Marketing and Digital Marketing in particular can become much easier and significantly more effective if you are using the right tools for your work.
By using automation tools for time consuming and repetitive tasks, we are able to free up ourselves to gather more insights which will let us think more strategically, these insights may have otherwise passed us by if we weren’t using the right technology.
The tools below are by no means list of ‘tools you must use or else’ but are tools that I have found particularly useful when trying to free-up time for other tasks.
Google Analytics – If you have a website and that website is on Google then why not use the tools made by Google. Google Analytics is easy to link to your website and provides real-time data on the source, number, general location and activities of the people visiting your site.
HootSuite/Buffer – These two tools allow you to schedule all of your social media posts through a single platform. They do have some caps on them for free accounts but are still useful tools nonetheless.
Mention – Mention allows you to see what is being said about your brand across the internet by tracking all of the mentions of your brand and website across the internet and displaying them in a single platform.
Raven – Raven is a suite of search tools for your website, letting you carry out competitor analysis, keyword analysis and providing reporting tools to let you make the best use of your website.
BuzzStream – An outreach marketing app. BuzzStream allows you to reach PR leads using a ‘BuzzMarker’ extension for browsers, it can also be used to build a database of PR contacts and conversations.
Google Ads Keyword Planner – Regardless of whether you plan on using PPC as part of your marketing strategy, I would recommend signing up to Google Ads (formerly Adwords).
By doing this you will gain access to the brilliant tools that are available including the Keyword Planner. This provides search volume and competitiveness data for relevant keywords to your business. This data can therefore become a key cornerstone of your SEO Planning.
SE Ranking – This lets you monitor the SERP rankings of your site across all major search engines, there is a modest monthly usage fee but there is a months free trial so you can see whether it is right for you.
Answer the Public – If you can’t decide what to write about in your next blog post, this unique free tool generates content ideas, all based in the data of searches around your subject area.
Responsinator – Type in your URL to see how well it renders on phones and tablets.
Semrush – A range of tools in one platform that augments the ones above. Free to use with subscriptions available. This platform includes keyword planners, mention tracking and website audits to tracks changes in rankings.
These are not an exhaustive list of tools that can be used but they are the ones that I find suit me best. If you have any suggestions drop them in the comments below.
