In recent times, marketing tools are becoming increasingly popular amongst businesses and the reason is simple. It helps such businesses gain an upper hand over the competition. Therefore, if you run a business (or plan to start one), it is an excellent idea to look into effective marketing tools to boost your efforts.
According to research, the chances of a new business surviving past its fifth anniversary is only 50%. Therefore, if these numbers are any indication, it is crucial for new businesses to develop an edge over the competition.
One surefire way to do this is by combining the right marketing tools with effective strategies.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss some of the best tools you can use to achieve productive marketing, how to apply them and how much they cost. You’ll also discover the features that make each one a top-rated and effective marketing tool.
But first, why is it advisable to use marketing tools in your business? Keep reading to find answers to this question and more.
Why you should use marketing tools
Marketing tools are largely responsible for the survival, and indeed thriving, of many companies today. This is particularly true for smaller businesses. But, with some of the tools we are going to discuss in this article, they attained a competitive edge and capitalized on it.
You see, these tools offer several advantages for your business, which you may otherwise not be able to enjoy. Here are some of the benefits of using marketing tools in your professional establishment.
Increased revenue and the average size of deals
Marketing tools that help automate processes such as customer follow-ups, up-sells, and down-sells can lead to a boost in the lifetime value of your customers. By combining this with more optimal management and execution, you will likely find that you’re experiencing an increase in ROI.
Improved staff accountability
Automating marketing processes will lead to better accountability from your staff as the system will highlight areas that are lacking. As such, each team in the company is more motivated to stay on top of their various duties and be accountable for them.
Reduced repetition or redundancy
Manual repetitive work can quickly get boring, especially when executed over a relatively long period. This may lead to a drop in enthusiasm toward work and subsequently overall effectiveness. For example, having an auto dialer in place to help boost cold calling productivity. When you employ automated processes instead of manual repetitive duties, you free up your team to focus on more creative and productive tasks.
Besides, your staff will generally be happier if they don’t have to engage in dull, recurring duties.
Refined marketing process
Finally, employing automated marketing tools generally leads to a more refined business marketing process all round. This is because you can significantly eliminate undesirables such as human errors, lateness and more.
Also, marketing tools require you to be more intentional about targeting and nurturing your customer leads, which opens on to a more effective process.
That said, let us examine the various marketing tools that can help you get your business from where you are to where you want to be.
The top marketing tools
An overwhelming number of marketing tools and email programs exist on the Internet today. Sadly, not all these tools can deliver the results they advertise. Not to worry, we’ve done our homework and compiled a list of 14 marketing tools with impressive track records. So, don’t stop reading.
1. Woopra
First on our list is Woopra – a customer analytic tool that provides real-time analysis of customer data. The service has a design that aims to help businesses optimize their customer lifetime value by providing live, behavioral data for each visitor to the company websites.
With Woopra, you no longer need to waste a significant amount of time acquiring, compiling and cleaning data. No need for complex calculations when you need information — only answers when you need them, and fast, too.
Features
- Product analysis
- Customer analysis
- Customer-journey analysis
Price plans
Woopra offers a demo version to help you learn the ropes of the platform. Then, you’d have to subscribe to access the premium services the platform offers. Startup brands may access the service at a rate of $349 per month while pro companies pay $999 per month.
2. Visme
Next on the list is Visme, an effective marketing tool.
Graphical representation is one of the best ways to pass information and Visme understands that, helping you transform your infographics, presentations and other visual aids into more engaging and professional-looking results.
With Visme, you don’t have to be a designer to impress your audience.
Features
- Animation
- Audio file management
- Collaboration tools
- Customizable templates
- Media library
- Offline presenting
- Search/filter
- Video support
Price plans
The basic features of Visme are free. However, for the standard package, you’d have to pay $19 every month as a subscription fee while the complete package costs $30 monthly. If you subscribe for an entire year up front, you get a 25% discount.
3. AdWords Performance Grader
This tool helps organizations track and measure their overall performance of their Google Ads. In other words, you get a report as well as an analysis on the effectiveness and efficiency of all your ads on Google over a specific period.
The best part? The platform automatically sends you a new and updated report after every 30 days to help you keep track of your essential metrics.
Features
- Ad performance tracker
- Mobile PPC readiness score
- Benchmarks for ads
Price plans
To access AdWords Performance Grader services, you’d have to pay a premium of $49 per month.
4. Biteable
Biteable is a video making service that is designed to help marketers, businesses and entrepreneurs create top-notch marketing animations, videos, cartoons, presentations and other motion graphics conveniently.
The software is decidedly very easy to learn and requires no previous video editing knowledge.
Features
- Animation
- Audio tools
- Collaborative editing
- Custom uploads
- Media library
- Social sharing
- Templates
- Text overlay
- Video creation
- Video editing
Price plans
Biteable offers users a free demo version to facilitate a quick understanding of how the service works. However, the demo version lacks some key features that may prove vital to the success of your marketing videos.
To gain access to the premium version of Biteable, you may either choose to subscribe at $19 per month or go full pro at $49 every month.
5. Mailbird
Mailbird is a must-have email client and marketing tool for businesses because of the high efficiency and convenience it offers for email communication.
Mailbird allows you to manage and manipulate all your emails and contacts from your various accounts from the convenience of one inbox. It also offers other advantages such as integrating third party applications into one app — Mailbird.
Features
- Unified inbox
- App integrations
- Speed reader
- Customized sounds and alerts
- Message snooze
Price plans
Mailbird offers two separate subscription plans for its users — the personal plan and the business. If you want to acquire a Mailbird personal account, you’ll have to pay a subscription rate of $1.60 per month or a one-time payment of $39.50. On the other hand, a Mailbird business account requires a premium subscription of $2.46 every month.
6. Optimizely
Next on the list of top marketing tools for enterprise business owners is Optimizely, a platform that helps run A/B tests on websites.
This tool helps to keep track of a website’s conversion rates in terms of how optimized the site is. Furthermore, Optimizely allows you to create various tests for your web pages to ascertain their efficiency and optimization.
Features
- Website optimization
- Web experimentation
- Digital experience platform
- A/B testing
- Website building and personalization
Price plans
Optimizely has some free features, however most of them are not and come with a sizable price tag. Since if services enterprises, you can expect a cost of around $50,000 per year.
7. BuzzSumo
Are you always looking for an efficient way to scour the internet for inspiration and other resources? BuzzSumo may just be what you need.
BuzzSumo is a cloud-based tool that allows you to run a deep internet search to find content ideas, discover insights for your business, and even single relevant influencers.
Features
- Content insights
- Influencer amplification
- Content alerts
- Competitor analysis & comparisons
- Social backlinks
- Content curation
Price plan
BuzzSumo offers a diverse range of subscription plans that is sure to suit every business, irrespective of size or type. For a pro package, you should expect to pay $99 while the plus package costs a monthly charge of $179.
There is also the large BuzzSumo package that costs $299 per month and the enterprise package that goes for $499 every month.
However, irrespective of the plan you choose, BuzzSumo offers a 30-day free trial period.
8. Fanpage Karma
If you’re looking for a top-rated tool for social media analytics, Fanpage Karma may be the way to go. Fanpage Karma is a web-based tool that offers excellent web analytics for various social media platforms.
You may use this tool to perform analytics on both your social media pages or channels as well as that of competitor brands. Fanpage Karma is particularly crucial when trying to create marketing campaigns on social media.
Features
- Social media analytics
- Real-time reports
- Customized designs
- Reporting system
- Alerts
Price plans
Fanpage Karma offers a free version for new users but with the option of only one social media platform — Facebook. However, if you want to add more social media accounts as well as other analytical features, you’d have to pay a subscription fee.
Fanpage Karma has several subscription packages ranging from $69 to $199, $299 and $799.
9. Appoint.ly
An efficient schedule management tool is a crucial part of the success of any business. Thankfully, Appoint.ly is up to the task.
Appoint.ly is one of the best schedule management solutions out there today. It has a simple and straightforward interface that takes the stress out of creating schedules and staying on top of appointments. The platform helps you interact with prospective customers and pick out an appointment time that works for you with only a click.
Features
- Integration with all major calendars
- Time zone synchronization
- Manual availability settings
- Personalized link
- Break time
- Email notifications
- Unlimited appointment types
- Analytics
Price plans
Appoint.ly allows you to use a free account but with limited features while the pro version of the service costs a subscription fee of $8 every month.
10. Mailshake
Next on our list of the best marketing tools for businesses, we have Mailshake, another email management service. Mailshake allows you to convert cold leads to warm prospects by sending personalized emails on a large scale. The service also allows you to choose between reaching out to potential lifelong customers with either email, phone or social media, all from one dashboard.
Features
- Lead catcher
- Split testing
- Social media outreach
- Phone dialer
Price plans
Mailshake gives you the option of choosing only an email outreach package, which costs $59 per month or the total sales engagement package, which comprises email marketing, social media, phone dialer, and more. This package costs $99 monthly.
11. GT Metrix
GT Metrix is another premium tool that you can use to analyze the performance of your website. However, this tool not only analyzes your website to identify its shortcomings but also provides recommendations on how to optimize it.
Features
- Analyze your page with Google Lighthouse for actionable insights for performance optimizations.
- Get performance milestones like Largest Contentful Paint, Total Blocking Time and Cumulative Layout Shift.
- Focus on the performance metrics that matter the most to your visitor’s experience.
Price plan
There are various subscription plans available on GT Metrix. There is the $10-per-month plan, the $20-per-month, and the $40-per-month plan. However, you may be required to pay upfront for an entire year.
12. Screaming Frog
The Screaming Frog is a website crawler SEO resource that helps you extract and audit data to identify SEO issues on your website.
Features
- Find broken links, errors and redirects
- Analyze page titles and metadata
- Review meta robots and directives
- Discover duplicate pages
- Generate XML sitemaps
- Crawl limit
Price plans
Screaming Frog offers a free version for new users who want to test out the resource. However, the free version does not contain all the operations the tool can perform. To access the premium version of Screaming Frog, you’d have to pay a subscription fee of $208 per year.
13. Mixpanel
Our list of top marketing tools will not be complete without Mixpanel, an analytical resource that you can use to evaluate how your customers and visitors interact with your products on the internet. With Mixpanel, you interpret data in real time to understand the behavior of users, discover trends and make necessary adjustments.
Features
- Team dashboard and alerts
- Interactive reports
- Limitless segmentation
- Group analytics
- Data integrations
- Scalable infrastructure
- Security and privacy
- Integration directory
Price plans
Mix panel subscriptions start at $25 monthly although there is a limited free version you can first try before making the decision to subscribe.
14. Contact Monkey
Finally, one of the crucial determinants of the success of any business is how well team members communicate with one another. So, for our final tool on this list, we have Contact Monkey, a cloud-based platform that tracks email correspondence within a company to evaluate email engagement and responsiveness among employees.
Features
- Email content ideas
- Email sending hacks
- Internal correspondence planning calendar
Price plan
Contact Monkey requires you to have an active subscription to access the various resources the platform offers. However, they have a price-on-request policy. So, you’d have to reach out to them to get a subscription quote.
Final take
Running a business undoubtedly comes with its fair share of unique challenges. However, using effective marketing tools can help to make the overall flow of things significantly smoother. Moreover, automating some activities can lead to higher efficiency and productivity, which can give you a vital edge over the competition.
Hopefully, this article will help point you in the right direction of the tools you need to get your business to the level you want. Let us know which tools you eventually implement. We’d love to hear from you!
