There are numerous reasons why your business should spend money on digital marketing. From Facebook Ads to creating a visually appealing website, you’re spending money on digital marketing every day. It is important that you spend that money wisely by using effective digital marketing tools.
I’ve compiled a list of the best digital marketing tools around to make your life easier.
Social media platforms
A common part of any integrated marketing strategy, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are a great way for marketers to engage with their audiences and generate buzz around their brand. In addition to the standard features these platforms offer, there are also some features that are designed specifically for marketing. These include Facebook Ads Manager, which allows marketers to run ads and track ad performance. As an added bonus, social media management tools like Buffer and Hootsuite also integrate well with these platforms, making it easy to schedule social posts and measure engagement.
Design tools
Another key part of digital marketing is design and this is especially common when it comes to creating ads and content like social media posts and blog posts. Because digital marketing is such a design heavy field, doing it effectively wouldn’t be possible without design tools like Canva and Photoshop, programs that allow those without extensive graphic design skills to add dynamic images to their content.
Analytics tools
Another set of helpful tools for digital marketers are analytics tools. These include everything from Google Analytics (designed to track stats for web traffic to a particular site) to social media analytics tools like Facebook Insights and Twitter Analytics which provide metrics related to engagement and help marketers optimize their campaigns. For measuring stats on the backend of a site (particularly related to conversions, sales and user demographics), there are also tools like Periscope that track user data, site searches and conversion metrics.
Content marketing tools
For marketers who are more focused on content marketing, tools like CoSchedule and Hubspot are a big help when it comes to content creation and curation. They can help marketers identify content opportunities and craft engaging blog and social media posts that will resonate with their audience. And since Buffer also offers the ability to see what fans are talking about on social media, that content is almost guaranteed to be impactful and to generate attention for a specific event or news story.
Email marketing tools
The final set of tools in a digital marketer’s toolbox are email marketing marketing tools. These help marketers create email campaigns that amplify their content and encourage their users to become more engaged with their brand — taking additional steps like signing up for events and buying products. Common email marketing tools include email marketing platforms like MailChimp and Iterable which allow marketers to build email lists and automate their email campaigns. These platforms also provide analytics for every email campaign, making testing and optimization quick and easy.
Honourable Mentions
Sprout Social
Hey, you can’t blame us for putting ourselves on the top of the list!
That’s because Sprout Social is the ultimate control center for any business looking to translate its social presence into actual results.
As a social media management platform, Sprout helps businesses organize their content calendar and assets in one place. This allows you to publish and schedule your content across multiple platforms, all timed to perfection based on when your followers are most active.
Beyond social media management features, Sprout makes it easy to collaborate with colleagues and customers alike. Our Smart Inbox gives you a bird’s-eye view of all of your social messages so you can respond thoughtfully and in a timely manner.
Oh, and don’t forget about Sprout’s full suite of social analytics.
Optimizing your content’s performance doesn’t have to be a guessing game as Sprout identifies your top-performing posts and the success of your social campaigns. Coupled with robust social listening features, you can uncover trends, hashtags and opportunities to engage with new customers.
Loomly
Loomly’s self-described “brand success platform” is a tool that’s ideal for smaller social teams looking to organize and collaborate on content.
Built-in calendars, deadlines and workflows make both scheduling and brainstorming content a breeze. As an added bonus, Loomly actually curates fresh content ideas for users based on trending topics and Twitter conversations.
The clean, no-frills interface is easy to navigate and friendly to users who might not be the most tech-savvy. The affordability of the platform is enticing for solo businesses and smaller agencies looking to wrangle their social presence.
Audiense
We’ve talked time and time again about the importance of social listening for identifying trends and potential customers.
Tools like Audiense take listening to the next level by helping companies both identify and segment their social media audiences. Doing so makes it easier to run laser-targeted ad campaigns and likewise dive deeper into your customer personas. Digging into demographics, personality straights and beyond, you’d be surprised at what you can learn from social alone.
Audiense’s platform focuses primarily on Twitter, making it great for B2B brands interested in prospecting and B2C companies looking to understand more about their target audience.
SendGrid
SendGrid offers a full suite of email marketing services, many of which are totally friendly to novices and email veterans alike.
For example, the platform offers flexible design options via visual, drag-and-drop editing, coding or a combination of both. In-depth deliverability and performance analytics are also built into SendGrid, cluing marketers in on which messages are performing and what needs work.
We know: there are more email marketing solutions out there than we can count. That said, a big upside of SendGrid is the forever-free plan for up-and-coming businesses as well as scalable pricing that matches your needs as you grow your list.
lemlist
lemlist is unique among our email marketing tools because the platform is primarily focused on deliverability. Emphasizing the best times to send your messages (and how often) for the sake of more opens and clicks, lemlist is awesome for optimizing your existing campaigns.
Rather than second-guessing your marketing pushes, lemlist can be an eye-opener in terms of how to warm up your list.
Additional features include personalization tools to make your outreach emails sound less spammy and follow-up email sequences to encourage more replies from cold prospects.
Moosend
Moosend is among the most user-friendly and affordable of our digital marketing tools, representing a surprisingly robust email solution for those just beginning to build their list.
Codeless campaigns, simple automations and easy-to-read reporting are all built into the platform. Paid users can also take advantage of landing page features, including mobile popups and countdown timers.
SEO (search engine optimization) tools
Fact: over half of all website traffic comes from search queries.
As the digital landscape becomes increasingly competitive, anything companies can do to increase their search presence is a plus. Although SEO might be daunting, especially to up-and-coming businesses, there are plenty of online marketing tools to help you uncover search opportunities and optimize your existing search engine efforts.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is the gold standard when it comes to brainstorming keyword ideas and opportunities to rank.
The platform’s site explorer lets you check any URL’s top organic keywords, while also estimating how much traffic a competitor receives for any given search term. You can also identify a site’s top-performing content and sources of backlinks.
In short, Ahrefs is a fantastic tool not only for competitive analysis but also for making sure that your existing content is up to snuff for search.
Clearscope
Now, let’s say you’re interested in capitalizing on keyword opportunities and optimizing your existing content. That’s where Clearscope comes in.
Particularly useful for content writing, the platform provides a detailed editor to recommend keywords, headers and readability to help you write (or rewrite) high-ranking, well-balanced blog posts.
Whether you’re creating a content strategy from scratch or refreshing your existing blogs, Clearscope covers every nook and cranny of search optimization.
Canva: The best Digital Marketing tools for design
I believe that many of you, even if you are not in marketing, have heard of Canva. Businesses from across the world, and people in different professions use it on a daily basis.
This tool is extremely easy to use. With all the templates ready to use, it can take seconds to create a beautiful blog cover, Social Media post, eBook cover, brochure or a poster.
Canva comes is a free version that is enough for many people (especially when used for private purposes). However, if you want more features, templates and team members, try Canva for business. The monthly cost is $12.95.
Canva features
In Canva, you can design anything that you think of…and it’s fast and easy!
Some of the main features I like about Canva include:
- Custom image resizing
- Pre-defined Social Media image sizes
- Saved brand colors
- Free templates, images, infographics, ebook covers, icons and many more
- Folders
- Sharing with team members.
Conclusion
Every new website has marketing goals. They are the goals that will help you grow your audience, get more leads, increase sales, etc. Just like any business on the Internet, digital marketing goals are critical to the survival of your company. However, it’s important to note that all marketing goals are different from one another. For instance, your marketing goals could be focused solely on lead generation or sales generation.