16 Online Marketing Tools That Will Help Your Business Grow

Robert Katai

I believe that every small business owner and marketer is trying to find the best online marketing tools that can help him with his digital marketing campaigns.

And let’s be honest, there are too many marketing softwares that offer a large number of options but most of them are meant for enterprise-level companies and require a budget that doesn’t fit in most marketing strategies.

But how can you find the best tools for your digital marketing strategy? There are tremendous articles and videos about tools, software, and other devices.

The best solution is to start investigating.

Parts of this investigation are client reviews, a partner’s testimonial, or even a blogger’s review about the software. Another type of investigation is to start experimenting on your own and see if it fits your digital marketing strategy or not.

But there is another type of investigation that you can do: asking the 5 W’s questions:

The first one mentioning the “Five Ws” (and one H – How) was Rudyard Kipling in 1902 in his book called “Just So Stories” in “The Elephant’s Child” poem

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);

Their names are What and Why and When

And How and Where and Who.

But these 5 W’s there taught in high-school journalism classes in 1917 and today, many journalists use this type of investigation so they can tell their story more accurately.

This is why I used these 5Ws to ask 16 representatives from top tools used in digital marketing so they can answer them to you and give you the insight and answers you need.

These 5 questions are:

  1. What situation can be solved with the help of your product?
  2. Why should a marketer use your product?
  3. When is the best time to use it?
  4. Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?
  5. Who else can use your product besides marketers?

In this list of digital marketing tools, you will find answers from marketers and entrepreneurs who work every day to create a better workflow for your job.

You will find tools for social media marketing, planning, SEO and marketing analytics, content marketing, and content creation.

Some of the tools are free, others come with a pricing plan but we’ve also got some discount coupons too. Here you go, the best online marketing tools you can use right now.

 

1. TrackMaven

We thank  Rebecca Lee White (Digital Marketing Manager at TrackMaven) very much for taking her time answering us the following questions. 

 

TrackMaven is a marketing analytics platform that helps marketers connect all of their activities to business results.

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

The TrackMaven marketing analytics platform makes it easy to prove marketing ROI and improve campaign performance by tracking all of your digital channels in one place, including social media, blogs, ads, email, news mentions, and more.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Our platform integrates with all the tools you’re already using to measure marketing performance, from social media and website analytics to marketing automation and CRM. As a result, you can clearly see what works and what doesn’t from one centralized view. We can also show you where you’re winning and losing in your industry by tracking your results against competitors, peers, and influencers.

When is the best time to use it?

Anytime you are looking to prove results or improve your marketing strategy. TrackMaven has  shared analytics dashboards, exportable reports in multiple formats, and real-time data updates, as well as an API.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

TrackMaven will analyze your marketing performance across more than 20 channels from top-of-funnel tactics to bottom-of-funnel results. This means you can see the full breadth and depth of your buyer’s journey. You can also see the impact of your marketing efforts all the way from a campaign or channel perspective right down to the post level.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Marketing leaders rely on TrackMaven to report on their performance to executives and internal stakeholders. Learn more about our platform at TrackMaven.com.

2. Omniconvert

Thank you Alex Golub (Head of Partnerships at Omniconvert) for answering these questions.

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

The situation where any business wants more revenue.

Our tool helps business owners and marketing managers acquire more leads, improve metrics, and reduce customer acquisition costs. 

From the moment your customer lands on your website and until the end of your sales process, Omniconvert can help you get results with web personalizations, A/B testing, surveys, and if you combine all of them with our +40 advanced segmentation engine, you can get better results faster than your competitors.

 

Why should a marketer use your product?

At the end of the day, when the marketer looks at his website and the funnel numbers, he might be wishing that he could have done it better. 

We are helping him in that direction. You never know when a small tweak will improve just one of the metrics and that will have a cascading effect on the rest of the funnel.

If that’s not enough to help him, I don’t know what will.

When is the best time to use it?

The best time to use our tool is after you passed the traction phase after you’ve brought a considerable amount of traffic to your website. And this is because, in order for the experiments to have statistical relevance, you need at least some traffic to your website. For sure it’s doable with low traffic but usually, it takes a good period of time until you get the same statistical relevance.

For a marketer, no matter in what circumstance he is, time or traffic is not the issue, it’s the drive and discipline that brings bad results.

With our tool and with just a little bit of discipline and a little bit of motivation, anybody can achieve great results.

That’s why it`s called “the complete conversion rate optimization tool”.

 

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

So,  your business rapidly grew past the “idea phase” and into the “design phase”.

Once that’s complete, you went into “development phase”.

Once you’ve hit this milestone, you’re ready to plug in Omniconvert. Activate all the features and you’re one of the few people on this planet that have a competitive advantage right from the start. The insights you gain and the conversion rate improvements that you’ll make will bring you better customers and a faster vacation for your family.

This simple trick will help you in your present business or in your future ventures, a lot.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Everybody. eCommerce. Saas. Lead Gen. Do you have a website? If you do, then we can help you !

It doesn’t matter if you’re a CEO or an intern. Omniconvert is easy to install and it’s intuitive. Product owners that want to find out intrinsic and extrinsic motivations of the visitors, barriers or get feedback on the roadmap through the surveys

Discount coupon: BANNERSNACK2017

 

3. Wordstream

We thank Larry Kim (Founder WordStream) for taking his time answering us the following questions.

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

We can fix your PPC advertising campaigns on Google, Bing, and Facebook, then help you manage and report on it going forward.

Why should a marketer use your product?

To get the most out of your advertising budget and drive more leads and sales for less.

When is the best time to use it?

It’s a 20 minute PPC work week. Once a week it will do an in-depth analysis of your accounts and suggest the top ideas on what to optimize and why.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

PPC marketing is both a top-of-funnel channel for getting in front of new prospective customers and also a bottom-of-funnel channel when it comes to re-marketing to people who abandoned their carts, etc.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Usually business owners, agencies and marketers are our main clients.

 

4. MOZ

We thank  Rand Fishkin (Founder MOZ) very much for taking his time answering us the following questions.

 

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Moz Pro is designed to help websites grow their organic search traffic through SEO. To that end, if you see that organic search is a high conversion, a high-value channel for your business, and you’re seeking to get more, Moz is a product you should strongly consider.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Moz Pro is built for marketers — it’s designed to specifically help with the key tasks in SEO, such as keyword research (via Keyword Explorer), on-page optimization, link building, competitive analysis, rank tracking, and identifying crawl issues. If you have experience with SEO, Moz will feel both familiar and intuitive.

 

When is the best time to use it?

My recommendation is to start early on in your SEO efforts. That’s because tracking progress over time (particularly with rankings and traffic) and fixing errors or missed opportunities as soon as they arise is the best way to stay ahead of the competition. SEO, in most fields and for most valuable keywords has gotten very competitive and you’ll need every advantage you can get.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

SEO lives at the top of the marketing funnel and so, too, does Moz Pro. The process and tools are designed to help you grow qualified traffic, and from there, you can optimize your conversion funnel, onboarding, and retention processes to help with the other key aspects of marketing.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

A good number of site owners, webmasters, and web developers use Moz, but it’s really built for marketers and they comprise more than 80% of our ~24,000 paid subscribers.

 

5. Venngage

Thank you Nadja Khoja (Director of Marketing at Venngage) for answering these questions.

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Since Venngage is a graphic design software geared towards non-designers the main situation helps with creating high-quality images, infographics, and visual reports without having to hire a professional. They offer plenty of ready-to-use templates so people can create their own social media visuals and other graphics for enhancing their content marketing.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Many of Venngage’s users are marketers and use the tool for creating infographics, ebooks, slide decks, social media visuals, and even white papers for marketing needs. The tool is a drag-and-drop editor, making it easy to quickly edit existing templates. There is also the option of creating your own templates from a blank canvas.

When is the best time to use it?

The best time to use the tool is when you want to better communicate complex data or information in a simpler form.

 

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Infographics are a highly shareable form of content, and according to a recent study, 41.5% of marketers stated that infographics and original graphics performed better in marketing than any other type of visual.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Many people in human resources, or account management, as well as students and small business owners, use Venngage for creating a variety of different visuals, such as reports, white papers, ebooks, on-boarding materials, posters, and internal communication materials. 

Discount: EPICSOCIAL30 to save 30% off a Premium or Business Plan

 

6. Bannersnack

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Banner ads are not dead, they just reinvented themselves. Today a banner ad translates into Facebook ads, Instagram ads, Promoted Pins, Mobile ads, and everything related to advertising that is visual.

Bannersnack is the solution for everybody who is struggling to design banner ads and social media visuals or create pop-ups for their website and blog. With hundreds of templates, top fonts, and professional clip-arts, our banner maker allows you to make an ad in minutes. You can then save and download your design as a .JPEG,.PNG, or HTML file to embed it on your website.

Why should a marketer use your product?

According to MDG, 67% of consumers consider clear, detailed images to be very important. And this is the best reason a marketer should have when they think about Bannersnack. Our drag-and-drop editor allows anyone to create visuals easily. Plus, we offer a wide range of design templates to help you create the kind of visuals that people love to consume. Plus, with Bannersnack you also get to A/B test your pop-ups and banner ads with the help of the Bannersnack Analytics tool, especially crafted for marketers.

When is the best time to use it?

Every time when you’re launching Google Display campaigns, Facebook campaigns, or when you’re looking to create visuals engaging visuals for your community.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Bannersnack is a tool that caters to visual marketing needs, from social media visual content, social media advertising, content marketing, featured images for blog posts and exit intents or pop-ups to online advertising, and more.

 

Bannersnack is an all-in-one design platform that offers powerful and professional features to maximize marketers’ productivity with less effort.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

You don’t have to be a marketer or a designer to use Bannersnack. Every small business owner, student, HR specialist, or consultant can use it. 

Discount Coupon: save 20% with this coupon – DISC20BLOGBS

 

7. Buzzsumo

We thank Steve Rayson (Director of BuzzSumo)  for taking his time to address the following questions.

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

BuzzSumo is designed to help content marketers in three ways:

1. Research to understand what content resonates with an audience, including the most shared content, trending content today, what is working on Facebook, competitor top content, and the content formats and headlines gaining the most traction.

2. Understanding who is amplifying content through sharing and linking. Identifying the influencers and top authors for any topic, seeing all the people that share your content or competitors’ content, and building outreach lists.

3. Sophisticated monitoring including alerts (real-time and daily digests) when new content on a topic is published, when your brand is mentioned, when competitors publish new content when someone links to your site or competitor sites.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Producing content is hard work. You are also competing with millions of new content articles every day. You need to make sure you understand the type of content that will resonate with your audience before you produce it, you need to also understand the best formats and headlines. Creating the content is just the start, you need an amplification strategy. Who will share and link to your content? BuzzSumo helps you to decide on the best content and how to amplify it by seeing what works for others.

When is the best time to use it?

BuzzSumo is best used before you start creating content for your content research. The BuzzSumo monitoring features are very useful once you have published content to track performance and also to track mentions of your brand or campaign inside any article or blog post.

 

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

BuzzSumo is used to help create your content strategy by understanding the content that resonates with your audience and to monitor the performance of your content and your competitor’s content.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

BuzzSumo is widely used by people that create content including publishers. Our clients are very wide-ranging from BuzzFeed to marketing agencies.

 

8. Xtensio

Thank you, Ralf Llanasas, marketing lead at Xtensio for answering these questions.

Xtensio is a collaborative platform where teams can easily create, manage, and present beautiful live business documents and presentations in one place. 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Creating business collaterals can be challenging and time-consuming, especially if you’re a one-man team. With Xtensio you can easily create stunning and engaging presentations in record time. 

Why should a marketer use your product?

Xtensio brings your agency’s strategic communication together with living documents and presentations. It’s a collaborative workspace where all your client work, brand assets, and messaging are centralized under a single platform. Whether you’re coordinating a major project, streamlining your editorial calendar, or creating reports and case studies, Xtensio is where your team’s work flows.

When is the best time to use it?

When you want to create business content and official documents, plan strategies, launch products, or communicate about ongoing projects.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Presentations are vital for those running a business, as they can convey messages with full confidence and clarity. A well-crafted presentation can help you get more clients and boost sales. 

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Xtensio is a versatile tool and is used by small business owners, consultants, and entrepreneurs. 

9. ProofHub

Thank you, Vartika Kashyap (Chief Marketing Officer at ProofHub) for taking the time to answer our questions.

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

ProofHub solves several problems that modern-day marketing teams face. Bringing your teams, tasks, projects, clients, and communications in one place, it helps you successfully manage your teams and campaigns.

Why should a marketer use your product?

A marketer should use ProofHub because it replaces the many tools they have to use to plan their marketing campaigns, collaborate with other team members and keep things under their ultimate control. They no longer need to face the hassle of juggling between different tools – one for communications, one for sharing their files, one for time-tracking and one for task management. ProofHub works like the central place for everything.

When is the best time to use it?

ProofHub helps marketing teams in maintaining sanity amongst the constantly evolving marketing ecosystem. By providing a central place for planning, collaboration and keeping things organized, ProofHub can help avoid all the roadblocks marketing teams face while running their campaigns. So, I would say the best time to use ProofHub is right from the start of your marketing campaign.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Collaborating and discussing ideas is one of the most important aspects of marketing, and mind you it is the hardest as well. Once the brainstorming part is over, their seamless execution is next, which in itself is a challenge as you need to be precise in it. ProofHub fits in a team’s marketing strategy by providing a dedicated virtual space where teams can brainstorm ideas. Once things are finalized, marketers can carry out the execution using task lists and assign them to team members. They can even create and manage custom workflow using kanban boards for seamless execution. It’s like they don’t need to rely on multiple apps for this, all they need is ProofHub!

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

From IT & Software to Creative & Designing, from Healthcare to Finance, from Travel & Hospitality to Law, from Manufacturing to the Real estate – any industry that requires people working in a team can use ProofHub.

 

10. Flipsnack

We thank very much Janina Moza (PR Officer at Flipsnack) for taking her time answering us these following questions. 

 

What problem can be solved with the help of your product?

Why should a marketer use your product?

Flipsnack is the best alternative to PDF, so it’s perfect for big informational or promotional pieces, that are anything from 2 to 500 pages long. It turns the PDF into a highly shareable piece, that doesn’t get blocked by firewalls and that doesn’t require download. Also, Flipsnack collects actionable metrics (unlike PDFs), which are very useful for marketers. Need more reasons? It supports on-page rich media and can be easily embedded on websites.  

When is the best time to use it?

Whenever you have something to publish, be it a newsletter, brochure, report or magazine.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Flipsnack is a publishing tool, so it should be integrated in the content marketing strategy.

 

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Flipsnack is very versatile, so it’s used by professionals from various backgrounds: designers, teachers, photographers, real estate agents, small business owners, and so on.

Discount Coupon: Save 20% with this coupon – DISC20BLOGFS

 

11. Planable

Thank you Vlad Caluș (Chief Marketing Officer, Planable) for answering these questions.

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Automation is a $5B industry and the future of marketing, but there’s no automation in the way social media teams review and approve content. Signing off content is still manual, painful, and time-wasting. Today, the collaboration standard is to use outdated and cluttered tools like excels and powerpoints. Social media managers need a simple and effective way to collaborate with their clients on social media posts.

Our tool brings automation into the process of planning, reviewing, and approving social media content. Planable streamlines the entire workflow of a social media team – from visually drafting posts to gathering in-context feedback and to quickly scheduling campaigns. No more complex excels, back and forth emails, miscommunication, and lack of clarity.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Planable is a collaborative, visual, and fast solution for streamlining social media workflows. It’s an easy to use tool where you keep your team on the same page, mention, notify or comment to ask or give feedback, then gather in-context feedback for knowing that there are no mistakes. Our platform helps marketers to preview posts exactly as they would appear on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and keep all the content in one single space. Planable helps marketing teams to save up to 100h a week with automated publishing and one-click approvals. After creating the social media campaign, marketers can publish all the posts easily.

When is the best time to use it?

 

Right now. If the social media manager is working in spreadsheets or powerpoints to collaborate with the client, he can say goodbye to them and start using Planable this second. If he works within a team of social media managers, designers and other stakeholders on social media posts he should try Planable right now to collaborate faster and happier. Our platform brings every team member on the same page and makes sure everyone is happy before publishing any post.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Planable is a perfect workflow tool for planning, reviewing, approving, and scheduling social media content.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Besides marketers, Planable can be used by designers, copywriters, account managers, company directors, brand managers and everyone else participating in the process of creating the social media campaign for a brand.

 

12. AgoraPulse

We thank Jen Butler (Community Manager at Agorapulse) for taking her time answering us the following questions

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Agorapulse aims to solve a handful of problems for the modern marketing team. Social media is a must for marketing these days, and many marketers find themselves purchasing a multitude of tools to assist in the process. They have a scheduling tool, an analytics tool, a CRM, amongst others. Our goal is to provide the Swiss army knife of tools and combine it all into one robust social media tool.

Agorapulse also helps marketers address the problem of engaging with comments left on your Facebook or Instagram ads. With ad comment monitoring you will not miss out on the engagement happening on your paid ads.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Marketers have so much on their plate, they are very busy, and jumping from tool to tool not only takes lots of time, it can be frustrating and stifle productivity. Agorapulse makes handling your social media a pleasant experience all inside of one tool.

When is the best time to use it?

We have plans available for the solo entrepreneur up to the large agency or corporation, so if you are running social media campaigns the time to use Agorapulse is now! 

 

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Right up front! Agorapulse is a must for all of your social media campaign management needs. From scheduling, moderation, engagement, customer service to analytics, and more, Agorapulse will fit multiple places across your marketing strategy.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

You don’t have to a marketer to know the importance of social media for businesses in 2017. We have many companies use our tool for customer service purposes across their social platforms, higher education institutions to communicate with their students, and CEO’s to track community management efforts. While social media does fall under marketing, with our team workflow, tagging, and CRM-like features it has a place in all departments.

 

13. CoSchedule

We thank  Ben Sailer (Blog Manager at CoSchedule) very much for taking his time answering us the following questions. 

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

CoSchedule helps marketers bring all their content and social media marketing together in one place. It makes it easy to plan, publish, and promote content through one intuitive content calendar interface, keeping all your projects and team communication organized.

Why should a marketer use your product?

This is a big question, but our customers commonly tell us they save an incredible amount of time using CoSchedule. Instead of having to switch between multiple tools or spreadsheets, they can plan and create all their content directly in their editorial calendar. This cuts down on copying and pasting content from spreadsheets into various social networks or content management systems, and leads to much more productive and efficient workflows.

When is the best time to use it?

When used to its full potential, CoSchedule really has the power to drive your entire workflow. So, I’d say the best time to use CoSchedule is any time you’re planning or creating content, no matter what that content might be.

 

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

CoSchedule can essentially act as an all-in-one content hub for marketers. It’s the organizational centerpiece for everything you’re working on.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Anyone involved in the content creation process can use CoSchedule. Beyond marketers and bloggers producing content themselves, it also has a lot of value for project managers and editors overseeing the work too. In short, if you’re involved in creating or planning content in any way, our software is for you.

 

14. Teamweek

Thank you Laura Noodapera (Content Specialist Teamweek) for answering these questions.

 

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

When you plan on a timeline, you have a visual overview of what your team will be working on.  You can also rearrange those plans easily when something gets on your way.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Plan out campaigns, book time, and send the link to the timeline to your client for transparency.

When is the best time to use it?

Any time :smile:  At least once a week so you’d be sure your plans are up to date. Rescheduling is super easy in Teamweek. Why? Because plans always change.

 

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Teamweek is mostly meant for helping you to plan out your strategy on a timeline. Because you need to plan out any action on a timeline to have a full grasp. If you want to use it for marketing purposes and you have positioned yourself as a transparent company, you can share all your plans on your homepage like we do in Teamweek.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Everyone in a team. We have a huge number of creative teams from news media outlets, design studios, marketing companies. And maybe more surprisingly, a lot of contractors have started to use Teamweek. Go figure.

 

15. Time Doctor

Thank you, Carlo Borja (Online Marketing Specialist) for taking the time to answer the set of questions.

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Time Doctor aims to help you get a lot more done each day. It helps you know where and how exactly you are spending your time once you are working. With the data on hand, productivity can easily be measured and improved.

Why should a marketer use your product?

Marketers try to juggle a lot of things daily. From reports to plans and schedules. There are definitely a lot of tasks that need to be done. Time Doctor helps marketers know exactly how they are spending their time on their computers. This helps them see if they are prioritizing the right tasks and spending enough more time on tasks that matter.

When is the best time to use it?

Anytime you are working on your computer.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

Time Doctor is more of a backend tool that would complement the busy marketer’s toolset. No matter how many tools you are using or how good they are, if your productivity is low then your output won’t be satisfactory. Time Doctor helps you be at your most productive state while executing your marketing campaigns.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

Basically, everyone that works on their computers, and especially remote workers.

16. Acquire

Thank you, Shrushti Shah, for taking the time to answer the set of questions.

What situation can be solved with the help of your product?

Acquire is an excellent customer engagement software that works 24×7 in responding to customer queries. Since human beings can work for only 8-10 hours a day, this problem can be solved by taking the help of Acquire’s chatbot feature. 

Why should a marketer use your product?

Acquire has everything that a marketer would need in a customer engagement software, including chatbot software for automation of mundane customer queries, live chat software for more personal customer support, as well as email management from a single unified inbox. Plus, with Acquire also offers a cobrowse software to see and interact with customers’ on-screen,  and it modernizes customer engagement through video. Moreover, it’s delivers easy integrations and apps to centralize all your customer service efforts.

When is the best time to use it?

The best thing about a customer engagement software is you can use it anytime, 24×7. It gives leverage to customer support representatives to focus on more critical tasks in hand while ensuring speedy customer support.

Where does it fit in a marketing strategy?

This software primarily provides assistance to customer service executives in resolving the customers’ queries swiftly. However, you can even use it for both top-of-the-funnel to entice prospective customers and bottom-of-the-funnel to remarket those people who have left your website quickly with the help of the analytics feature integrated into the software.

Who else can use your product besides marketers?

This software is specially designed to engage the customers, so it is a boon for customer service representatives. Apart from that, CEOs, SaaS, Lead Generation experts, or even an intern can use it. The good part is, it is straightforward to install and quite intuitive in use. 

 

Let us know in the comments which one of these tools can be a good fit for your business?

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