10 Essential Digital Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
Digital marketing is a game changer for small businesses as it has leveled the playing field for all players in the world of commerce. Today, both big and small businesses have an equal chance of success if they apply appropriate digital marketing tools to build their brand and drive sales.
Currently, there are numerous free and paid digital marketing tools available for manipulation. However, it is important to note that all businesses have different goals. Thus, it would be best if you had a unique combination of marketing tools to thrive.
In this guide, l will share ten digital marketing tools that may help you expand your business. The tools have the following common qualities:
- Increase the Return On Investment.
- Are affordable and easy to install.
- Bring value to a small business.
You can then choose the digital marketing tools that align with the goals of your small business.
Essential Digital Marketing Tools for Small Businesses include:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tools
Creating optimized content for search engines will increase the chances of ranking in Google compared to content that is not SEO-optimized. Ranking in search engines has numerous advantages to a small business: it will increase the number of users, lead conversions, and drive sales of your small business. How do you optimize your website content for search engines? You can optimize your website content for search engines by doing extensive keyword research before writing articles to discover which words are most searched by users in search engines. You can then incorporate these words into your articles.
Another way is by having backlinks to your website. Backlinks are links from one website to another. When another website links to yours, it proves your credibility to search engines, making your website rank higher. Here, the quality rather than the quantity of backlinks matters, as the website that links to yours must be credible.
There are various SEO tools you can use to grow the online presence of your small business. I have listed a few below, along with their tasks.
MarketMuse: is the best for content optimization
ContentHarmony: outlines content
TopicRanker: does keyword research and optimizes content
2. Email Marketing Tools
Email marketing is an essential tool for small businesses that want to promote their brand, build relationships with their clients, and increase sales. What makes email marketing so crucial is its huge return on investment, as for every dollar spent in marketing, businesses report an average of $38 return on investment.
Email marketing is also the easiest way of communicating with clients, as 99% of clients check their emails daily.
The best email marketing software platforms for your small business include:
Mailchimp: offers both paid and free plans with limited features. It is the best email marketing platform due to its awesome features and 24/7 support.
Campaign Monitor: automates and manages email marketing for $29 a month.
Convert Kit: offers a landing page editor and is best suited for professional bloggers and content creators. Charges are $29 a month for 1000 subscribers.
3. Analytics Managing Tools
Google Analytics is a digital marketing tool that will help you get valuable statistical information about your users. This information includes the number of website visitors in a specific period, the main words that are leading the clients to your small business, and how much time the visitors are spending on your website. You can also get valuable information on your competitors. The best part is, it’s all free!
Google Analytics works best with Google Search Console, a free digital marketing software that helps you identify bugs in your website that might be a hindrance to your website’s traffic.
4. Social Media Marketing Tools
Social media marketing tools help you to schedule your posts across various social media sites without having to log into the sites. The tools are popular as they help avoid the distraction and disorientation caused by mindlessly scrolling through your feed, allowing your small business to reap the full benefits of social media engagement. The top social media marketing tools include:
CoSchedule: a platform that offers post-scheduling and WordPress integration. It’s pricey at $29 a month.
Buffer: offers a free plan with features such as post scheduling, calendar view, Instagram tagging, and Twitter hashtags. For the paid plan, you’ll part with $6 a month.
Zoho Social: suitable software if you’re managing a small business on ten or fewer social media platforms. Zoho offers post scheduling, image editing, a publishing calendar, social media tagging, and summary reports. For your small business, you can opt for either a free or paid plan with unlimited features. The paid plan is $15 a month.
5. Content Marketing Tools
Well-written, engaging content with good grammar is key to a good marketing plan. There are various artificial intelligence tools that you can use to buff up your small business’ marketing strategy. They include:
Grammarly Business: this is a favorite for all content writers out there. Grammarly improves your grammar by offering accurate suggestions, allows you to rewrite sentences, and optimizes your writing tone. It offers both a free plan, which has limited features, and a premium plan at $15 a month.
WordPress: a popular site that is responsible for creating 40% of the websites on the internet today. It is suitable for writing SEO-optimized content.
Simplified: content marketing tool used by online brands to create content for blogs and websites. Some of the features include an AI-writing assistant, a company bio generator, and a content rewriting tool.
6. Project Management and Communication Tools
Behind any successful small business is a lot of time and effort that went into setting goals, scheduling tasks, and tracking their progress. Project management tools like Asana make the work easier for you by providing a simplified way of scheduling your tasks and tracking their progress. It will also help you achieve the set goals in the projected time. These tools are crucial for digital marketing.
Project management tools include:
Asana: a good management tool to track your projects and keep your team on track. There is a free plan and a paid plan at $24.99 per month. The free plan has basic features and is suitable for small businesses.
Trello: a project management tool that makes use of a Kanban board for visualizing tasks to be completed by a team and the progress of these tasks. A kanban board is preferred for digital marketing as it increases productivity, enhances visibility, reduces stress, promotes collaboration, and improves quality. The tool is suitable for visual thinkers. Trello has both free and paid plans. The paid plan offers unlimited features at $9.99 a month.
Monday: with this tool, you can access unlimited project boards to document and plan your tasks. You can also track the progress of your projects and provide feedback when necessary. Monday offers a free version and a paid version. The paid version has unlimited features at $8 per month.
7. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Tools
Customer Relationship Management tools or CRM are used to store and organize contacts, build customer relations, and collect information on potential clients. One way to build your customer base is inbound marketing, which is creating useful content that suits your client’s needs. Through inbound marketing, your small business can create value for your customers and grow your business. CRM tools include:
Hubspot: a top-ranking website that has mastered the art of inbound marketing. Hubspot uses the five principles of inbound marketing, SCOPE: standardized, Contextualize, Optimize, Personalize, and Empathize to attract clients and grow its membership. The website also offers a guide on how to use a CRM. Hubspot offers a paid subscription with varying plans starting from $45 a month.
Zoho CRM: ranked number one CRM tool by PCmag in 2021. It offers an AI-powered analytic tool that identifies trends in sales and Canvas, an online graphic design software, making it suitable for both large and small businesses. Zoho gives users a chance to test its features with a 15-day free trial, after which one can subscribe at $20 a month.
Salesforce CRM is a leading CRM tool with advanced features to help you keep track of customer interactions and sales. It also incorporates email marketing, lead capture, and scoring. Salesforce offers a free trial period of 30 days, after which one can pay a starting price of $25 a month.
8. Design Tools
Level up your digital marketing with design tools. Creating visually appealing, creative, and relatable content for your website will attract and engage customers, growing your small business. The top design tools include:
Canva Business: this design software offers design templates, a drag-and-drop editor, free photos, and AI-powered tools. You can use it to design posters, presentations, videos, logos, and social media posts for your small business. It offers a free and paid plan. The paid plan is at $12.99 a month.
Adobe Lightroom: design tool used to edit photos for a flawless and professional finish. You can use this tool when you want to post professional pictures of your small business or products on your website. It offers a free and paid plan. The paid plan is at $9.99 a month.
9. SMS Marketing Tools
Sending text messages is a simple way of sharing your small business updates, promotions, and upcoming events with customers. As a digital marketing tool, text messages will help you communicate and network with potential customers.
SMS marketing tools include:
SimpleTexting: the leading SMS marketing tool due to its unlimited contact and text message options. It allows small business owners to send promotional messages to their customers, employees, and suppliers, allowing one-on-one interactions. It offers paid plans starting from $29 with a free 14-day trial period.
SlickText: offers small businesses a chance to engage with their customers through contests, surveys, promo codes, coupons, and loyalty reward options. It offers paid plans starting from $29 with a free 14-day trial period.
TextMagic: an SMS marketing tool is preferred by small businesses owing to its one-time payment plan. With TextMagic, you can purchase prepaid credits to use anytime. One text is priced at 4 cents. There is also a 30-day free trial.
10. Influencer Marketing Tools
Influencer marketing has become a popular way for small businesses to build their reputation as trustworthy and reliable brands on social media. Influencer marketing is an advanced digital marketing tool that involves endorsements and product mentions from social media influencers- individuals who have a loyal following and have expertise in a specific niche. The influencers are then paid for the mentions. Marketing your products with authentic influencers who have a loyal following will grow your small business and result in increased sales. However, it is important to collaborate with the right influencer for your brand. Preferably one in your niche. To streamline the process of choosing the right influencers for your brand, you can use the influencer marketing tools listed below:
Sprout Social: an influencer marketing tool that has social listening features. The platform analyzes audience conversations, monitors industry trends, and gives insights on popular topics that might affect your small business.
CreatorIQ: an influencer marketing tool that uses AI to research influencer ratings, engagement, and credibility. The recommended influencers are then compared to find the perfect fit for your small business.
Pitchbox: an influencer marketing tool for outreach that brands use to contact influencers. With Pitchbox, you can find influencer contact details and send scheduled pitches and emails.
Once you employ the digital marketing tools above, how do you monitor their effectiveness?
- Set clear goals and targets for your small business at the beginning.
- Track the number of impressions your content has received.
- Assess your click-through-rate (CTR) to track your campaign performance.
- Measure your bounce rate: the number of users who are landing on your page and leaving without performing any action such as subscribing to a newsletter or demo request. If it is more than 50%, make necessary improvements to your website to engage customers.
- Use Google Analytics to check the average time on page; the average time your website visitors have spent on your page.