The best part about digital marketing is that there are so many tools out there that can help your business generate higher revenues through the smooth integration and operations of the marketing process.
However, this also makes it difficult for new businesses to identify where to invest their money.
Many times, tools for marketing either turn out to be a scam or don’t fulfill return on investment.
With extensive research and my own experience in the marketing field, I have put together a list of Google tools for marketing for various different operations:
#1. Google Analytics
Website Traffic
My personal favorite and one of the best analytical tools out there, Google Analytics is a great service that reports and tracks website traffic:
The platform provides an in-depth overview of page views, loading times and segmentation of users by country so that businesses can asses where they are doing well as well as their weak points.
Moreover, Google provides everything under one roof.
You can use Google AdWords to rank your webpage higher in search results, Google My Business to provide the necessary information to customers in one place and many other great tools that’ll help boost web traffic and customers.
The best part is that all marketing tools by Google are free!
Check out Google’s 17 marketing tools that you should be using.
#2. MailChimp
Automation and email
At present, Mail Chimp has more than over 11 million users, with at least 1 billion emails being sent out daily.
It’s one of the best email marketing services out there that will help you design email newsletters, share them on social networks, integrate with services you already use and track your results.
The best part about MailChimp? It’s absolutely free for small businesses.
When businesses start out, they have fewer resources and a small client base. If you have less than 2000 subscribers, you can avail Mail Chimp’s services for free:
As your clientele grows, you’ll have to choose a pricing plan, but the great thing about email marketing is that it’s extremely cheap and has a high Return on Investment
If you don’t have an email marketing campaign for your business at all, it’s a good idea to introduce it. The marketing channel provides more than a $40 Return for every $1 (on average) that you invest in it!
#3. HubSpot
Marketing, Sales & CRM
HubSpot is great for bringing your entire marketing funnel together:
HubSpot is great if you’re looking for a single software to help you out with all your marketing needs. It provides access to tools that will help you with the following:
- Blogging
- SEO
- Social Media
- Website
- Lead Management
- Landing Pages
- Calls-to-Action
- Marketing Automation
- Analytics
This is a great place to start if you have a newly established business and you’re hoping to invest in a single platform to oversee all of your operations:
#4. HootSuite
Social Media
In today’s marketing world, social media plays a huge part in the success of a business – whether it’s creating awareness, generating leads or even advertising.
HootSuite is the best platform to manage your social media accounts. With Hootsuite, you can:
- Schedule your social media posts beforehand
- Get pre-approved content and tagging as well as searching and usage statistics to help curate your content
- Track and measure results with customised reports
- Monitor the trending news about your business, your competitors and the industry
#5. Trello
Integration
Great marketing often involves strong co-ordination among departments and teams. Trello is a platform that will allow seamless communication among members of an organisation.
Here’s what you can do with Trello:
- Create a team for any project
- Get information at a glance. Team members can upload attachments, pictures and share information with others, thus integrating teamwork
- Integrate other apps with Trello to sync information and make it accessible on all devices and platforms
#6. Crazy Egg
Website Optimization
Unfortunately, most business owners and CEOs are not aware of website optimisation and how to go about it.
Web technology is a world of its own and you’ll require experts to handle it.
That’s where Crazy Egg steps in. The software will help you perform 2 functions:
- Improving your website to generate more leads
- Deals with any IT issues and simplifies them for you
This software is great if you’re a small business owner who has little IT requirements and prefers an affordable platform instead of investing resources in an entire web designing team.
Crazy Egg provides you with amazing features, including:
- Heatmap: Helps you figure out why people are leaving your website
- Mouse recording: Allows you to see recorded interactions of visitors on your website i.e. their clicks, the purchases they make, time spent on site etc.
- Analysis and reporting
- Platforms and integrations
- Targeting and personalization
- Research and user feedback
With all these features in hand, you’ll be able to identify anything that your website is lacking and fix it accordingly.
Before, Crazy Egg was completely free. Now you’ll get a 30-day free trial, after which the software will cost you a minimal $9 per month.
#7. SEMRush
Keyword Optimisation
Everywhere you turn, you’ll see marketers trying to optimise their website and content to rank the highest on search engines.
But how do you know which keywords work and which don’t?
SEMRush will do this job for you.
With SEMRush, you can:
- Find the most profitable keywords for your website
- Uncover your competitors’ organic search, paid, content, PR, and social media strategies
The platform offers 3 pricing options ranging from $99.5 up to $399.95. It’s a bit pricey for some businesses, but it’s worth it if you’re looking to improve your SEO.
If you’re looking for more keyword ranking websites, a great alternative to SEMRush is Ahref.
Ahref is great if you need a detailed insight about your website’s performance.
It can assess how many backlinks you’re generating and also the ones you are losing so that you can contact those sites again and get them to link you back again.
#8. Grammarly
Writing
Pro tip: Shift towards automation.
In the business world, you cannot afford to waste time on manual processes that can be done by machines.
And, as an added bonus, automation reduces human error, thus improving the credibility of your business.
Grammarly’s app is great for that. Here’s what it can do for you:
Grammarly offers a free version of its app but that only involves spell checks.
Of course, you’ll require an experienced writer to come up with creative content, but you can save time and improve efficiency by having Grammarly check your work.
The premium version of the app will bill you $15 a month, so it’s affordable and useful for all types of businesses. If you are still on the fence about Grammarly here is a good in-depth review that could help make your decision easier.
#9. Alexa
We all know Alexa as Amazon’s virtual assistant. Mostly we just have fun with how smart she is and watch hilarious viral videos of her.
But that’s not all Alexa can do.
Alexa by Amazon is a great marketing tool for keyword research, competitive analysis and website optimisation.
- Audience overlap: Helps you find websites that compete with you based on common visitors and keywords
- SEO Audit Tool: Identifies issues that affect your organic SEO performance
- Competitor Keyword Matrix: Compare up to 10 websites at a time to see how your keywords differ from your competition and identify the top keywords which drive traffic
- Site Comparisons: Benchmark your website’s performance by comparing it with your top competitors
- Keyword Difficulty: Find the keywords that are relevant to your site and produce higher conversions
- On-page SEO Checker: Enter a landing page and target keyword pair to analyse your SEO Content
- Competitor backlink checker: By finding out your competitors’ backlinks, you’ll get relevant backlinks that you can use on your website to improve conversions
These premium tools will cost you either $149 or $299 a month, depending on the size of your business.
It’s a bit pricey for some but Alexa can prove to be a very useful tool for keyword and website optimisation.
If your website isn’t ranking anywhere near the first result page and you want to optimise it organically, perhaps Alexa is the best solution for you.
#10. KISSMetrics
Analytics & Reporting
KISSMetrics is a great website developed by the famous blogger and CEO, Neil Patel.
It’s another great website where you’ll get everything under one roof. It’ll give you a metrics dashboard, funnels, customer journey reporting and trigger based notifications.
Here’s how that will help your business:
By understanding your customer journey, you’ll inevitably be able to increase conversions and retain a maximum amount of customers.
KISSMetrics customises its pricing options based on every individual business’s needs.
It starts at $500 and goes as high as $1000 depending on the features you include.
Check out FSM’s review of KISSMetrics’s usefulesness and reviews, and more importantly, whether it’s the right choice for you.
#11. BuzzSumo
Research & Monitoring
BuzzSumo is a great tool for new businesses who want to learn more about the market.
When starting a business, you’ll have a general idea about your market and competitors, but BuzzSumo will provide you deeper insight on market information that isn’t readily available.
Here are the 4 main features it provides:
- Content discovery
- Content Research
- Identifying and collaborating with the right influencers for your business
- Monitoring your business’s online activity
It also provides high level data associated with each result:
This comes in handy to find out which content is working best for businesses in your industry.
With BuzzSumo, you no longer have to look for the best content on your own, because it will provide you with all the answers.
The marketing tool also has some great pricing options.
It’s base pricing is $99 a month for individuals and small teams, so if you have a newly established business, you won’t be burdened at the expense of good marketing tools.
With 4 pricing options, the highest is $499 a month for enterprises that require a large volume of data, because of course, a larger and most established business will have more competition and customised needs.
Conclusion
In marketing, it’s all about finding out what works for your business and working on that.
These tools for marketing are great for leading you straight to the problem as well as the strengths of your business.
Investing in these tools will help increase the efficiency of your business; thus, help you grow your customer base and expand as a profitable entity.