65 Essential Tools for Digital Marketers
Marketers are a busy bunch. Every day they manage a slew of projects, campaigns, and clients, all while coordinating efforts with other teams and immediately reacting to change. The right tools can make a marketer's life a lot easier, but with the overwhelming number of options, where do you start? Take a look at our list of top marketing tools and marketing project management software that will help you build leads, opportunities, and revenue. Inbound & Content Marketing Inbound & content marketers work to attract, nurture, inform, and entertain potential customers to earn their business and loyalty. They examine how today’s consumers make buying decisions and place helpful, interesting content at each stage of that process. Hubspot's inbound marketing platform Up Close & Persona to help generate marketing personas A/B testing tools like Optimizely to analyze and tweak your current inbound strategy Google Analytics to examine where your traffic is coming from and how customers are interacting with your website Content discovery tools like ContentGems, Scoop.it, Triberr, or Trapit Collaboration tools like Wrike for brainstorming, writing, peer editing, and task delegation Online publication tools like Paper.li, Flipboard or Kuratur to organize and distribute your content Disqus to respond to readers who comment on your blog Tools to help recruit and recognize brand advocates, like Influitive Graphics & Multimedia Did you know that YouTube reaches more U.S. adults aged 18-34 than any cable network? As the content landscape grows increasingly crowded, more marketers are turning to engaging visuals and videos to grab customers' fleeting attention and stand out from the competition. Video platforms like Brightcove or Vidyard Webinar platform like GoToMeeting or BrightTALK Piktochart to create infographics Canva to make instant graphics for web or print Slideshare, List.ly, YouTube, and Pinterest accounts for distributing and curating content AdWords for Video and YouTube TrueView for creating video ads Search Engine Marketing & SEO Search engine marketers increase a site’s visibility in search results pages, either through search engine optimization (SEO) or paid advertising. SEO experts determine the top keywords that people are searching for about your topic or market and then include those keywords in strategic spots on the website and blog. Google Keyword Planner to find top keywords, as well as long-tail and niche keywords Yahoo Search Marketing or Bing Ads to post ads on search results pages, blogs and websites Optimization, reporting and link building tools like Moz, Raven SEO Tools or SEMRush Social Media Marketing & Social Advertising Social media networks help marketers increase brand awareness, engage with customers, and direct traffic to the company website. Marketers package and post updates readers will want to share, manage online communities, and run paid advertising campaigns to reach new customers. Social media accounts or pages on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. for sharing internal and curated content Sprout, Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule social media posts, determine the best times to publish, and discover the most popular types of posts Followerwonk breaks down followers into specific demographics Mention and Social Mention track where brands — or certain keywords — get mentioned across the web, including social media sites, discussion forums, and blogs NinjaOutreach identifies influencers based on keyword. Filter by tags to find bloggers, influencers, and companies to refine your search Sprinklr or SocialBakers analytics tools to determine click-through rates, cost-per-click, and overall reach and engagement Viral Content Buzz account to share stories that interest you, and earn tweets and likes on your own content Mobile Marketing Mobile is overtaking desktop internet usage, as more customers are defaulting to digesting content on smartphones and tablets. And because people carry their devices with them, marketers can send personalized messages directly to them via SMS, push notifications, in-app ads, QR codes, and more. Digital Advertising Alliance Principles to check opt-in and privacy guidelines MailChimp Mobile to manage your MailChimp email campaigns while on the go Mogreet Express or Textus.biz to exchange SMS messages with customers Mobile ad creation and distribution tools, like Huzzah Media and Adagogo Location-specific mobile marketing tools like MobSav and Thumbvista Mobile app creation and testing tools, like BuildFire and TestFlight Email Marketing & Marketing Automation 82% of consumers open marketing emails, and 66% of them have made a purchase as a direct result of an email. In order to attain that success, email marketers must send helpful, relevant messages to recipients and respect customers’ inboxes by not sending spammy emails. AWeber, MailChimp and Constant Contact are popular tools to manage email marketing Hubspot, Marketo, ExactTarget, Eloqua, and Customer.io are marketing automation tools to help with email campaigns as well as other marketing channels MailChimp's subject line suggestion tool to refine your all-important subject line copy Email Spam Test checks to make sure messages are compliant with applicable SPAM laws See how the email looks on various clients and devices with Litmus The marketing landscape is constantly shifting as new strategies and tools arise. Stay ahead of the curve with these 6 Digital Marketing Trends to Watch.
7 Eye-Opening Tips to Stay on Top of Your Marketing Projects
Are you tired of having your project information spread out in disconnected files, e-mails and papers around you? Do you feel you are constantly missing something important? Do you believe you and your team can collaborate more productively? "Before Wrike, I had everything written down on multiple sheets of paper. At the end of every week, I spent hours on taking them all, consolidating, reprioritizing, and figuring out if these are the most recent notes or if there are some newer notes somewhere." After adopting Wrike project management software, Dave's entire marketing and sales department productivity increased by 25%! This story is a great example of how project management practices and a team's productivity can be improved with the help of an appropriate tool. Here's a list of 7 eye-opening things to do to help you boost efficiency in the management of marketing projects: 1.Don't get drowned in the data flow It's not uncommon for marketing departments to be overloaded with campaign plans, sales reports, stats and multiple document versions. What a relief to know that the latest piece of data is always at your fingertips! "We ended up with going with Wrike primarily because it had all of our projects in one screen, and we could easily manipulate back and forth between those projects," Dave says. "We just log notes to the tasks, and Wrike sorts it all for us, the most current ones." 2.Ensure you can descend with ease from the bird's-eye view to tiny project details To run a project successfully, you need to have the full overview of it with all completion dates, as well as the ability to drill down instantly to any particular task detail you are interested in right now. "In Wrike, I see everything that I need in one view, not way too much information or not enough information to estimate the progress. It actually ended up a perfect fit that way," Dave comments. 3.Take your office anywhere instantly Trade shows, meetings with customers and partners outside the office, business trips, and working from home in the evenings... Rather than having papers scattered everywhere, now Dave can take his office with him anytime, anywhere: "I can go home or pull up Wrike anywhere in the world and have all the project folders in the same place. On the road, I just pull out my iPhone and plug in new updates and check on the status updates from the team." 4.Collaboration is vital, so share smartly! Marketing hard skills are essential, of course, but soft skills, such as knowing how to collaborate and communicate effectively in a team, are just as important. Some tasks are to be done by a single team member, while others require collaboration. Wouldn't it be convenient to have all of the team's data stored in a central place, while the project view of other team members never gets cluttered? That's easy to do with Wrike's selective sharing! "The thing that I love about the system is that everyone can have their own unique environment within Wrike. Team members have their to-do lists within their own view, and if they are collaborating with other team members, they just easily add other people to these tasks," Dave says. Selective sharing also helps you create a common workspace for a distributed team: "Now with shared folders, remote employees don't feel as remote. They feel like they are a part of the organization," Dave adds. 5.Keep worthy ideas safe for tomorrow Quite often, you may not have enough resources to implement all of the great marketing ideas right away. Store them as "deferred" or "backlogged" in Wrike to get back to them at the right moment! "When we have brainstorming sessions, I add everything to Wrike. It's very easy for us to bring all those ideas right back to the forefront of our mind and to figure out whether now is the right time to implement them, now that we have some freed-up resources," Dave comments. 6.Time is precious, so make the most of every communication! For a busy head of a marketing department, it's important to be efficient in both downward and upward communications. At the meetings with your direct reports, you can instantly filter out the tasks in Wrike by assignee for any given time period and give them immediate feedback on their productivity. "I also have a folder specifically for the president's approval. This way, we are able to save a lot of time, as we don't necessarily need to meet on every single topic of discussion. If a resolution wasn't agreed on at a certain time, the task just stays there, and I don't have to write hundreds of reminder notes," Dave says. 7.Balance work and personal life No matter how busy you are, you shouldn't forget about your personal life. Wrike is as efficient for work projects as for birthday shopping and party planning! "I can mix my personal to-do lists and work in one workspace in Wrike. So whether I'm home or on the road, I find everything in one place from the personal perspective, as well," Dave says. ___ We enjoyed the podcast with Dave and believe it provides valuable, first-hand experience and useful examples of how the right technical solution can significantly improve planning and productivity in marketing teams. If you have helpful tips to share, too, we'd be happy to know about them!