Developing a marketing strategy can be challenging whether you are working in a marketing agency, creating one for your startup, or the marketing communications department of a business. A lot of work and effort goes into it, from research up to your strategy’s execution. But an important part of a marketing strategy involves measurement and optimization.
Wouldn’t it be cooler if technology could make things much easier for us all? Well, it already does! Below, we outline nine marketing software tools that you can use to create a powerful marketing strategy.
Top 9 software tools for your marketing strategy
The following are marketing tools you can use to create and execute a powerful marketing strategy:
- Piktochart
Piktochart is one of the best infographic software you can use for your marketing strategy. The software comes with more than 600 customizable templates, maps, and interactive charts that help you create designs within a short period.
In addition, you don’t have to worry about using a template that everyone else has used, as the designs are highly professional and far from generic. As you get access to both free and pro plans, you can get started with Piktochart whenever you want to.
Furthermore, you can create all maps without using the pro plan as they are all free of charge. The software also comes with multiple download formats and options to collaborate with your team.
- MailChimp
Many users have great things to say about Mailchimp. This email marketing software is so well-used because it has features that many marketing personnel or teams need. In addition, as the interface is easy to use, anyone, from a novice to a seasoned marketing professional can use it.
Businesses use MailChimp to perform several tasks such as scheduling email campaigns, testing copy, and generating reports. These are very important as they help you improve your email marketing campaign and get valuable insights from your audience.
This also allows you to build and customize campaigns. If you have a low budget or none at all, there is no need to worry because MailChimp has a free plan. This can last forever, but it can only allow 2,000 contacts. However, for a contact list of more than 15,000, you might have to pay a significant amount.
- Hootsuite
Some tools provide a myriad of services to help your marketing efforts; Hootsuite is top on that list. Many marketers vouch for this software as it allows them to set up and manage all their social media marketing campaigns.
When used correctly, you can plan and schedule your social media marketing campaigns, all on Hootsuite. As this is a multipurpose marketing software, it also helps you collaborate effectively with your team members.
Different team members can have different levels of access and control on Hootsuite. This ensures that collaboration is easier than it has ever been.
Furthermore, the software goes beyond planning your campaigns to also providing a dashboard to monitor all your social media campaigns from one place effectively.
It also helps with community management as you can view customer messages from all your different social media accounts and respond to them from your Hootsuite inbox. This will give you valuable insight for planning or optimizing your next marketing campaign.
While Hootsuite is a great tool, it might take a considerable amount of time to get familiar with it. Once you do, however, expect smooth sailing.
- Buffer
Buffer is similar to Hootsuite as it helps manage multiple social media accounts using one simple dashboard. With this software, you can do anything from drafting posts to scheduling them and measuring performance.
With the amount of information you get from Buffer, you can better understand your customers and audience and optimize your campaign to serve them well. This software especially helps with campaign goals like awareness and increasing engagement.
Buffer has a unique design that helps you navigate it with ease. You can also collaborate with your teammates on the platform by sharing posts with them before eventually publishing. Creating reports to help you analyze your marketing efforts is also easier with Buffer.
Some people consider this software pricey, especially when they have a small business or when it is used by a personal account. In addition, while you can collaborate with your team, team management features are lacking on Buffer.
You could use the pro version if you are using it alone. The premium version works for two users, and the business version allows you to have over six users on board and manage 25 social media accounts.
You can also pay for Buffer Analyze, which helps you generate reports and analyze performance for up to 10 social media accounts.
- SEMRush
SEO and SEM are some of the essential parts of creating your marketing strategy. SEMrush is a tool that helps you research, plan, and monitor SEO effectively. With this software, you can find relevant keywords for your website, analyze competitors’ keywords and build SEO-optimized content for your page.
This software is top-rated among marketers because it serves them from the planning and research for marketing strategies stage until execution and optimization. In addition, the software performs valuable functions such as competitive research, backlink analysis, organic traffic insights, and content audits.
SEMrush also helps you with search engine marketing campaigns as you can set up Pay-per-click ad campaigns to increase lead generation and sales. Besides SEO, SEMrush can also help you with PPC (pay-per-click) ad campaigns and boost your business’s sales.
While the pricing of this software could be pretty high, especially for individuals and small businesses, it is worth every penny spent. The software is suitable for both lean and big marketing teams and comes with useful tools to help with your marketing strategy.
- Trello
Project management is a massive part of getting your marketing strategy right. Trello is a tool that helps you stay on top of your projects to ensure that the execution of your marketing strategy is as seamless as possible.
With this project management software, you can manage project deliverables and keep up with your team’s efforts with ease. As most marketing campaigns are time-bound, this will save you a world of time, stress, and frustration.
Unlike some project management tools, Trello integrates with your digital marketing campaigns to help them work better. You can do things like sharing blog posts with your team members for review before you publish them.
One of the reasons why marketers the world over love Trello is its excellent collaboration capability. You can share various documents relating to your marketing strategy on Trello. This ensures that everyone can weigh in while seeing the whole picture.
- Canva
Many marketing strategies are driven by visual content, both static and video. Canva is a preferred choice when it comes to these elements of a campaign. Using this software, you can design beautiful graphic content for social media posts, infographics, T-shirt branding, or physical fliers.
Marketers love this product because it takes out the need for graphic design skills. With the templates the software provides, you can create designs without any prior design experience.
Canva goes steps further to help you collaborate with your team through the app. This means that team members can see what content you have in real-time and weigh in on it. As a result, feedback does not have to be hectic anymore when you use Canva for designing.
Finally, you could also schedule social media posts right from the app. Again, this saves you a lot of time and stress it takes to use other apps.
- Google Analytics
This software helps you set the ball rolling for your digital marketing strategy. While it helps you all through the lifetime of your marketing campaign, Google Analytics should be used as part of your strategy from scratch.
It is a free tool provided by Google that helps you track actions by every visitor on your website.
This helps you understand what your audience spends more time on and gives you insight into their thinking. While some people think Google Analytics is a mere traffic tool, it can steer your whole marketing strategy if you know how to use it well.
- Hotjar
Analyzing the behavior of users when they visit your website is crucial as it feeds into your marketing strategy. This is what Hotjar does. It is an analytics software that helps you better understand user behavior when they visit your website.
Features such as heat maps and visitor recording allow you to view the customer journey end-to-end on your website. This way, you can optimize your content and your website’s user flow. Using Hotjar, you can also get direct feedback from website users.
This helps you to understand what made them take particular actions. Surveys that you embed directly on the website feed into your Hotjar dashboard and give you qualitative and quantitative feedback to help with your strategy.
Conclusion
With the nine tools outlined above, you would never have to break a sweat over your marketing strategy again. Instead, select one or more of these tools, use them while creating your strategy, and you’ll find that you have a more effortless flow than ever.
