8 Online Marketing Tools For Your Business
The best marketing tools to propel your business or brand
Whether you run your own business or work as a marketing professional, picking the proper marketing tools can be a challenge. There are hundreds of services, platforms, and programs that promise to help streamline and grow your business.
The marketing tools you decide on can make or break your business. This guide explores the features of some of the best online marketing solutions.
Website Analytics: Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the most widely used web analytics service on the internet. By installing a block of JavaScript code on your website, Google Analytics allows you to track, report, and analyze your brand's website traffic.
Google Analytics “pools real-time site information for a comprehensive view into user acquisition, audience demographic, user behavior flow, and completed conversion goals” (Segment.com). This resource by Google provides detailed information on how to set up Google Analytics, how to navigate the interface, how to build reports, and how to set up campaign and conversion tracking.
Traffic reports will probably be most useful. You are able to see various metrics from your marketing efforts including users, new users, sessions, new sessions, time spent on site, and bounce rates.
The Audience section allows you to understand age, gender, and geographic data. The Behavior section is useful to understand behavior flow, page performance, and site speed.
Google Analytics users utilize all of this information to determine the characteristics of their website audience, types of content and imagery to create, and which marketing efforts drive the most qualified traffic. Google Analytics is the most commonly used analytics software by marketers.
Social Media Management: Buffer
Buffer is a social media management tool that allows you to schedule, publish, and analyze social media posts. This can be a huge time-saver as you can schedule out all of your social media posts for the week or month in one sitting. Platforms linked to Buffer include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.
Buffer’s Publish software allows you to plan, collaborate, and publish content on your social media channels to build your audience and grow your brand. Buffer Publish provides a 14-day free trial of their services and then a monthly payment plan depending on your needs:
- Starter ($15/month): 8 social accounts, 100 scheduled posts, and 1 user access
- Growing Brands ($65/month): 8 social accounts, 2,000 scheduled posts, and 2 user access
- Large Teams ($99/month): 25 social accounts, 2,000 scheduled posts, and 6 user access
Buffer’s Analyze software allows you to get in-depth insights into their social media posts. You can measure social media performance, create reports, as well as get recommendations on how to grow reach, engagement, and sales.
- Starter ($35/month): 8 social accounts, in-depth social analytics, strategy recommendations, and unlimited reports
- Growing Brands ($50/month): 10 social accounts, in-depth social analytics, strategy recommendations, white-label reports, and Shopify integration
Email Marketing: Mailchimp
Mailchimp is an easy to use, all in one, integrated email marketing services provider. The software allows users to create professional emails to send to your customer list. Although email is their main focus, Mailchimp also provides other marketing services including landing page creation, social media management, and audience analytics.
Some key highlights of Mailchimp’s email services include:
- Drag-and-Drop Builder: Use Mailchimp's premade templates to create stunning emails
- Content Studio: Store and manage images and files
- Email Automation: Schedule emails as well as automated replies
- Real-Time Analytics: Identify what works and optimize email performance
In terms of pricing, there are four different plans:
- FREE: Includes basic templates, marketing CRM, 1-click automation, surveys, websites, and 7 marketing channels
- Essentials ($9.99/month): Includes services in FREE package, as well all email templates, A/B testing, custom branding, and 24/7 customer support
- Standard ($14.99/month): Includes services in Essentials package, as well as advanced audience insights, retargeting ads, custom templates, and behavioral targeting automation series
- Premium ($299/month): Includes services in Standard package, as well as advanced segmentation, multivariate testing, unlimited users, and phone support
Content Marketing: WordPress and Medium
Hosting a blog allows potential and existing customers to learn more about your brand, products, and services. It’s an easy way to organize your content and marketing materials for your audience. The top two recommended blogging platforms are WordPress and Medium.
Many brands and businesses already use WordPress to host their website. The easy-to-use built-in blogging feature ranks high on search engines and is mobile responsive. WordPress gives you full control of your website and blog, as modules are 100% customizable. Businesses and brands use WordPress to house blog posts, infographics, images, or videos. WordPress blogging is free to use, but upgrades for additional features will vary in pricing.
Medium’s strong domain authority makes it another great content marketing platform. In addition, the audience on Medium typically differs drastically from the ones on your blog. By sharing stories on Medium and linking them to your website, you will build up your website’s domain authority. However, do not think that you can just link to your website and it will do the trick. Google crawls the content to make sure it’s relevant and not spam. Medium is free to use with limited capabilities unless you upgrade to the Member Partner Program for $5/month.
Search Engine Optimization: SpyFu
Search Engine Optimization is the process of employing various marketing strategies to grow organic traffic to your website. This increases the visibility of your website on search engines.
SpyFu is ranked #1 by PCMagainze for SEO tools in 2020 due to its “deep feature set, excellent reporting, and solid support for digital marketing and advertising.” The keyword search and management tools are rated as top-notch.
Type in a domain name and you can view every place the website shows up on Google, track SEO keyword ranking, view competitor SEO keywords, find new keywords, view ranking reports, and much more.
Spyfu also provides many resources that help you:
- Find the most important keywords for your market
- How to research and implement SEO keywords
- How to increase your rank on specific keywords
- How to research your competitor’s keywords
Advertising: Google Adwords and Facebook Business Manager
If you want to drive traffic to your website quickly to generate leads or sales, Google and Facebook advertising is your best bet. Both of these platforms rank the highest in terms of ROI for paid media due to the scale and technological capabilities.
Brands typically will maximize their advertising dollars with these two platforms first, prior to any other paid media channels. Both the platforms are free to use and charge based on clicks or impressions served.
Google Ads places your brands’ ads in Google’s search engine. Advertisers pay to appear in front of potential customers searching specific pre-determined keywords. For example, if you sell men’s shoes, you will probably bid on keywords related to men’s shoes (ex. Men’s sneakers, Men’s running shoes, Men’s shoes, etc.). Your creative is typically in the format of a search ad that appears above all other search engine results (see screenshot below).
With Google Ads, your brand or business is charged per click (also known as CPC or Cost Per Click). The Cost Per Click depends on the keyword and keyword competition (can range from $1-$20+ per click). Many find this an effective way to drive relevant traffic and conversions on their website.
Facebook Business Manager is where businesses and brands purchase ads on Facebook. Instead of focusing on keywords, Facebook utilizes interest and behavioral targeting. Ads will appear in the newsfeed of the audience you are targeting. Your creative is typically in the format of an image, video, or carousel. In the screenshot below, the user is served this Facebook ad because they’ve shown interest in real estate.
With Facebook ads, your brand or business is charged per thousand impressions served (CPM or cost per thousand views). CPM is dependent on the competition for the audience you are targeting. The more brands bidding on a specific audience, the more expensive the CPM will be. Similar to Google Ads, Facebook is an effective way to drive relevant traffic and conversions on your website.
Final Thoughts
In short, there many online marketing tools and technologies that can help grow your brand or business. Each platform serves its own purpose. When working together, these marketing tools can propel your business to the next level.
Based on my research and experience as in digital marketing for the past 5+ years, below are the top online marketing platform recommendations:
- Analytics: Google Analytics
- Social Media Management: Buffer
- Email Marketing: Mailchimp
- Content Marketing: WordPress and Medium
- Search Engine Optimization: SpyFu
- Advertising: Google Ads and Facebook Ads
