8 Digital Marketing Tools You Need to Succeed in 2018
| February 14, 2018 | Posted in Marketing
Most digital marketers have multiple balls in the air at any given time. They’re creating strategies, running campaigns, and managing vital communications channels. Luckily, there are helpful digital marketing tools available to make the juggling act more manageable. We’ve curated our 8 favorite digital marketing tools we think every marketer should be using – especially in 2018.
1. Website Speed Test
Prospective customers want information fast. They don’t have time to wait for a website to load – they’ll just hop over to your competitor. Great user experience starts with a user actually being able to experience your site. Page load time greatly affects conversion rates. In fact, if your page load time increases from one to only three seconds, you could see your bounce rate increase by 32% (Read more eye-opening statistics about page load time here).
This is why it’s vital you have a tool in your pocket to measure your website’s speed on a regular basis. If you are noticing drops in traffic, or increases in bounce rate – your page speed could be the cause. Our favorite tool for diagnosing these issues is Pingdom’s website speed test.
2. Website Analytic Tool
Hands down our favorite tool for the best analytic insights is Google Analytics. You simply add their small tracking code to all the pages of your website, and you get FREE access to your website’s performance data. You can see where your website visitors are coming from, which pages are getting the most hits, what pages cause the most people to leave your site, and so much more. These insights allow you to develop smart strategies around converting visitors on your website.
Once you start using Google Analytics, try using it to answer these 5 questions.
- Who is visiting my site?
- What are visitors doing when they’re on my site?
- Where are the visitors coming from?
- Why are visitors coming to my site?
- How are visitors finding my site?
3. PR Management
How can you easily monitor mentions of you and your business on the internet? The answer is Google Alerts. It’s super simple to use. All you need to do is create an alert for a desired keyword. Google will send you an email update if any new mentions of you on the internet pop up. If another blog is talking about your product, you can discover it via this alert and promote the article on your social media. If you find a customer venting about you, you can reach out and rectify the situation. It’s a great beginner tool for public relations management.
4. Social Media Manager
Facebook does a good job of providing an in-house management tool, but your social media dealings probably extend far beyond a single platform. It can be challenging to balance a posting schedule and reviewing performance metrics across all of your social media pages. Luckily, there are many management tools on the market to help digital marketers.
Forbes’ list of the best tools include:
Discover more tools by reading Four Sure-fire Social Media Marketing Tools to Increase Online Bookings.
5. Conversion Rate Optimization Tools
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is a proven method for using analytics to improve the key performance indicators (KPIs) on your website. The basic four steps to this strategy are to gather relevant data, create a testable hypothesis, test your hypothesis, and review the results to measure effectiveness.
These tools help you test the hypotheses you create. They produce quantitative and qualitative data to scientifically calculate success or pinpoint areas for improvement. In our article, The Best Conversion Rate Optimization Tools for Every Test, we cover some of our favorites.
- User surveys – Qualaroo
- User testing – UserTesting
- Heatmaps – Hotjar
- A/B testing – Optimizely
6. Email Marketing Campaign Creator
Email marketing is one of the most critical components to any successful digital marketing strategy. Current and prospective customers have opted-in to hear what you have to say. You have the opportunity to become a trusted resource and increase conversion rates. There are plenty of email campaign tools on the market, but here are seven of our favorites.
The right email marketing tool will allow you to customize templates, automate drip campaigns, and easily track results.
7. General SEO Tool
This tool should be used to carefully craft your digital marketing strategy for maximum impact. Search engine optimization controls who sees your content and their incentive for clicking on it. A general SEO tool should offer services like keyword research, competitor research, backlink analysis, PPC monitoring, and more. Our personal favorite and go-to tool is SEMRush.
We use SEMRush to handpick keywords for all content marketing pieces, compare our performance against competitors, and find ways to improve our overall SEO efforts.
8. Graphic Design Tool
Many small businesses don’t have the marketing budget to hire a full-time graphic designer, or even outsource projects to an agency. Canva was created to give everyone access to beautiful graphic design templates – no matter your budget. You can start with their free pricing plan, which includes access to over 8,000 templates. Just use their drag and drop editor to customize the templates to your business. Some of our favorite templates include social media graphics, infographics, and web banners. Take a look at their template gallery yourself!
Did we miss any tools on this list that you use? Leave your favorites in the comments and tell us why you love them!
Other Ways to Make Your Job Easier
These 8 digital marketing tools are a great place to start. In the spirit of working smarter – not harder – it’s also vital to generate more leads with the marketing strategies you already have in place. Read our guide, “The 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips, Tricks, & Advice,” to get inspired.
The 30 greatest lead generation tips, tricks & ideas
Read our FREE guide for the top 30 tips and techniques marketers can utilize increase leads and revenue.
Download Our Guide