Marketing is an essential aspect of a company’s success, and it’s a marketer’s never-ending task to drive revenue. But amidst all the chaos, we cannot thank these marketing tools enough for helping out on this treacherous journey of getting warm leads, managing marketing teams, or sending out emails to users.
And it’s that time of the year again where we look back and bring out few hand-picked tools to look for in 2018.
Buffer to schedule social media posting
As a marketer, it is vital to leverage social media, and it should be company’s marketing to-do list. But the biggest challenge with social media posting is it consumes a lot of time. If you’re looking for a tool to optimise posting and deliver analytics at the same time, then Buffer should be on the top of the list.
Buffer allows you to post content and review past efforts on each social media channel such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Once the posts are automated, you can sit back and watch the engagement. You can use the dashboard to view analytics to further optimise posts in the future.
Buffer allows you to have a free account to manage up to three to four channels. The paid account that starts at $10 can add up to 12 social profiles.
Automate ad campaigns with AdRoll
AdRoll is a nifty tool to re-target your customers through customised ad campaigns. It is effective for cross-platform and cross-device posting through engaging leads and customers with ads via Facebook, Twitter, and the web.
Key features include dynamic LiquidAds, transparent analytics, conversion reporting, and flexible segmentation that provides customised experience drastically improving marketing efficiency.
AdRoll comes with two-weeks of a free trial, full control over ad spend and customised budgeting. It offers dynamic CPM pricing where you’re charged weekly based on campaign’s weekly spend activity. It depends on how much budget you allot to your campaign.
Customise emails using MailChimp
MailChimp is one great tool that helps you to send personalised emails to your customers as well as track analytics with conversion and open rates.
You can send targeted, personalised messages to customers choosing from several email templates that MailChimp offers. Its features include A/B testing, tracking opt-in for each subscriber, building and running Facebook ads campaigns, and track behaviour with UTM codes.
MailChimp lets you send 12,000 free emails to 2,000 contacts every month. The cost depends upon the size of the email list, or you can opt for pay-as-you-go option for infrequent email sending. For 1,000-2,000 subscribers and unlimited emails, the cost comes around to $20 per month.
For growing business, the recommended plan is $10 per month offering unlimited sending, email delivery by time zone, and advanced testing tools. For high volume senders, the Pro-Marketer plan is recommended for $199 per month that offers multivariate testing and comparative reports along with other features.
Manage your pipeline and generate leads through Hubspot
Manage marketing, CRM, and sales all under one roof using a coherent and compressive system, Hubspot. It is the most widely recognised tool used for content marketing, and it comes with features like Salesforce integration, smart content, attribution reporting, and A/B testing for content. Other features include email integration, website integration, customise view, Hubspot marketing synchronisation, and Drag-and-Drop communicator.
The paid version allows managing 1000 contacts for $800 a month. Enterprise pricing is $2,400 per month for managing 10,000 contacts.
Enhance your content using Grammarly
Grammarly is one tool that is loved by all content writers and non-content writers alike. Millions of users rely on it to generate content that is error-free and impactful. It’s a platform that can be used to enhance your social media posts, documents, emails, and messages.
It comes as a free Chrome extension and its primary function is to identify spelling mistake and grammatical errors. But at the cost of $29.95 per month, you can upgrade your version to avail more functionalities such as sentence structure checker, plagiarism checker, and irregular verb conjugations checker.
Optimise email marketing campaigns using Campaign Monitor
Create, send, and optimise email marketing campaigns through Campaign Monitor while you focus on other tasks.
Campaign Monitor has a drag-and-drop feature that creates personalised email campaigns and automated customer journeys. It offers other functionalities such as ready-to-use email templates and integrations such as Salesforce CRM and Shopify eCommerce.
The monthly cost depends upon the number of senders. For 0-500 users, the total cost comes around to $9 per month, for 501 to 2,500 it is $29 and so on.
Project Management with Workfront
Managing work projects can be a task and managing people is an added one. To ensure deadlines are met, sometimes you have to communicate across different teams and even departments. For a smooth flow of interaction and keeping a tab on people assigned with different tasks, Workfront has proven its worth.
Workfront allows organisations to create business rules that automatically prioritise and routes tasks based on those rules. It helps to manage a huge spreadsheet, track resource allocation, and keep a tab on the statuses. It is a centralised hub for controlling chaos related to cross-departmental projects.
Track your time through Toggl
Toggl is for the forgetful generation that loses all track of time (AKA you, me, and most others). This is a handy tool that helps you measure the amount of time you spend on different tasks. You can categorise tasks priority-wise, and it will remind you to spend a proportionate amount of time on important events. You can start a stopwatch before you begin work on each area. This way, you get all your necessary tasks completed within a reasonable period of time, and don’t end up spending three hours on tasks that are not urgent!
It comes in three upgraded plans – Enterprise, Premium, and Starter. Enterprise pack is a pro-business pack that offered at $52 per user per month and Premium pack for $19 per user per month. The starter pack comes at a nominal price of $9 per user per month.
While marketing always keeps you on your toes, these automation tools help you kick back and relax a little while you focus on important tasks. By automating, you spend time and attention on tasks that increase company’s success and improve ROI.
Have we missed your favourite? Tell us your go-to tool that you absolutely swear by!
