The Best Tools for Digital Marketing That You Can Use Now

As a small business, you will always be competing with everyone else on the market – not only with other small businesses but also with mid-size and large corporations. Every chance to connect with the target audience matters and should be used to your advantage. In our current day and age, the best way to reach your audience and to make people want to become your clients is through the effective use of digital marketing.

In order to help you navigate the complex and constantly upgraded world of marketing, we will be introducing you to five digital marketing tools that will help you as a small business owner. We will target the different aspects of digital marketing and offer tools to help you work on different aspects of your strategy. Let’s take a look at the five tools for digital marketing that will help you grow your business.

Why Do You Need Tools for Digital Marketing?

When it comes to digital marketing, the right tools can make or break your campaign. It’s vital that you know what kind of tools to invest in, especially as a small business that doesn’t have that big of a budget and needs to watch over its finances. The right tools for digital marketing can help you accomplish important business tasks such as link building, lead capturing, and content development without needing to make that big of an investment in an entire marketing team.
Truly great digital marketing apps and platforms are easy to use; they are suitable for everyone, even people who have a ton of marketing experience and haven’t used them before. One of the major advantages of modern technology is the inclusion of some kind of automation which enables you to do more work in less time without spending hours learning how to use one single program.

The Six Types of Marketing Tools

Not all marketing tools have the same purpose, since digital marketing has many different aspects and all of them need different tools to get results. Let’s now take a look at the six different types of digital marketing tools.

Social Media Marketing Tools

We all know that social media is probably the biggest marketing tool out there and its influence is only getting bigger. Most marketers consider having a presence on one or more social media platforms a must for nurturing leads, building relationships, and getting valuable insight into their target audience.

With that said, managing social media platforms is not as easy as it looks. In fact, it takes a ton of preparation, planning, and time to be done correctly. Nowadays, a ton of platforms make it easier for you as a business owner to manage your content, post it, and then analyze the results.

E-mail Marketing Tools

Besides social media, the other most popular marketing tool is probably e-mail, especially for companies whose target audience consists of an older age group or of working professionals. Along with that, e-mail marketing is the most tried-and-tested marketing channel that has proven to give good results time and time again. Platforms for e-mail marketing are some of the most popular ones and that’s why there are so many of them on the market.

From building an e-mail list to delivering the e-mails and coming up with great campaigns, some of the online tools you can find now make your job as an owner that much easier. They allow you to plan and start e-mail marketing campaigns in an almost automated manner that makes the entire process much more effective and also smoother.

Search Engine Optimization Tools

Making sure you’re one of the top companies that come up in a Google search is vital for most businesses nowadays. As the landscape becomes more and more competitive, brands are willing to do more to make sure their search presence is sufficient. For most business owners, SEO is perhaps the toughest, most difficult-to-navigate part of digital marketing. To be honest, that applies to marketers as well.

However, the cool thing is that even search engine optimization can be done with the help of online tools nowadays. Thankfully, many of them make the process of optimizing your website a lot easier to understand and do.

Lead Enrichment Tools

Even if you get people to visit your website, it’s highly likely they won’t leave any useful information before leaving it. The market now needs the so-called “business intelligence tools” that help you better understand your leads and highlight information that will be valuable to them once they’ve shown an interest in your company. This is especially true for B2B marketing, as lead enrichment tools make it easier for you to get prospects and enable you to get more information on the leads you already have.

Lead Capture and Landing Page Tools

We all know that our attention span is shrinking, thanks to social media and all these mediums that enable us to get information quickly; nowadays, most people don’t have the patience to read even one news article longer than a couple of hundred words. As a business, it’s vital for you to find ways to hook visitors from the moment they land on your website.

Marketing software focused on capturing leads makes sure that your traffic isn’t wasted and that visitors are urged to take action in the best possible way. When this is done right, it ultimately leads to more conversions and it helps you learn more about what kind of triggers work for your target audience.

Design and Graphic Creation Tools

Having great visuals is crucial for all businesses that want to have a strong online presence. After all, the visual aspect of your company is one of the first things people notice, and you want to leave a good impression from the very beginning. Along with that, your aesthetic should match the kind of audience you want to attract. For example, B2B companies will aim to look more professional and elegant, as their target group consists of more mature professionals. On the other hand, a streetwear store that targets people who love street fashion and teenagers will have to do its best to stand out, follow all the “hype” trends, and look as cool and unusual as possible.

Thankfully, now we have many platforms that make the process of designing cover photos, graphics, and so on a lot easier. In fact, in the very beginning, they’re enough to give your brand a good look without you having to hire a graphic designer.

The Five Best Digital Marketing Tools for Small Businesses

Now that we’ve discussed why digital marketing tools are important and how they differ from one another, let’s talk some more about the most useful ones on the market for small businesses.

Mailchimp

Regardless of whether you’re doing digital marketing for small businesses or large corporations, one of the most useful tools you can find is Mailchimp. It’s one of the best ones for leading an e-mail marketing campaign, sending e-mails to individuals, and inviting them to subscribe to your e-mail list or join one of your promotions on the website.

Mailchimp makes it easy for you to build e-mail sign-up forms and buttons on your site without needing to know how to code. Along with that, it has seamless integration with many different platforms and makes your job that much smoother. Its e-mail marketing platform has tons of built-in templates and other tools that help you come up with engaging e-mails that people will want to read. Additionally, the Content Optimizer provides you with personalized suggestions on how to increase engagement and make it more likely for your readers to answer to your calls to action.

Semrush

As you already know, showing up as one of the first few results on a Google search page requires a ton of work. However, it can also massively help your business grow. After all, if we put aside paid advertisements, one of the best ways for customers to find your brand is if you’re one of the top results they see when doing their research. As a small business owner, positioning your company in the best possible way and making sure that it can compete for the top spots with other, bigger businesses can only happen if you use the right marketing tools.

For example, Semrush offers a perfect combination of keyword research and content recommendations. It can automatically come up with topics and writing suggestions that will enable you to come up with a content marketing strategy, including ideas for blog posts, landing pages, and other tools that will help you get to the top of the search engine results.

Canva

Is there a marketer in the world that hasn’t used Canva or at least hasn’t heard of it? I highly doubt it. Every single good marketing campaign needs terrific, eye-catching designs, and if you don’t want to hire a dedicated graphic designer, Canva is your best option.

It’s an online visual design tool that makes it easy for anyone to create designs for different kinds of visual content. With its drag-and-drop function and numerous templates dedicated to different topics, you can create your own designs for your Instagram stories, Twitter profile pictures, and even landing pages. It also makes it easier to share your brand’s colors, fonts, and designs with other team members, so that everyone is aligned on the vision and can simultaneously work on it.

Venngage

If you want to show your target audience statistics and vital numbers, one of the best ways to do it is by using Venngage. It’s a tool that makes it easy for you to create great infographics that can then be used for your website, e-mails, and other marketing materials. Usually, most marketers use infographics as a way to share different survey results and timelines or provide users with step-by-step instructions.

If you want to communicate more complex ideas in an easier way, the best way to do it is by using infographics. In some way, Venngage offers small business owners similar benefits to Canva, as it ensures that you don’t need to hire a graphic designer to create visuals that look professional and clean.

HubSpot

HubSpot has many tools for marketers, and most of them are extremely useful; however, if one tool stands out from the rest, it’s probably the CRM tool that is extremely popular thanks to its many powerful features.

HubSpot’s CRM makes it easy for you to track e-mails, notifications, and prospects. Additionally, you can schedule meetings, and if you want, you can give your prospects the opportunity to start a live chat with your brand. What makes the tool truly unique is how easy it is to use and navigate, even for people who lack any experience in digital marketing. Furthermore, it comes at a fantastic price point, as it’s completely free – something that, for smaller businesses, can make a big difference. The only downside is that only two people can use the free plan, but if you’re just starting out, then even that won’t be that much of an issue.

Before You Leave

As you can see, there are many digital marketing platforms out there designed to make your life as a small business owner that much easier. However, not all of them are worth the investment of time and money, so you need to be careful when choosing the ones to use for your own company.

In this article, you saw our top five recommendations, but there are much more available out there that will also do a good job and help you create the kind of marketing campaigns that grow your business.

You need to remember that digital marketing is about more than just having the right tools. It’s also about knowing your target audience and being creative. With so many brands out there right now, attracting customers can only occur if you manage to come up with a business plan that’s truly innovative and that stands out from the rest of the market.

If you want to learn more about how to enhance your digital marketing strategy, go ahead and check out our other blogs. If you want to get some easy-to-implement tips and tricks, make sure to follow us on all social media channels.