The 12 Best Digital Marketing Tools for Small Businesses
It’s impossible to stand out without a marketing plan, leaving your business struggling without any direction. Fortunately, digital marketing is making it far easier to reach your target audience.
Digital marketing is the process of promoting your business online through social media, email, and search engines. It’s a method of connecting with your audience to improve your brand’s online visibility and drive sales. It also makes it possible to compete with larger players in the market.
Online marketing works to level the playing field for small businesses, and using some of the top digital marketing tools can help. These tools simplify complex tasks like managing social media, analyzing website traffic, and creating content so you can focus on other jobs as you grow your business.
Statista reports that 58% of marketers are already using the available tools to automate their email marketing, and 49% are doing the same with social media management. This article explores 12 of the best digital marketing tools for small businesses.
Quick Takeaways
- Digital marketing tools help streamline tasks like social media management, email campaigns, and SEO, saving time for small businesses.
- Tools like Google Analytics and Ahrefs provide insights to optimize online presence and drive targeted traffic.
- Platforms like Slack and Hootsuite enable better teamwork and social media management.
- Many tools, like Mailchimp and Canva, offer free plans or affordable options tailored for small businesses.
1. Google Analytics
Google Analytics is free software that provides valuable insights into who visits your website and how they engage with it.
It works best with Google Search Console – another free digital marketing tool that helps you to identify any problems on your site and optimize it for traffic.
Some of the data points that Google Analytics makes available to you include:
- The number of visitors to your site by day, week, month, or any time period you choose.
- Where these visitors are coming from – referrals from other websites, organic search, ads, social, or direct.
- The keywords people are using in Google to find your site.
- The demographics and interests of your users.
- How long each user spends on your site, and which pages they visit.
All this information is interesting, but it’s also vital knowledge that can help you to optimize your website and marketing campaigns (while keeping your SEO efforts low cost).
For example, you might notice through Search Console or Analytics that you’re getting a lot of traffic from a keyword you lack content covering. Write a blog post optimized for that keyword and watch your traffic and engagement levels rocket.
Getting loads of visitors from Facebook but none from Twitter? This sign could mean you should concentrate your marketing efforts on your main channel.
It’s all about the insights – not just the analytics.
2. Mailchimp
Email marketing should be a part of your overall strategy, no matter the size of your business.
When a customer signs up to your mailing list, they’re inviting you straight into their inbox. That’s why email marketing, on average, offers a higher ROI than any other marketing activity.
To start with email marketing, you need a service enabling you to capture emails, manage your lists, send out emails automatically or on a schedule, and analyze engagement.
Mailchimp is an ideal choice if you’re just starting out or running a small business. Mailchimp’s basic service is free until your list hits 500 contacts. It offers the main functionality you need without making managing your email marketing too complex.
Plus, Mailchimp now offers a slew of features and digital marketing tools (some with paid plans):
- Segmentation and personalization
- Landing page builders
- Form builders
- Audience insights
- CRM tools
- Predictive insights
PS – Check out our weekly blog content service to grow your website traffic and leads!
3. Hootsuite
You must maintain a presence on social media to remain competitive in the marketplace. You already know that social media can be a huge time sink, even if you’re using it purely for marketing purposes rather than endlessly scrolling.
Luckily, you have digital marketing tools, like Hootsuite, to reduce this time inefficiency.
Hootsuite provides a central management platform for all your social media channels and allows you to schedule posts in advance so you can get all your social media content for the coming weeks or months ready in one session.
You get advanced reporting tools to see which social media campaigns work most effectively and can use this data to calculate ROI. You can also track mentions of your brand and manage responses all in one dashboard.
Overall, Hootsuite offers tools for promoting your social media posts through the platform, making it a valuable addition to your lineup of digital marketing tools.
4. BuzzSumo
Your content strategy shouldn’t consist of wild stabs in the dark as you cover topics you think your audience will engage with.
To succeed in content marketing, you need to do your research properly, which is why BuzzSumo is one of my favorite content marketing tools.
BuzzSumo shows content that is trending across social media based on searched topics. Following your search, you can analyze the results to see what’s so appealing about them and get ideas of subjects to write about.
But BuzzSumo is moving beyond just basic content research and viral posts. Today, BuzzSumo offers tons of digital marketing tools like:
- Keyword research
- Influencer search
- Topic-based social media feeds
- Content analysis
- Crisis management
- Brand monitoring tools
5. KWFinder
SEO is fundamental to online marketing, and it’s important to get it right. Not only should you ensure your site is structured properly and optimized for mobile, but the content you produce must also contain relevant keywords that you have a good chance of ranking for in search results.
You need a special digital marketing tool to find those relevant keywords and start your search. Several options are available, from the free Google Keyword Planner to more complex suites of tools like SECockpit.
The more advanced digital marketing tools are expensive, with monthly subscription fees starting at $100 or more. However, options like KWFinder offer affordable, accurate, and useful insights at a perfect price point for small businesses.
Just put in a seed keyword, and the tool will return with hundreds of suggestions, search volume data, trends, and a ranking difficulty score for each word or phrase.
Mangools, the brand behind KWFinder, offers plans for individual tools or its full suite, which includes a backlink tool, website analysis, SERP watchers, and more inside each one – along with a nice browser extension.
6. HubSpot
If you’re running multiple campaigns across numerous marketing channels, managing them all is a huge challenge, and you also have to figure out exactly what’s working and where to make improvements.
HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing software solution that enables you to combine all your different marketing channels and optimize for more traffic, a higher conversion rate, and better ROI.
The tool includes optimized templates that are ideal for creating landing pages and other features like live chat and user action events that ramp up your engagement and convert more visitors into customers.
Other features of HubSpot include:
- Content optimization tools
- Optimized landing pages
- Email templates
- Marketing automation
- Lead management
- Analytics
- Social media management
The full version of HubSpot has a hefty price tag, but small businesses with lower budgets can get started with their free or basic package.
HubSpot has also switched from an inbound marketing tool to a complete CRM platform, now offering free and paid sales hubs, customer service hubs, and content management (on top of the free/paid marketing hub).
However, the complete content management platform is only available in paid versions.
7. Canva
You need visuals to keep your audience engaged.
For example, you could use quality photos to keep your readers interested, create motivating quote graphics, visualize complex data with colorful graphs, and design highly engaging infographics.
Now, what if I told you that there is an awesome tool that will help you create original, visually appealing content in just a few minutes? Of course, I’m talking about Canva!
Canva keeps evolving, offering more graphic design tools and templates all the time: social media, infographics, marketing posters, business cards, eBooks, and anything else you could possibly need.
And Canva’s free templates (and the entire freemium version) are actually useful, too!
Use photos already featured on the site, upload and polish up your own images, or even create brand-new ones.
Most importantly, you don’t need graphic design experience to create high-quality graphics. With its easy-to-use drag-and-drop features, Canva offers a wide range of photo editing options, color palettes, font combinations, effects, and custom image sizes.
8. Ahrefs
While old-school SEO was all about building backlinks, modern SEO practices focus on understanding the search intent of keywords you can actually rank for and creating relevant and organic backlinks from authority sites.
With quality links leading to your content, search engines will know how authoritative and trustworthy your website is. That’s why off-page backlink analysis is the backbone of your digital marketing strategy.
Now, even with a plethora of amazing tools, Ahrefs is the one and only for many digital marketers.
With Ahrefs, you can do competitive analysis and see the keywords your competitors rank for in organic search results, find the best keyword ideas, access your backlink data instantly, find content relevant to your niche, keep track of your desktop and mobile keyword rankings, and get alerted whenever one of your competitors gets or loses a backlink.
Ahrefs has improved much over the years, now offering comprehensive tools for:
- Website analysis and backlink profiles
- Keyword research
- Website auditing for keyword gaps and performance issues
- Rank tracking to follow your performance over time
- Content explorer to stay on top of your niche
9. Slack
The success of any project hinges on the ease of communication between teams. That’s why you should invest in easy-to-use software that provides your team with uninterrupted interaction and data sharing.
One of the most popular team collaboration platforms is Slack. This sweet tool has won the hearts of many digital marketers thanks to its simple data sharing and easy message search options.
Most importantly, Slack can integrate with all major project management, office management, sales, productivity, design, and developer tools, making it easier to stay on top of every aspect of your digital marketing campaign.
10. Yoast
What use are all the hours you spend researching keywords and topics worth if you don’t properly optimize your content? Even the best of us forget things once in a while.
Yoast is one of the best digital marketing tools for optimizing content for SEO because it offers an excellent free version. Yoast will tell you where to place your keyword, how to improve readability, and perhaps most importantly, let you know what you’re doing wrong so you can improve.
With the paid versions, you can add related keywords, search for semantic keywords within the plugin, and get instant internal link suggestions, insights, and more.
Try the free version of Yoast for a while to familiarize yourself with the features and audit your site’s content. When you’re comfortable, upgrade to the paid version to boost your content even further.
11. SEMRush
SEMRush is a valuable digital marketing tool that helps small businesses maximize their online visibility and refine their marketing strategies.
One of its top features is competitor analysis, which allows you to see what’s working for your competitors—like their top-performing keywords and backlinks. This insight can help you find ways to outperform them in search rankings.
Another key feature is content optimization. SEMRush provides tools to find trending keywords, analyze your content’s SEO performance, and suggest ways to improve it.
Whether it’s blog posts, product pages, or landing pages, this tool optimizes your content for both search engines and readers.
For small businesses focused on growing through content, SEMRush will simplify your life. It helps you uncover the best keywords, track your website’s performance, and monitor social media mentions.
With an intuitive interface and actionable insights, SEMRush empowers small businesses to create content strategies that deliver real results.
12. Constant Contact
Constant Contact is a versatile tool that goes beyond traditional email marketing, making it an excellent choice for any small businesses looking to expand their reach.
One of its standout features is event marketing, which lets you create, promote, and manage events. From registration forms to automated follow-ups, it handles the details, leaving you to focus on engaging your audience.
The platform also offers tools for creating surveys and polls so you can gather valuable feedback from customers. In addition, its wide range of integrations with apps like Shopify and WordPress provides seamless workflows, whether you’re running an online store or a blog.
Constant Contact has a user-friendly interface, making it accessible even for beginners. Its excellent customer support also means help is always just a call or click away.
This tool provides small businesses with an all-in-one solution to connect with customers, build relationships, and grow their brand, making it a must-have.
Find the Right Digital Marketing Solution
Investing in some digital marketing tools can make all the difference for small businesses, helping you save time, streamline processes, and achieve your marketing goals. Jobs like managing social media, optimizing your website for search engines, and crafting engaging email campaigns become far more manageable when you can use these tools to automate some of the work.
Choosing the right tools is key because you’ll want to focus on those that will help you meet your goals while fitting into your budget. Another option is hiring a firm to take care of your digital marketing, eliminating the guesswork.
Marketing Insider Group offers an all-in-one marketing solution with our CRM and Marketing Management Services. Reach out to discover how we can drive your business forward, or sign up for a free consultation with members of our team.
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