Blog Introduction

In this blog, we’re going to be talking about some of the best digital marketing tools out there.

Digital marketing is an important aspect of any business’s growth strategy, but it can also be a little overwhelming if you don’t know where to start. With so many different channels and tactics available, where do you even begin?

We’ve rounded up the top 7 digital marketing tools that will help you grow your business in 2019. Read on to find out more!

Best Digital Marketing Tools To Grow A Business

5 BEST DIGITAL MARKETING TOOLS TO GROW A BUSINESS

The difference between a digital marketing professional and someone who dabbles in online marketing can be summed up in the tools they use. Here are the top 5 tools that we recommend.

SimilarWeb.com – When you need a competitive digital marketing strategy for any business in about 5 minutes, use this tool.  Type in a competitor name and get a full detailed report.  SimliarWeb provides a behind-the-scenes look at what organic keywords and PPC keywords are getting them traffic.  What channels are working, and what social media is working for them.

Google Trends – Many people use Google’s Keyword tool to find keywords, but we prefer to see what search phrases people actually have used in the past.  Google Trends gives actual data of the search phrases that have been used since 2004.  We can narrow the geography down to the state level, as well as only look at certain categories or Google properties, such as Image, Shopping or YouTube.  Looking for writing ideas and topics that will attract interest? Use Trends to find hot topic for blog posts.  Enter a basic term, narrow to last 30 days and look for the related queries that have a +% or “breakout”

Canva.com – Want to produce professional looking social media posts?  Canva saves us time and money with their low-cost stock photos and professional memes.  Canva has several very professional looking templates where you can edit all aspects of the design to make it relevant to your business.

Chrome extension vidIQ for Youtube – Youtube is the #2 search engine in the world, but getting your video found in YouTube search is complicated.  Now you can uncover the secrets to success behind well ranking YouTube Videos.  When doing a search in YouTube, VidIQ pops-up to give a lot of information for this keyword in YouTube.  Especially look at the Keyword Score which shows search volume and Competition score.  Look for keywords that have high volumes and low competitions.

Chrome extension Keyword Everywhere – Finding the right keyword to optimize a page around can seem like an art-form.  Gathering accurate data can be time-consuming and inefficient.  Using this extension while doing Google searches, we can quickly see relevant search volumes and PPC data.  The information appears under the search bar with a search volume per month statistic.  Test different variation of keywords to see which search volume is highest.

Special Extra Credit Tool

Ahrefs.com – Ahrefs is a link research tool that provides a wealth of information about a web link.  The first think you’ll see is the number of backlinks that a url and domain has.  The referring domains with the number of links coming to the page.  In addition you can generate many keyword suggestions with traffic estimates for websites that rank in the top ten search results. In order to optimize a page, it helps to know where the page page currently.  Ahrefs shows historical ranking data for a page for specific keywords.  Ahref also will show keywords that competitor sites rank for, but your site does not.  There are many other benefits and features to Ahrefs, and while the tool can be expensive, the entry level program is affordable to any business that wants to get serious about their SEO.

Time-Saver Extra Credit Tool

SocialPlanner.io – If you’re like us, the hardest part of content marketing is figuring out what content is going to resonate with your audience.  This is where SocialPlanner.io comes in.  It’s an all-in-one content marketing & social media scheduling tool designed to help brands and businesses find, plan and publish engaging content.  There are three core features we like.  Content Discovery: Discover trending content on social media and from around the web, the type of content that generates high engagement from fans and followers. Content Planning: Plan publishing of your content across all their social media accounts in one place with our easy to use, visual drag & drop calendar. Content Publishing: Found something hot? Automatically schedule and publish social media posts to all your social channels right inside SocialPlanner.

best digital tools

Meredith Wood

Modern startups run on digital tools. From communicating with customers, collaborating internally or protecting their assets, entrepreneurs should know that there’s a digital platform or service for everything.

The truth is, those that don’t embrace technology risk being left behind, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to stay afloat, entrepreneurs must start off strong with some of the following digital tools. Embracing digital tools now means you’ll find further opportunities for integration, growth and success down the road.

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Project management
A new business (particularly one with a remote workforce, or one that requires collaboration across various teams) will need help keeping track of its myriad projects and goals. Email isn’t optimal for this, as it’s too isolated, and it’s easy for members to be accidentally left off an update if they aren’t included on the latest message.

Project management platforms like Trello or Wrike are more efficient. These cloud-based tools give a full and transparent look at where each important project is in its lifecycle and allows everyone to trace its progress from inception to completion.

Communication and collaboration
Conversations between employees can be difficult to keep track of, especially as your business grows. Let teams chat, share files and integrate with other apps through a communication tool like Slack.

Website builder
Having a website is no longer optional for any business—it’s as important as the front door of a brick-and-mortar store. A website says that you’re a legitimate company, and you can use your site to impart news, information and alternative communication channels to your customers.

If you’re not tech-savvy, however, you don’t have to settle. Use a website builder like SquareSpace to create a clean, mobile-optimized site that you can build out to include a store, or promote via integrated marketing tools.

Website performance monitoring
No matter how you build your website, you’ll want to know how people are using it (or not using it) so you can adjust and influence them to make different decisions. Try a tool like Chartbeat or Google Analytics to track your visitors and see if they’re “bouncing” (immediately leaving), what pages they’re clicking into and other data you can mine to increase performance.

Customer relationship management
There’s no reason to operate your customer relationships on the fly any longer. Too often this leads to lost or forgotten leads, or turns repeat customers into ghosts.

Your customer relationship management (or CRM) tool will allow you to log and track every aspect of every relationship you build, letting you know how long it’s been since you’ve followed up with loyal customers, or which users are visiting your website and filling out forms but not closing the deal on a purchase. CRM software like HubSpot helps you stay organized internally and top-of-mind with customers.

Email marketing
Email newsletters are one of the most popular and effective digital marketing tools out there. Use a platform like MailChimp or Constant Contact to easily design, send and review the results of your newsletters. You can drill down and examine who opened your emails, what links they clicked on, and who might be most interested in a follow-up message or offer.

Social media management
Not only do you need a website for your startup, but a presence on all major social media channels is also highly recommended. That means posting, engaging with other users, responding to customer questions and feedback, and otherwise being active to show your commitment to the platform(s).

Rather than spending all day and night checking your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages, use a management tool like Hootsuite to monitor feeds, schedule posts, interact and engage, and view analytics—all from one single dashboard.

File storage and access
All of your important documents, from your project files to your articles of incorporation, should be stored “off-site,” in the cloud. Get Google Drive or Dropbox storage to safeguard your backups, as well as grant access to users from any location and make updates to important files on the fly.

Virtual private network
Cyber attacks targeting small businesses are on the rise, which means you should take precautions to safeguard your startup from phishers, hackers and other cybercriminals. A VPN allows users to create a secure network connection even when you’re using a public network—such as the public WiFi networks at coffee shops. NordVPN is a popular option for its military-grade protections and thousands of available servers.

If you expect to conduct work from public spaces or collect sensitive data from clients, a VPN is an affordable way to protect you, your employees and your business.

Video conferencing software
Need to correspond with a remote team, or have a productive meeting with clients, prospective employees or consultants? A video conferencing solution that allows multiple parties to join and collaborate is a must. You can try free options like Join.me, but consider that they may max out at around 10 participants, so you can upgrade to a paid service for more attendees.

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HR management software
When you’re just starting out, you may not have a full-fledged human resources team. HR management software can do everything from schedule employee shifts and send out company announcements to collect bank account information for direct deposit. There are so many small details that a new business owner could overlook that would then expose the business to issues and lawsuits. Put responsibility for these important tasks on one of the many leading digital HR tools on the market such as GoCo.

Accounting software
Here’s another area of your business that can feel menial and boring until you’re facing an audit by the IRS, or you realize that your cash flow analysis failed to account for this month’s payroll costs. Online accounting software like Xero does the work of an accountant and bookkeeper by tracking your expenses and profits, reconciling debts, sending invoices, creating expense claims, and doing just about anything else that should be noted on your tax returns.

Keyword research tools
If you’re just getting started in the content marketing game and want to figure out how your startup can create thoughtful, interesting content that ranks on Google search, use a keyword research tool like Ahrefs to investigate words and search terms in your industry. Then build your well-written blog posts around these terms and watch your traffic grow.

A new startup that doesn’t have an array of digital tools to automate and simplify tasks, connect remote users and improve operations may soon be running behind its competitors. It’s especially important to have these tools in place to manage a remote workforce.

Start things off on the right foot by investigating these digital tools early—it’ll be easier to scale up with them than to retrofit your tools to your existing, perhaps inefficient, processes.

Conclusion

Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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