Managing digital marketing on behalf of a whole host of clients means that you need to keep a lot of balls in the air. You’re a Renaissance person, handling content creation, staying on top of SEO, and measuring analytics of email, social media, and paid search campaigns.
Anything you can do to work more efficiently is a huge benefit. It frees you up to focus on your own business, take on more clients, and spend valuable time with your friends and family.
Fortunately, there are many tools available to marketers that empower them to work faster and smarter. If you’re working in digital marketing today, these are the tools you need.
1. A Great Keyword Research Tool
Keyword research is at the heart of so many of your digital marketing efforts. It’s how you optimize your clients’ websites for ranking in search results, decide which phrases to target for paid ad campaigns, and understand what their competitors are up to, so that you can capitalize on weaknesses in their strategy. It can even help you hone in on the kind of content your client’s audience will find most useful.
That’s where a tool like SEMrush comes in. They allow you to do all of this and more. You can track how keywords are performing on your client’s website, and their competitors’ sites. You can discover new competitors and identify gaps in the market that represent new opportunities. The power of keyword research extends well beyond the realm of SEO. A tool like SEMrush makes it easier for you to manage research for new clients and stay on top of relevant keywords for existing ones.
2. A Tool to Supercharge Your Content Approach
You work with a lot of different clients in many different fields. While part of the fun of the marketing consulting job is getting to learn more about new industries, it also means that you can’t possibly have the depth of knowledge of someone who’s been working in that field for decades.
However, you’re in charge of coming up with a marketing strategy for your client who wants to be a local leader in that field. That means you need a way to efficiently research the type of content that resonates with their audience. A tool like BuzzSumo can help you do that.
With BuzzSumo you can search for relevant terms and see the kind of content that’s getting the most engagement in that arena. Their tool will rank results by total engagements. Then it breaks down how each piece of content performed across the major social media sites.
When you understand the kind of content that’s resonating with your client’s audience, you can find ways to create content that speaks to these needs, goes into greater depth, and fills gaps that may have been left by existing content out there. Rather than reinventing the wheel and creating content that’s nearly identical to their competitors’, you can help you clients stand out with relevant, unique content.
3. A Tool for Local Marketing
Different types of businesses face different challenges when it comes to marketing. For local businesses, there are specific considerations in the areas of SEO, reputation management, and listings management that multinational brands just don’t face.
When you’re working with local businesses, you must help them optimize their SEO so that they’re found in local searches. They need to be present on relevant local listings sites, and their information there needs to be up to date. They need a healthy number of reviews, and a way to respond to all feedback, both good and bad.
BrightLocal is a tool to help you do all that. They’re focused specifically on local SEO, meaning that they have the right platforms to help you help your clients. Not only that, but even the big brands turn to them for local SEO help; your local IKEA or Roto-Rooter just might be using their services.
4. A Review Funnel Tool
Online reviews are more important today than ever before. In fact, 93% of consumers have stated that online reviews affect their purchasing decisions. Not only that, but reviews left through Google and other search engines can affect where your client ranks in results. If your client doesn’t have online reviews, or only has a few tepid ones, it’s time to change that.
A tool like GatherUp provides local business owners (or the marketers who work for them!) the ability to engage customers and proactively solicit reviews. Sometimes your client’s happy customers don’t think to dash off a review. But oftentimes, when people are asked nicely, they’re happy to say something positive about a local business online.
The tool also allows you to analyze feedback and respond to reviewers. Plus, once you’ve gathered some great feedback, you’re able to amplify it. They have a widget that makes it easy to share positive reviews right on your client’s website and spread them across social media channels.
5. A Tool that Brings CRM and Email Marketing Together
Every business should embrace a CRM tool. They need a place to gather all of their valuable information on leads and customers. Once that information is centralized, there’s a lot of powerful marketing tactics you can employ using that data.
ActiveCampaign, is a tool that unites CRM, marketing automation, and an email marketing platform all under one roof. It’s a place for your client to house information so that you can slice and dice the data, creating audience segments and targeting them with the most relevant messaging possible.
When you’re managing digital marketing efforts for a number of clients, it’s all about getting the greatest results via the most efficient processes. These tools can help you to streamline your workflow so that you’re able to dedicate more time to big picture strategy for yourself and your clients.
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