9 Best Digital Marketing Tools for Startups

Posted on July 4th, 2018 by Quertime Writer in Web Tools

With the competitive nature of online marketing, startups are turning to the best digital marketing tools to try and leverage on them to gain a competitive edge. While with traditional advertising competing with established businesses was a bit difficult, online marketing when done well offers a chance for startups.

This is because the best online marketing tools provide value for money and a chance to go toe to toe with already established businesses. While it may be difficult for a startup to consolidate information, here is a compilation of nine of the best marketing tools for small business that should come in handy.

1. Google Analytics

Web analytics and tools play a very significant role in online marketing. They can help show you whether your efforts are paying off or not. One of the best digital marketing analytics tools out there is Google Analytics.

With an embedded tracking code on your pages, you can use Google Analytics to track essential metrics such as the conversion rate, bounce rate and click through rate. It also provides answers to the following questions.

Who are the visitors to your site?
Where are they originating from?
How are they finding your website?
What do they do on your site?

With the insights provided by Google Analytics, you can then determine how you are performing. Monitoring performance is particularly crucial for a startup since it shows the new business how its efforts are paying off.

If the insights show that your website is performing well, then you can improve and try out new things that may yield better results. Similarly, if your sites aren’t playing that well, then the insights from Google Analytics can be crucial in showing you where you need to improve.

2. Pingdom Speed Test

Loading speeds of websites play a significant role in whether people stick with the site or keep off. One of the key features of the search engine is that people that use them are often in need of what they are searching for.

For this reason, they generally tend to prefer those sites that load fast and keep off those that take too long to charge.

Research has shown that on average sites that have a good loading speed generally take about 1.3 seconds to load. If you deviate from this, then you are likely to see your bounce rate go up.

It may generally be difficult for a startup to pick momentum even with online marketing. However, one way to reduce this and ensure that you leverage on online marketing and compete with established businesses is improving your loading speed.

To help with this, a tool like Pingdom’s website speed test should come in handy. A suitable loading speed will not only keep people on your site but also result in search engine algorithms ranking your websites higher.

3. Optimizely

Conversion plays a key role in digital marketing. This is particularly more important for a startup as the business is often seeking growth regarding sales among others. Keeping track of orders, downloads, inquiry, and clicking of links can provide key insights on the growth of the startup.

To do this, tools provided by search engines such as embedded code in your conversion pages should prove vital. However, before developing a campaign, you can use conversion rate optimization or CRO to help boost the likelihood of success.

A tool like Optimizely can assist you in gathering relevant data, creating a hypothesis, testing it and evaluating the results to measure how useful it is. Optimizely produces qualitative and quantitative data to measure success or show where improvement is necessary scientifically.

4. Google Keyword Planner

For any successful search engine marketing campaign, matching what people are searching for with the content of the campaign is necessary. This is the case for startups who are looking to break into the scene.

To know which keywords people are basing their searches on then Google’s Keyword Planner can come in handy. Having right keywords can not only drive up quality traffic to your sites by making its content relevant but also ensure that you have a competitive edge over your competition.

They can ensure that you show up whenever someone is searching for your startup. Additionally, you can identify negative keywords. These will ensure that you don’t show up among search results that aren’t related to you.

5. HootSuite

With Facebook alone boasting of over 2 billion users, social media platforms present a unique opportunity for any startup. However, the truth is that there are too many platforms to maintain a presence in all of them adequately.

The silver lining though is that social media management tools such as HootSuite can help you balance and ensure your presence in some social media platforms. HootSuite can help your startup have scheduled posts which will enable you to post to people in different time zones, post even when you are busy and also ensure that you never forget to post.

Additionally, it can help your startup maintain engagement on social media platforms by availing comments that need your attention in one place and even take advantage of pre-written responses for related comments.

HootSuite can help your startup manage its presence in as many platforms as up to 30 which is key when you want to grow your startup.

6. MailChimp

Email marketing offers excellent targeted marketing for startups. Upon receiving the email addresses for the various prospective customers, it is essential to run a successful email marketing.

To help with this, tools such as MailChimp can be crucial. MailChimp offers startups with:

A contact database
Scheduled posts
The ability to design and preview templates
Customizable short forms to help people subscribe to your emails
Personalization feature that can help you send out relevant content based on someone’s preferences.

Besides its functions, the tool is not only free but also an easy to learn for beginners of startups.

7. Buffer for Video

Videos are a great way to reach out to potential clients. While this tool has been around for a while, the fact that it never stops and their recent new feature make it an essential tool for startups.

The product was the pioneer to permit native video scheduling to all the major social media platforms. For this reason, upon uploading once then, you will be able to share it everywhere.

To further show the importance of video, about 50% of the Americans on Facebook watch at least a video in a day, so this should be an excellent tool for a startup.

8. BuzzSumo

Content is the driver of an online marketing campaign. For this reason, this tool is essential because it helps the startup find the best material for its campaign. This tool is critical for finding content ideas in your niche.

This tool can help your startup to comb through other sites and find the best content pieces that will work for you. You can use this to look what your competition is doing and tailor yours to match or even improve your content.

9. Squarespace – Logo Maker

To help build on your brand, a logo can be the great way to rely on your brand awareness. While others charge a significant figure to design a logo for a business, this tool can do the work efficiently.

With this tool, you can create a stunning logo that you can customize with some frames and icons. Furthermore, you can get training in using this tool to help you master how to use it effectively.

Startups can stand a chance with effective online marketing. While generally running a successful campaign can be a little difficult, these nine tools should prove essential in helping you run one.

Successful attacks can not only improve your startup realize growth but ensure that you compete with established businesses.

Author: Sally Smith

Sally Smith is a content writer with years of background in marketing communication. Sally is currently interested in tech and website development. This time, she writes for Digital8, a premier Brisbane digital agency team – delivering digital strategy, high-quality websites, mobile apps and e-commerce solutions.