10 Digital Marketing Tools You Need When Starting a Business

In the United States alone, there are more than 28 million businesses. With a number like that, it’s more important than ever to craft a business strategy that will set you apart from the rest of the pack. If you have a new business, going digital is your best bet. It’s relatively affordable and offers a high ROI. These ten digital marketing tools will help you get started.

Google Ads

Traditional advertising channels, such as television, newspapers, and radio, are expensive, especially for small businesses. But with the advent of the internet and platform giant Google, online (and offline) businesses can advertise their products and services to thousands to billions of people within the comforts of their offices. This is made possible by Google Ads.

In a nutshell, Google Ads is an online advertising platform that allows you to post ads in search engines like Google Search and on websites, mobile apps, and videos, among others. Of course, advertisers bid to have their ads displayed, but ensuring high-performing ads depends on several factors, including the bid, Google Ads quality score, keywords targeting, and strong copy. In addition, businesses can tap experts like to manage their campaigns to achieve higher lead conversion.

Hootsuite makes social media management convenient as it allows you to schedule your posts in advance for more than 30 platforms. You can even upload all your social media content for the coming days or weeks in one sitting. Thus, it saves you time from individually posting on designated schedules to focus on more pressing matters. In addition, Hootsuite has a comprehensive list of features like tracking mentions of your brand and responding to them without leaving Hootsuite’s dashboard.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics provides quick insights into your website’s visitors and how they engage with it. Some information available to you includes the number of visitors at any given time, their demographics and interests, and their time on the site. These are important to know for project managers to accordingly. In addition, Google Analytics is the tool of choice for many because it’s completely free and works seamlessly with other Google products.

HubSpot is an all-in-one tool for all your marketing, sales, and CRM needs. It’s no wonder why it’s a sought-after software for every project manager. Your marketing channels are pulled together in one place, allowing you to optimize more traffic, higher conversion, and better return-of-investment. You also have access to tools that help with SEO, lead management, landing pages, and even analytics. Because of all its capabilities, the full version of HubSpot can be pretty expensive, so that’s one thing that businesses should consider.

Modern SEO requires understanding the search intent of keywords and building organic backlinks, which Ahrefs can help you with. For many, it’s the gold standard in keyword research and rank tracking. You can quickly check of your competitors and the traffic generated for any given search item. Handling backlinks is also more efficient with Ahrefs since it lets you check your backlink data in real-time and notifies you when your competitor loses or gains a backlink.

Email marketing offers a higher ROI than other marketing activities because a direct line is established every time a customer subscribes to your mailing list. MailChimp is considered the most widely used email marketing provider globally, having over 12 million customers. MailChimp is easy to use even without prior knowledge since the dashboard displays a step-by-step guide to the process. You’ll be able to schedule email blasts and analyze engagement. The basic services are free until your list reaches 2,000 subscribers.

Slack is a collaboration platform that helps ease communication between teams and their members. After all, any successful digital marketing campaign is a product of everyone pitching their ideas and collaborating. This easy-to-use software is the choice of many for its intuitive data-sharing features and messaging options. On top of that, you can integrate Slack with major sales, design and developer tools, and other project management systems. This way, you don’t have to worry about switching from one platform to another throughout your creative process.

It’s often images or graphics that capture people’s attention and keep them engaged for an extended period. For business owners who don’t have a background in graphic design, Canva is just what you need. While not exclusively a digital marketing tool, it is most often used for social media templates, stock photos, and a wide range of photo editing features. The best thing about it is that it’s easy to use even without prior experience in design. Drag and drop, or choose from different color pallets and font combinations.

Google Suite

With more than 3 million businesses using the Google Suite, it only makes sense to have the full line of Google products as part of your essential tools in digital marketing. Google has made it seamless and secure to save files and data over the cloud in terms of storage alone. And many teams within your business can access and share the data easily with proper permissions. In addition, Google Docs and Sheets have become invaluable in speeding up processes for writers and managers since documents can be viewed by several people at once and edited in real-time.

The Takeaway

One key takeaway, though, is that these are just tools to help you craft an effective digital marketing campaign. Your knowledge about the market and insight into what’s relevant to your customers will give you the edge over your competitors. Some tools are indispensable for keyword search, email automation, and website analysis, while others are for office management. But, at the end of the day, the tools you use should be working toward your business goals.