Digital marketers rely on tools and applications to ensure that their online business runs smoothly. Marketers are expected to be in several places simultaneously, and digital marketing software can make this possible. Know that a digital marketing agency uses these tools in handling web development projects and search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing (SMM) campaigns.
Then again, if you want to handle your digital campaign, there are many software applications and tools out there. So how will you know which ones to use?
Here’s our guide on the digital software in your arsenal.
Digital marketing software to use for your business
Search engine optimization (SEO)
SEO solutions are fundamental to making your website findable by crawlers and bots. These web-based applications and tools can make any website land on Google’s top three positions, producing the highest clicks.
Conversely, digital marketers spend between $1,000 and $5,000 monthly for these optimization solutions.
Usage: Improve website visibility on search engines
Popular SEO tools: Moz, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Screaming Frog
Content management software (CMS)
Before, working coding knowledge is necessary to build a website. This is no longer the case. CMS solutions help build the website content-wise, minus the codes and programs.
Free plans are offered, although you need to pay to access advanced publishing and customization tools.
Usage: Publish content on the web
Popular CMS tools: WordPress, Wix, Drupal, Joomla
Website analytics
A powerful analytics tool helps measure the site’s performance—data and insights generated through these analytics drive website improvements and the campaign level.
Analytics is often provided as part of the package. For instance, WordPress has a dashboard which you can draw insights from. However, there are third-party analytics providers that also offer data visualization.
Usage: Measure the website’s performance
Popular analytics tools: Google Analytics, Kissmetrics
Organic and paid social media
Social media proved to be a critical component of a digital marketing campaign. It can leverage the brand more than any other strategy or tool. The goal of this software is to become an engagement platform.
This is important now that social media monthly active users reached over 3 billion in 2019. The pandemic also required that people stay home, so digital marketers see a spike from March 2020 and beyond.
Usage: Increase engagement, build a community, identify brand conversations, etc.
Popular social media tools: SproutSocial, Hootsuite
Visual design
The interweb is becoming more visual today than five years ago. In line with this, your digital marketing collateral must scale up through high-res and professionally-designed images, infographics, logos, cover photos, etc. This is good for branding. Compelling imagery sets a distinctive brand from the rest.
Design tools help create the visuals that you need. Some are even free!
Usage: Create aesthetically pleasing marketing collateral
Popular visual design tools: Canva, Photoshop, PicMonkey
Video conferencing
Communication of the remote or virtual teams must not be sacrificed. Enabling face-to-face meetings is now possible through video conferencing software. All you need is the application and Internet connection.
As a powerful marketing stack, the solutions enable you to collaborate with team members, interview applicants, meet with clients, etc.
Usage: Collaborate face-to-face in the virtual world
Popular video conferencing tools: Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, Google Hangouts
Customer relationship management (CRM)
Keeping track of a lead—where it is in the sales funnel—is crucial. The CRM software monitors the activities of the consumer from various stages of the buyer’s journey.
The best part is that with this software, anyone in the sales and marketing team may access the data by simultaneously looking at the same dashboard. Interactions between the lead and the business are, therefore, understood by the entire team. For instance, it is easy to know the date it was last contacted and its preferred communication mode.
Usage: Monitor customer relationship
Popular CRM tools: Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho
Advertising solution
Aside from pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, ads are not just those you see above the results pages—they also include banners and display ads.
Today, the ads are usually paired with retargeting tools to drive relevance and click-through rates (CTRs). What’s best about retargeting ads is their highly personalized nature since these are ads based on behaviors like a visit to a page, product view, and shopping cart abandonment.
Usage: Attract consumers to the sales funnel or draw them back into it
Popular advertising tools: Google Ads, Bing Ads, Google Display Network, Outbrain, Taboola
Marketing automation
Personalization that scales is possible with automation software. This is important and expected because the customer base is growing. With marketing automation, your company may offer relevant buyer experiences.
These software applications track the behavior of visitors and provide them with automated branded messages through email, chat, or SMS. The goal is to guide them throughout the customer buying process.
Usage: Automate marketing tasks
Popular advertising tools: Autopilot, Marketo
Email marketing
Despite its old-school vibe, email marketing is still one of today’s most profitable digital strategies. Businesses continue to use it at a 4% YoY (year-on-year) increase. The projected profit is $38 return for every $1 investment.
What’s more, email marketing software applications and tools are getting sophisticated—they can segment the leads and customers to send the relevant email messages to nurture them to become a purchase.
Usage: Connect with the customers through email and monitor leads to conversion
Popular advertising tools: MailChimp, Constant Contact
We, at Optimind, understand how technical these digital marketing software tools and applications can get. We are here to help. Even when handling your projects or campaigns, we want to make our clients aware of our tools. That’s how transparent our process is. Let’s have a chat!