Marketing has changed quite a bit since the Internet became a new channel to reach prospects and customers. While old school channels like television, radio, magazines, etc. are still important to marketing plans and strategies, inbound marketing is also extremely important. In the years that marketers have taken over the Internet, some vital lessons have been learned. There are different tactics, practices, results, and tons of curve balls in the game of Digital Marketing. Along with these, there are some amazing marketing tools that can help make reaching your audience, creating online marketing campaigns, engaging with customers, and measuring results, a lot easier. Here is a list of essential digital marketing tools that are sure to help in your overall marketing goals.
Social Media Management
Managing a company profile on many different social networks can definitely be a challenge. This is where Social Media Management Software (SMMS) comes into place. SMMS allows you to broadcast one message to multiple social networks at once. Depending on how many social profiles your company has, SMMS could potentially save you tons of time. The Internet never sleeps and sometimes messages need to be posted after work hours. With SMMS you don’t have to worry taking a break from your favorite TV show to post something on Facebook, simply schedule it and stay on the couch. Some other great uses of SMMS include (but are not limited to): setting up alerts when your audience engages with your company socially, measuring social media engagement, measuring which channels get the most clicks and send the most traffic to your website, and monitoring all social networks from one dashboard. If you’re in need of a new SMMS or just want to see what’s out there, try these: Spredfast, Hootsuite, and Argyle Social.
Website Tracking
For many digital marketers, growing website traffic is extremely important. Website traffic translates to brand awareness and potential prospects so it is vital that it gets measured properly. What you learn from your website analytics can help you adjust your marketing strategy accordingly based on what efforts have and haven’t worked. Some of the key metrics to look at include: the days of the week your website get the most traffic, the content/pages that are getting the most views, the traffic sources that are sending the most visits, and the search terms being used to find your website organically. The go-to tool for evaluating all of these metrics is Google Analytics.
Marketing Automation
Measuring your online marketing tactics and efforts can be very difficult. Marketing Automation can ease that pain and allow you to see your efforts from start to finish. Marketing Automation allows you to provide your sales team with the tools they need, send automatic response emails to prospects interacting with your brand, measure campaign ROI, communicate relevant information to prospects, help you figure out which online efforts are working the best, and much more. The top players in the Marketing Automation space are: Pardot, Eloqua, and Marketo.
Extra tip: For a great tool that helps with face-to-face marketing automation, check out Leading Reach.
So there, you have it. Start putting these tools into place at your company! If you already have some of these tools, we’d love to hear how they’re working for you!