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Top 7 Digital Marketing Tools of 2019

Marketing Agency Network Blog
June 1, 2020

Top 7 Digital Marketing Tools of 2019

The modern digital marketer has no shortage of digital marketing tools. According to Scott Brinker (the guy behind the Chief Marketing Technologist blog), there are now 7,040 marketing technology solutions globally as of 2019, and this doesn’t even include the tens of thousands of plugins, add-insm APIs, and localized software.

So where does a digital marketer start?

In this article, we’ve listed seven digital marketing tools any digital marketer can use. Note that we focused on smaller, more affordable tools instead of enterprise software like Adobe Analytics or SalesForce.

The digital marketing tools listed here are ones that anyone can use, whether you work for a Fortune 500 company or run a small freelance practice out of your garage.

Digital Marketing Tool #1: Google Analytics

Anyone managing a website should be familiar with Google Analytics. This digital marketing tool is probably the most basic piece of software in the marketing technology universe.

Google Analytics can tell you almost everything you need to know about your website: number of visitors, devices used, time on page, bounce rate, click streams, traffic sources—even custom events like button clicks and video plays.

The best part: it’s completely FREE.

Well…there’s a paid version called Google Analytics 360 that costs $150,000 a year, but the free version is more than enough to keep the average digital marketer occupied.

Digital Marketing Tool #2: SEMRush

SEMRush is as close to a complete SEO tool as you’ll get. It does keyword research, competitor analysis, website audits, backlink monitoring, and, just recently, social listening.

If you’re focused on SEO and content marketing, SEMRush is an absolute must. While Google Keyword Planner will allow you to look at keywords and keyword stats, it does not offer the level of granularity you get from SEMRush.

Google Keyword Planner will give you keyword volume and level of competition; but SEMRush lets you know what keywords bring traffic to your site, your ranking versus competitors, content gaps you can exploit, when Google changes key algorithms, and a bunch of other things.

SEMRush is trusted by marketers large and small, including major corporations like PayPal, Forbes, Hyatt, and Philips. Its database contains a massive 46 million domains and 120 million keywords. It’s practically everything an SEO or content marketer can ask for.

As a digital marketing tool, it’s second to none in what it does.

Digital Marketing Tool #3: Sprout Social

Sprout Social is a highly affordable social media management and social listening tool wrapped into one. It allows you to do some basic things like schedule posts, respond to comments, and monitor engagement.

What sets it apart, however, is the fact that it combines multiple functions in a single, seamless interface. With Sprout Social you get a full suite of tools for social media management, including some cool features like the Smart Inbox that allows you to respond to inquiries on multiple social media platforms in one place and the Social Listening Tool that monitors important metrics like engagement, competitor performance, and trends.

There are a lot of social media management and social listening tools out there, but it’s hard to find one that does everything Sprout Social does at its price.

Digital Marketing Tool #4: Mailchimp

Contrary to how many digital marketers practice, email marketing isn’t dead.

For all the talk on new platforms and delivery methods, email marketing is still by far the most effective way to get marketing ROI. On average, email marketing generates $40 for every $1 spent—that’s more than SEO ($22), display ads ($20), and mobile marketing ($11).

If you’re looking for a good email marketing tool to start, MailChimp should be at the top of your list. The software has been around since 2009 and is still going strong today.

MailChimp is arguably the best email marketing software for small businesses. Not only does it come with stunning templates, A/B testing, list segmentation, and more. It offers all those things for free.

But if you want even more features, you can get the paid version for anywhere between $10 to $199 per month.

Digital Marketing Tool #5: HubSpot

HubSpot pretty much wrote the book on inbound marketing and inbound sales, which is why it’s no surprise that it’s the go-to tool for anything and everything inbound.

The real beauty of HubSpot is that it marries sales and marketing—it’s a comprehensive tool that covers all stages of the buyer’s journey from initial contact to repeat sales.

Seriously. HubSpot does customer relationship management (CRM), content management, web analytics, sales funnels, meeting scheduling, landing pages, task management, social media management, email marketing, marketing automation, SEO.

If you only have room for one digital marketing tool, we strongly suggest HubSpot; it practically has everything a digital marketer needs to get started. HubSpot has a plan for every kind of marketer from its free tier all the way to enterprise ($3,200/mo).

Digital Marketing Tool #6: Trello

Scheduling tasks can be tough, especially when you have a growing team and a growing client base. Trello is a simple and intuitive collaboration tool that allows you to schedule tasks, assign team members, create to-do lists, and share files. It’s basically the digital version of a bulletin board.

Trello is great because you can get almost all its features for free. The free tier allows you to create an unlimited number of teams with ten boards each per team. Unless you’re a massive organization, that’s more than enough boards to go around.

Digital Marketing Tool #7: Canva

It’s no secret visual content does better than pure text. Studies show that Facebook posts with images receive 2.3x more engagement and that infographics can boost website traffic by up to 12-percent.

As a digital marketer, visual content should be part of your arsenal. Now, not everyone is a whiz at PhotoShop, but anyone can make a compelling graphic using Canva.

Canva is a drag and drop graphic design tool that’s remarkably easy to figure out. Just sign up for a free account and we guarantee you won’t have any trouble at all getting started.

Most of its features can be accessed via the free plan, including tons of stock images and graphics. If you want more out of it, the monthly plan isn’t bad at all at $12.95/user/mo.

Conclusion

For the modern digital marketer, looking for tools are hardly a problem. In fact, there are digital marketing tools for nearly every digital marketing function.

If you’re new to digital marketing and even if you’ve been in the business for a while, we strongly suggest you check out the digital marketing tools we outlined in this article—they’re all effective, affordable, and easy to use.

Looking for a digital marketing agency to partner with? Use our agency locator to find an agency near you.

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