I often come across promoted videos or online content with clickbait-style titles such as:
‘How you should be marketing your brand in 2019 to make millions’
or
’10 must know tips for marketing managers that increase sales by 1,000%’
On occasion, I go along with it and think maybe I can get some insight into which tools this person is using to get these amazing results.
But 95% of the time I’m left thinking I just sat through 20 minutes of junk to be sold a training program for $600… thanks!
All I really wanted to know is what you are using to get better results!
Having a good understanding of marketing principles and terminology is one thing but knowing the relevant tools needed to help your campaigns goes a long way when trying to save time and money.
So, what are some of the tools you should be using?
Here are six that we like:
1. Tiny PNG
Tiny PNG is an image compression website. It makes the file size significantly smaller by reducing the quality slightly.
Great - smaller images! So why is this needed?
The short answer is because smaller images equal faster load times and faster load times equal more users because search engines like sites that load quickly. Don’t you want more users to your website?
It also helps when trying to transfer image files around the web.
The same applies as above, sending smaller files equals increased speed. Be careful as image quality will be reduced, don’t send an image that is supposed to be high quality in a compressed version. A compressed image can’t be un-compressed easily.
2. SEM Rush
SEMRush - or as I call it the digital marketeers Bible - has virtually everything needed to assist with building an online presence. Seriously, this software has everything:
- social media scheduling
- content management
- SEO optimisation
- competitor analysis
- reporting and managing.
And that is just a few of its capabilities. This list doesn’t even scratch the surface.
All this information isn’t free. Pricing plans start at $99 per month, which isn’t cheap by any means. So, if you’re running a smaller business it may be more cost effective to find a cheaper alternative and scale up when ready.
3. Google Lighthouse
Google Lighthouse is a way for Google to give you some idea as to what it is looking for when ranking a website.
It’s an auditing tool that gives an indication of how well your website is performing in the eyes of Google.
It’s a completely free tool and can be used on any website you find (yes even those of your competitors). However, bear in mind it's next to impossible to get a perfect score. Do not blindly chase the 100% score.
- Open an incognito window on Chrome and visit a website, then hit Ctrl + Shift + I. A window with ‘Dev tools should open.
- Go to the audits tab and select the audits you would like to run and then choose the audit device - either desktop or mobile. The run the audit.
- A results page should show with a ranking score. Some of this information is very technical and best handled by a web developer but the SEO tab usually has some useful ideas on where to start improvements.
4. Lumen 5
Video, video and more video - it’s all anyone ever shares online. But it can be very expensive and can take forever to create.
This is where Lumen 5 shines. You can create short information pieces of video content for your brand using imagery and a few lines of text.
5. Grammarly
An online spell checker that runs whenever I open my browser? Sign me up!
Grammarly is a simple free plugin for Chrome that checks your spelling - whether it’s Gmail, a social media post or a blog post that needs checking.
Unlike most spell checkers, Grammarly will check sentence structure and phrases, which is just a bonus.
6. HubSpot
In case you haven’t seen what HubSpot is all about, it is an online database for storing customer and lead information using automation.
HubSpot has allowed Intergage to push the boundaries of marketing in many ways, by simplifying the marketing journey for not only for our internal marketing but also for our clients.
With a huge amount of support and knowledge behind them, the Hubspot CRM system is one of the best on the market.
These are just a few tools to breathe some more creativity into your marketing campaigns. Teaching your team how to use them effectively could be the difference between a potential client choosing your company over a competitor.
