware is an email platform which makes it easier for salespeople to manage and track emails and thus close more deals. The platform tracks email opens, provides in-email analytics as well as data on user engagement. Yesware syncs seamlessly with CRMs like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and Oracle CRM saving time and increasing efficiency. Yesware raised $4 million less than a year after its initial seed funding round, making it a startup to watch this year.
Conclusion:
The internet is an incredibly exciting place. You can do just about anything online. One of the coolest things you can do with your website is run marketing campaigns to grow your business using digital marketing. But if you are not the marketing guru in the company, it may be difficult for you to understand everything involved in digital marketing. Or, maybe you are a marketer looking for more intel on how to target software development services companies.