Top Digital Marketing Tools

There are a number of different types of digital marketing tools available to use. However, since there are so many it can become overwhelming to many people. Throughout this blog post, I will touch on some tips and tricks that can help you choose the best tools for your company. Hopefully, these strategies will help you manage your time and money effectively while investing in top digital marketing solutions.

Foundations of Digital Marketing

There are multiple different areas of digital marketing and depending on your organization’s goals, there may be certain areas you will need to rely on more (Alexander, 2019). Some platforms will require a payment, while others, like social media, are free to use. Since it does not require payments, social media is an “organic digital marketing purposes” (Alexander, 2019). As you are focused on gaining subscribers, however on some platforms you can boost your post gaining attractions. I have worked for companies who have done this, and it increased their customer flow.

However, there is a difference in paid posts and display ads. As a paid post is normally free, but you are paying to have it boosted. While display advertising is the paid banners and ads that pop up on the side of the screen on social media. There is a difference between the two, which will be discussed later on in the blog post.

The first step is how to select the right tools that will benefit your company. While there are several tools to choose from, I always recommend looking at track records. This is an important part as you can see how successful they have been for others prior to implementing them in your organizations. You don’t want to waste time or money on tools that are not effective and don’t have a track record that stretched back at least a couple of years. I recommend always using free trails, as it allows you to test the tool before commitment.

At my job, we have used free trails to ensure that the tools being offered will be effective in our line of work. In addition to free trails, look for scalable tools as well. This will help provide growth in your organization (Alexander, 2019). Multiple tools offer different tiered version, allowing you to simply upgrade the account when necessary.

Social Media Marketing

The first topic we are going to discuss is organic social media marketing. This is when you post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or a different platform, and do not pay to promote these posts. As well, you do not pay for a display advertisement. These posts are used to increase awareness to your organization and in some case build a rapport (Alexander, 2019). It is amazing as some top platform using organic social media marketing are ones that would not always come to mind first (Alexandra, 2019).

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and Pinterest are all platforms that are good options when participating in organic social media marketing (Alexander, 2019).  However, some of them may be more beneficial to you, depending on the organization and marketing budget. One consideration that is important in relation to organic social media marketing is authenticity.

Organic social media marketing is not overall the best place to “advertise specific product or service unless you have a lot of contexts and have a significant rapport” (Alexander, 2019). In my job, we used social media organic posts to communicate and build relationships with potential new customers. As well as maintain customer relationships. This build’s and represent the authenticity of the company. One of the best ways to do this is to provide tips and solutions if the customer is having a problem as it helps build relationships.

Users on social media will scan post, therefore, you must put time and thought into the posts to ensure its value is return. Do not make it too much of a sales pitch, otherwise, you will not see the return on your investment.  Some companies choose to post on the 24 hours stories, which can be useful for big organizations; but once again make sure it worth the post. I recommend posting on the actual feed for smaller and medium businesses as more people will be able to see as there is no time restriction.

A good place to begin is posting on one or two social media sites about once a week. I have seen a few companies started this way and then they adjust the frequency of posts accordingly to their followers and customers. I also believe in setting goals to accomplish, as it will show your effectiveness. A few good goals are what outcomes are you looking, do you want to drive traffic to your website, are you trying to make direct sales, or are you building future sales and promotions?

In addition, you can track your ROI with your social media platform post, therefore tracking the success of them. This can be challenging; however, one is using a third-party tool when posting on social media. Some platforms allow you to post content across multiple accounts, saving time and money. Although it is important to be on social media, it is also important to be aware of the time and money being put in and getting out of the organic posts.

There are more ways than just posting normally, organic social media posts, or advertisement displays; that appear in the sidebar or before a video. However, there is a third hybrid way, where you pay for your post to be promoted, reaching larger numbers. You even have the ability to target specific people depending on the platform your using for your company. Take your post that contains the most valuable information and give a little bit more promotions. Allowing you to gain followers without having to do this for every single organic post.

On Facebook all you have to do it click the boost button post, to promote an already created post. When clicking this it asks you a number of goal-oriented questions that fit your company, allowing Facebook to determine who will be the best fit to see the post (Alexander, 2019). You have the choice of adding a button that says Book Now or Send a message.

At my company, we have an interaction button that allows customers to talk to employees and ask their questions. At the very end, you have the option of your target audience. You can even narrow it down to gender, age, location, demographic, interest, and behaviors. Overall you just want to ensure you are reaching out to the correct potential customers. Once it is saved and boosted, the post will show up in the middle of someone’s feed rather than on the side. Just make sure your post is building awareness, creating a rapport, and build authenticity (Alexander, 2019).

Top Platforms

You can have a platform that automates your postings, combining your social media accounts on a single platform, allowing you to access it from one point rather than an individual. Hootsuite is the first option; it has been around for a few years and is one of the most popular platforms. Hootsuite has a few solutions and shows you on the left side which social media platforms they integrate with. As well you can schedule posts and monitor all interactions with the post from Hootsuite. They have a number of different networks you can use including, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. However, it is not free, but they do have different plans with the lowest starting at $30 per month.

Before starting with Hootsuite Alexander and I both recommend having a social network prior to joining (Alexander, 2019). This the most effective when you are putting in too much time, and the workload of the different platforms is becoming too large for yourself. Overall the work has become overwhelming when making social media post.  You can begin with the 30-day trial that allows you to access all the tools on Hootsuite before making your final decision.

A close second to Hootsuite is Agorapulse. This site allows you to schedule post and it has an option to “evergreen content” (Alexander, 2019). Which essentially allows to you specify the content within your blog and website. Evergreen content is never outdated and is always relevant, Agorapulse gives the option to specify what this is on your social media (Alexander, 2019). This platform also allows you to manage the message, listen to the popular topic of customers, and reporting your return on investments.

Agorapulse allows you to do a 30-day free trial, similar to Hootsuite, but it does start at $40 a month. However, this may be the correct fit for your organization therefore worth the investment. However, if you do not want to spend money there is another option Buffer, which is free.

It does not have the same feature as the other two, but it does offer a free plan. Buffer does have other plans but those do require payment, with the next beginning $15 a month, therefore, you can upgrade when needed. On the free platform, you can have up to three sites and 10 schedule posts (Alexander, 2019).  As well they only integrate with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+ on the free plan (Alexander, 2019).

The other tool is SproutSocail, which is very popular. However, it is the most expensive, starting off at $100 per month. It is better for bigger organizations and offers a free trial. SproutSocial does have all the features the first two have. As well as customer relation management and the ability to manage some displayed marketing.

Digital Advertising:

There are a few different types of digital advertising that includes basic display ads, promoting links, video advertisement, and mobile ads. While looking at these we are also going to look at top tools that can be used to run effective online advertising campaigns (Alexander, 2019).

There are multiple networks and options that allow you to display your advertising. Some different ones include big daddy and Google Ad Manager. Google Ad Manager is the most popular and reaches the most people (Alexander, 2019).  This option is also free; while the search engine marketing is when you pay to have a to have the link at the top of searches (Alexander, 2019).

I recommend starting with Google as it is still the most popular. There is another tool when doing this which is called SEMrush. Alexander believes this is the best; as it provides more data, more value, but it is more expensive (Alexander, 2019).

Google Ad Manager can also be used in video advertisements. It is also used to publish by using a display of networks.  Another tools you can use is Oath and OpenX. These are both great options when displaying your ads, it really just comes down to your organization and budget.

For digital advertisements, it focuses on mobile devices. Therefore, Google Ad Manager is one of the best places to start (Alexander, 2019). You can use the same account if you have set on up for desktop advertising or on YouTube. However, there are other options including TextMagic which allows you to market with text messages. I have received these for a number of different companies offering coupons by text messages.

Content Design and Curation

There are several different design companies that you can use. Some include Adobe, Photoshop, InDesign, and Canva. Depending on your budget and your capability of using these sites may vary. However, lots use photoshop as it is user-friendly and free. While Canva is popular among marketers as it is easy to use. So, it really depends on your advertisement, company, and what you want of out it.

Content curation is a great option, the only thing is to make sure you give credit where credit is needed (Alexander, 2019). This where you can provide valuable information to customers, without creating it.  It builds trust, save money and time; but there are some tools that can help with this. A few different ones include Scoop, Feedly, and Pinterest.

Scoop is one of the most popular and allows you to find content, sav it and deliver it to your customer (Alexander, 2019). It takes from blogs and websites, while Feedly takes from blogs and popular RSS. On this one, you will be notified of new content and you can decide if you want to curate it or not. While on Pinterest you curate pictures and graphics, as they use images to gain a community.

Email Marketing

Depending on the size of your email list, it will determine the amount and type of tool you use for email marketing tools. The first step prior to purchasing a tool in determining the length of your list and the size of your budget. Ensuring that your platform integrates with the chosen tool and can allow customers to easily sign up for your companies email newsletter. People with a larger email list can actually have automation, that sends certain emails to different people throughout the buying process.

There are multiple different options for email, some examples include, HubSpot, Constant Contract, AWeber, and ActiveCampagin. All of these platforms have different values added to them and have a variety of processes. Therefore, you should do some research and choose the one that best fits your organization’s goals, budgets, and size.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization and digital marketing are similar because search engine optimization is one of the most important pulls marketing techniques.  There are free tools that help with search engine optimization such as Google Search. This can help you identify the competition and Google snippets of search results. The second one is Yoast SEO, which is recommended for people using Word-press. It is free but you can upgrade if you choose (Alexander, 2019). These are just a few examples and the nice thing is you can dig deep, finding a number of paid and free tools to use to optimize your search engine.

For paid tools, their multiple options. One option that offers different functions, and is popular is Moz Pro. It has been around for multiple years and has numerous tools. It checks links, ranks keywords, and look at effectiveness for campaigns (Alexander, 2019).  A standard account is $99 a month, but it offers several different features and pricing. Another good tool is SEMruch and SpyFu that allows you to look at your competition. Overall the most important part is evaluating what you want from this, how much you are willing to spend, and ensure you conduct research on your choice.

Affiliate Marketing

There are plenty of affiliate marketing networks and choosing one can be hard, here are some tips that may help:

• Check the payment structure, some are a cost per click, while others have a cost per action
  • Cost per action is better
•  You want to receive as much information as possible
•  You want high-quality publishers, that market and expose your products and services properly
•  Reputation is the most important

You want to ensure that these platforms are successful and protect your products, services, and company (Alexander, 2019).  Some great options are CJ Affiliate, Rakuten, and Clickbank. Once again, ensure you conduct your research to find out which one suits your company the best.

Conclusion

An example of a company that uses these tools is American Express. They have created a community and primarily use curation. They have an Open Forum website and allow authors and people with business knowledge to contribute to the discussion. Within this, they have rich content, popular search engines, all without paying contributors. They draw people in creating value to their content as it attracts an audience due to the content created.

While Moz Pro is a great tool when working with search engine optimization. As well, if your company is actively on WordPress, they should be using Yoast SEO it is free and easy to use. Overall, there are multiple tools that will help you with your digital marketing the most important one is to conduct your research and find the best fit for you.

Till next time!

References:

Alexander A. (2019, April). Marketing Tools: Digital Marketing [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.lynda.com/Marketing-tutorials/Marketing-Tools-Digital-Marketing/753915-2.html?srchtrk=index%3a1%0alinktypeid%3a2%0aq%3amarketing+tools%3a+Digital+MArketing%0apage%3a1%0as%3arelevance%0asa%3atrue%0aproducttypeid%3a2