If you’re just starting out your own business, then you need all the help you can get in this super-fast world of digitization. It’s no mean feat to break into any market and establish a reputable, well-known brand name for yourself.
Sure, the word-of-mouth still remains and will always be the most influential way of marketing that any brand or a business can wish for, but brands cannot always rely on these modes of marketing as they cannot just wait for the happy customers to drop in positive reviews and recommends to other people. So that’s where Digital Marketing comes to play its role.
So What is Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing, also called online marketing, refers to all marketing efforts that occur on the internet. Businesses leverage digital channels such as search engines, social media, email, and other websites to connect with current and prospective customers. This also includes communication through text or multimedia messages.
And from day one, the brands need to market their offering actively on a range of channels. To create a lasting digital footprint, they need a website and social media profiles, at the very least. Then, to ensure that these digital assets perform as they should, so they need to pay attention to search engine optimization (SEO) and create and post high-quality content regularly.
As small businesses generally tend to be tight on budget, so most of these online business tools offers a reasonable type of plan or a free trial. If not, their pricing is quite competitive, especially when compared to other types of tools available on the market.
What are digital marketing tools?
Digital marketing tools are apps and software that help you plan, collaborate, and implement your digital marketing strategy.
Whether you’re planning a campaign, creating digital assets for social media, or tracking your results, digital marketing tools will help make your efforts more efficient and convenient.
From website builders to email tools to marketing automation tools, here are the top 10 online tools that small businesses can avail to streamline their marketing efforts.
TOP 10 DIGITAL MARKETING TOOLS FOR SMALL BUSINESSES –
Every small business needs a website. Wix is probably one of the most intuitive website builders that you can use and you can create a beautiful website without knowing any coding. It offers hundreds of customizable templates and with the help of its easy-to-use, drag-and-drop editor you can add several design elements like text, photo galleries, and videos.
Depending on the type of business that you’re running, you can also add a members’ area, booking system, or an online store. Also, your website automatically comes with a version that’s been optimized for mobile and if you need to customize it further for smaller screens, you can use its mobile editor that’s just as easy to use as all of its other features.
Key features:
- 500+ website templates
- Powerful SEO tools
- Built-in eCommerce features
- Mobile editor
2. Canva
Every business also needs a good design tool. Canva ticks many boxes and even its free plan offers loads of features that include templates, stock photography, fonts, and illustrations. While its free plan has more than enough to get you started, if you sign up for a paid subscription, you’ll also be able to create a brand kit which is very useful for making sure all your digital assets are consistent. You can also design your social media posts that too in accordance to the size ratio required by the social media platforms.
Another tool that small businesses might be interested in is its logo maker. While basic, it’s free and easy to use. So, if you don’t have a logo yet, Canva can solve many of your worries.
Key features:
- Thousands of social media templates
- Text animations
- Audio clips
- A video-to-mp4 converter tool
- Photo borders
- Poster templates
3. Mailchimp
As E-mail marketing is one of the most important aspect of digital marketing. It is a form of direct marketing where in an online business you can directly interact one on one with your customer. So giving that personalized touch to your client on your email can increase your chances on increasing your revenue and you could also use it your advantage by Remarketing them.
Mailchimp is one of the most popular marketing platforms for small businesses. From weekly email letters to the occasional cart abandonment email, there are various types of email that you can send to ensure your brand stays on top of mind. This email marketing tool also offers features that will help you build marketing assets in each step of your customer journey. Not only can you use it to build beautiful email templates and send your messages based on your subscribers’ behavior, but you can also use it to create a free website.
Mailchimp key features and digital marketing tools (some under paid plans):
- Segmentation and personalization
- Landing page builders
- Form builders
- Audience insights
- CRM tools
- Predictive insights
4. Google Analytics – Web and Marketing Analytics
Like any goal, one of the most important parts of your marketing campaign is tracking your key metrics.
Google Analytics is completely free software that provides valuable insights into who is visiting your website and how they engage with it and which strategies work best.
Let’s say you notice you’re getting a lot of high-converting traffic from an Instagram campaign. You’ll definitely want to spend more on Instagram ads instead of gambling on Facebook or Twitter.
You don’t need to know exactly what you’re doing to get started, but the sooner you activate it, the better. It will immediately start collecting valuable information that you can use to your advantage.
The data points that Google Analytics makes available to you include:
- The number of visitors to your site by day, week, month, or any time period you choose
- Where these visitors are coming from – referrals from other website, organic search, ads, social, or direct
- The keywords people are using in Google to find your site
- The demographics and interests of your users
- How long each user spends on your site and which pages they visit
5. Hootsuite
There’s no question. You must maintain a presence on social media to remain competitive in the marketplace. You also probably already know that social media can be a huge time sink, even if you’re using it purely for marketing purposes rather than endlessly scrolling.
Luckily, you have digital marketing tools available to cut down on this time inefficiency, like Hootsuite.
Hootsuite provides a central management platform for all your social media channels and allows you to schedule posts in advance so you can get all your social media content for the coming weeks or months ready in one session.
You also get advanced reporting tools to see which of your social media campaigns are working most effectively and use this data to calculate ROI.
You can also track mentions of your brand and manage responses, all in one dashboard.
Hootsuite also offers tools for promoting your social media posts through the platform now as well.
6. GOOGLE ADS – PAID ONLINE ADVERTISING
Google Ads is the collective name for all the ads you see across the search engine.
These can be text-based ads in search results, images displayed on websites, video ads on YouTube, product listings within search results, and others that get a little more specific.
Here, you can manage everything to do with your ads. The Google Ads platform allows you to target by keyword, location, device, and so much more. That’s why they’re an excellent way to get the right people on your website.
7. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is one of the leading names in Digital Marketing, a tool designed by Neil Patel. It’s another great tool that can help you with SEO and will analyze your website for SEO errors and keyword opportunities.
It can even help you in knowing about your competition, that what kind of keywords your competitor is using. Its SEO pages report helps you to identify which pages of your competitors are ranking for top organic keyword phrases and will create a list of the keywords that are delivering results for them.
8. GoDaddy – Domain Registration
In today’s world every business requires an online presence, and so every business needs a website, and each website requires its own Domain name.
The GoDaddy all in one is a popular tool especially designed for people who are just starting out their online presence. This platform is insanely popular for its domain registration and web hosting services. It also has its own website builder which makes your websites from scratch.
The intuitive site-building tools make GoDaddy one of the easiest-to-use site builders available today. This means GoDaddy is an excellent tool for beginners and those with limited or no coding or design skills.
Key Features :-
- Domain Registarion
- Web Hosting
- Website builder
9. Moz Pro
MOZ is another leading SEO tool that you can check out. While you can sign up for its all-in-one suite of SEO tools (Moz Pro), it also offers a number of free SEO tools that include a link explorer, keyword explorer, and domain analysis. It also offers a useful, free competitive research tool. All you need to do is enter your website and it will display a list of the top search engine ranking page competitors and identify any keyword or content opportunities.
Key features:
- Search, social and page metrics
- Competitive analysis
- A keyword explorer
- Prioritized recommendations to improve page optimization
Google Search Console is a free service from Google that helps you monitor and troubleshoot your website’s appearance in their search results. It is one of the most powerful , free SEO tools out there.
It is mainly used to find and fix technical errors, submit sitemaps, see backlinks, and more.
Get started with these small business marketing tools
Now that you have some tools in mind to help you boost your small business’s digital marketing efforts, it’s time to plan your next campaign.
Keep in mind, you don’t need any special training in marketing or design to use this lineup of essential small business marketing tools.
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