12 Digital Marketing Tools You Need To Improve Your Marketing Game

The best digital marketer without the right tools can look like an amateur, and a novice digital marketer with the right tools may be able to give the impression that they know their onions.

As a digital marketer, the importance of having marketing tools at your disposal cannot be overemphasized. From social media management to email campaigns and search engine optimization, the list of tools is endless.

To save you from this endlessness, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most important digital marketing tools experts have in their arsenal.

Categories of Digital Marketing Tools

To simplify things, we grouped each tool in this article into relevant categories based on their function. Whether it’s a tool for social media, managing customer relationships, or content marketing, we believe this list covers everything.

Social Media Marketing Tools

Social media is an integral part of digital marketing, and any digital marketer that wants to be at the top of their game must know their way around social media tools that can give them the edge they need to stand out.

Social media marketing tools are used to manage social media accounts, create and schedule posts, monitor engagement, and track analytics.

1. Hootsuite
   

   As a digital marketer, you likely manage multiple social media accounts across different platforms. Hootsuite is a popular social media management tool that can help you manage all your accounts in one place, from one dashboard.

   It allows you to schedule your social media content in advance, automate your posts, reply to comments, and use template responses.

   Hootsuite Features for Improving Social Media Marketing

• Social listening: Hear and monitor conversations about your brand or industry with hootsuite social listening software. By monitoring these conversations, you can identify opportunities to engage with your audience and build relationships.
• Analytics: This provides valuable insights into your social media performance by analyzing your performance metrics and identifying what works and doesn’t.
• Social media tools: Hootsuite provides a range of tools to improve social media engagement, such as the ability to run social media contests, polls, and surveys. These tools can help you increase engagement and build a strong community around your brand.
• Scheduling and Automation: You can connect your social media accounts to Hootsuite for scheduling and automation. Once connected, you can create and schedule your content using the Hootsuite dashboard. The platform also provides a content calendar to help you plan your social media strategy weeks or even months in advance.

1. Sprout
   

Sprout Social is a popular social media management tool that helps businesses streamline their social media efforts. With Sprout, you can manage multiple social media accounts, schedule posts, track analytics, and engage with your audience in one place.

The tool is easy to use and provides a range of features that can help improve your social media marketing.

Sprout Features for improving social media marketing:

• Smart Inbox: Sprout Social provides a smart inbox that brings together all your social media accounts in one place. This makes it easy to manage your social media communications and respond to messages and comments quickly.
• Scheduling and publishing: With Sprout, you can schedule and publish your social media posts in advance, ensuring your content is published at the optimal time for your audience.
• Analytics and reporting: Sprout provides comprehensive analytics that gives valuable insights into your social media performance. You can track engagement, audience growth, and post-performance metrics.
• Message Approval Workflows: Sprout provides collaboration features that make it easy for your team to work together on your social media strategy. You can also set up approval workflows to review and approve your content before publication.

Conversion Optimization Tools

As a digital marketing expert, Conversion Rate Optimization is a term you would always come across, especially if you deal with E-commerce clients. While there are experts specializing in the CRO field, it will also be an advantage for you to know about tools that can assist with conversion optimization.

With conversion rate optimization tools, you can help your clients to improve website performance through A/B tests, user experience testing, session recordings, heat mapping, etc.

1. FigPii

If you’re looking to optimize your website’s conversion rates, FigPii is a tool that can help. With its user-friendly interface and robust features, FigPii is an excellent choice for digital marketers looking to increase their website’s performance.

At its core, FigPii is a platform for A/B testing and website personalization. This means you can easily create and test different website versions to see which performs better. FigPii provides various tools to help you create and manage these tests, including an intuitive visual editor and detailed analytics.

But that’s not all. FigPii also offers some other features to help you optimize your website’s conversion rates. These include:

FigPii features for improving conversion rates.

• Heatmaps: FigPii’s heatmaps let you see where visitors click and scroll on your website. This can help you identify areas that are getting a lot of attention and areas that might need improvement.
• Surveys and polls: FigPii makes it easy to collect customer feedback from your website with surveys and polls. This can help you better understand your audience and tailor your website to their needs.
• Session recording: With FigPii’s session recording feature, you can watch recordings of your visitors’ sessions on your website. This can help you see how users interact with your site and identify areas where you can improve the user experience.

 

2. Hotjar

Hotjar is an all-in-one conversion optimization tool that helps digital marketers and conversion rate experts improve a website’s user experience and increase conversions. With Hotjar, you can analyze user behavior through heatmaps, session recordings, and feedback polls.

Like FigPii, Hotjar also offers session recordings, feedback polls, and heatmaps, which can help you analyze visitor behavior and website performance and get meaningful insights. Unlike FigPii, Hotjar does not have its own A/B testing tool but integrates with other A/B testing platforms.

Email Marketing Tools

Email is one of the most effective and important marketing channels businesses have explored over the years. Email marketing tools are essential to businesses and professionals who explore this channel.

Email marketing tools can help businesses enforce DMARC policy, manage email lists, design and send email campaigns, and track performance.

1. MailChimp

As a digital marketer, you can’t discuss email marketing without mentioning MailChimp. Its years of good service and excellent user experience have positioned it as one of the best email marketing tools in the industry.

With MailChimp, you can create and send targeted email campaigns, track your performance, and analyze your data to improve email conversion rates or achieve your email campaign goals. You can also compare TinyEmail vs Mailchimp to know your alternatives.

MailChimp Features To Improve Email Marketing

• User-friendly interface: Mailchimp’s user-friendly interface makes it easy for digital marketers to create and send email campaigns.
• Personalization: Mailchimp allows you to personalize your emails based on subscriber data, which can increase engagement and conversion rates.
• A/B Testing: Mailchimp’s A/B testing features enable marketers to test different versions of their emails and determine what works best for their audience.
• Analytics: Mailchimp provides detailed analytics that allows marketers to track and measure the success of their email campaigns.

 

2. Hubspot

HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing automation platform with a range of services that caters to many digital marketing needs. Having Huspot in your toolbox as a marketer is like having ink in your pen; it is important.

For the sake of this article, we’ll focus on its email marketing tool, which is worth considering if you want to improve your email campaigns. Here’s an overview of what it offers:

• Personalization: With HubSpot, you can personalize your emails using contact data to make them more relevant to your individual or group recipients.
• Free List Segmentation: The tool allows you to create a list of contacts or companies and segment your email list based on various criteria, such as interests, behavior, previous feedback, and location, to send targeted email campaigns.
• A/B testing: HubSpot lets you test different email variations to see which ones perform better regarding open rates, click-through rates, and conversions.
• Analytics: HubSpot provides detailed analytics on your email performance, including data on opens, clicks, bounces, and unsubscribes, so you can measure the impact of your campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

Search Engine Optimization Tools

As more and more businesses and companies enter the digital marketing space, the need for each company to outrank and outperform its competitors also grows.

Search Engine Optimization can be challenging; however, with the right set of tools, you can identify opportunities to improve your search engine rankings, discover relevant keywords, drive organic traffic, and appear on that first page of the SERP.

1. Google Analytics

Whether you’re just starting your journey as a digital marketer or an expert, Google Analytics is your friend, especially if you are running on a tight budget. Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offered by Google.

It helps website owners and digital marketers track and analyze website traffic, user behavior, and other important metrics like bounce rates, cart abandonment rates, click-through rates, etc.

Google Analytics Features To Improve SEO

• Traffic analysis: Google Analytics provides detailed information about the sources of your website traffic, such as search engines, social media, and referral sites.
• Keyword analysis: With Google Analytics, you can see which keywords people use to find your website through search engines. This can help you identify high-performing keywords and optimize your content to improve your rankings for those keywords.
• Behavior analysis: Google Analytics lets you see how visitors behave on your website, such as which pages they visit and how long they stay on each page.
• Conversion tracking: Google Analytics lets you track website conversions, such as form submissions, purchases, and other actions that you define as valuable.

2. SEMrush

SEMrush is a popular SEO tool digital marketers use to improve their search engine optimization efforts. It shows you different keyword ideas you can further develop into content ideas. It also reveals how easy or difficult it is to rank for these keywords.

SEMrush Features For Improving SEO

• Keyword Research: SEMrush allows you to research and analyze the keywords that are driving traffic to your website and your competitors. You can also identify new keywords to target in your content.
• Site Audit: With SEMrush’s site audit feature, you can identify technical SEO issues that may hurt your search engine rankings. It also provides suggestions for fixing these issues.
• Backlink Analysis: SEMrush allows you to analyze the backlinks pointing to your website and your competitors. This can help you identify opportunities to build high-quality links and improve your search engine rankings.
• Competitor Analysis: You can use SEMrush to analyze your competitors’ websites and SEO strategies. This can help you identify improvement areas and find new opportunities to outrank them.
• Keyword Rank Tracking: With SEMrush’s rank tracking feature, you can monitor your search engine rankings for specific keywords over time.

Content Marketing Tools

Without content, practically almost every aspect of digital marketing would be non-existent. Whether you’re a business or a marketer, content marketing is not optional; it’s essential.

As a digital marketing professional, the burden of creating and distributing valuable and relevant content may fall on you (not the content writer). This is when you look to content marketing tools to make your work easier.

1. Canva

If you’re trying to cut the costs of hiring a graphic designer, you might want to consider a tool like Canva to create designs and breathe life into some of your content ideas.

Canva is a versatile design tool that can help digital marketers create stunning visuals for their content marketing campaigns. With its easy-to-use interface and wide range of features, Canva has become a go-to tool for designers and non-designers.

Canva Features For Improving Content Marketing and Design

• Pre-designed templates: Canva offers various design templates optimized for different types of content, from social media graphics to blog post headers.
• Customizable design elements: You can customize templates by changing colors, fonts, images, and other design elements to match your (client’s) brand.
• Image editing tools: Canva provides a range of image editing tools, such as cropping, resizing, and filters, to enhance the visual impact of your graphics.
• Collaboration features: Canva allows teams to collaborate on designs and share feedback in real time, making it easy to work on projects with remote colleagues.
• Branding tools: Canvas brand kit feature lets you store and access brand assets, such as logos and color schemes, to maintain consistency across designs.

2. WordPress

WordPress has always been my go-to tool for writing; this article was even written on WordPress at the time of writing. WordPress is a popular content management system that powers millions of websites across the internet. It helps you create, optimize, and distribute content across different platforms easily.

WordPress Features For Improving Content Marketing

• Easy Content Creation: With WordPress, you can easily create and publish content on your website. It offers a user-friendly interface and a wide range of customizable templates, making creating visually appealing and engaging content easy.
• SEO Optimization: WordPress offers several built-in SEO features that can help improve your website’s search engine rankings. You can optimize your content for keywords, customize meta tags, and install plugins to improve your website’s overall SEO performance.
• Content Distribution: WordPress makes distributing your content easy across various channels. You can use plugins like Jetpack to share your social media content automatically.
• Analytics and Insights: WordPress offers several built-in analytics tools that can help you track your website’s performance. Using tools like Google Analytics, you can track your website’s traffic, engagement, and other key metrics.
• Customization and Flexibility: WordPress is highly customizable, so you can create a website tailored to your needs using plugins and themes to add new features and functionality.

Customer Relationship Management Tools

As more and more businesses and companies enter the digital marketing space, the need for each company to outrank and outperform its competitors also grows.

Search Engine Optimization can be challenging; however, with the right set of tools, you can identify opportunities to improve your search engine rankings, discover relevant keywords, drive organic traffic, and appear on that first page of the SERP.

1. Salesforce CRM

Salesforce is a cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) tool that helps businesses manage their sales, customer service, and marketing operations. Its powerful features and integrations make it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes.

Salesforce Features To Improve Customer Relationships and Drive Sales

• Contact management: Salesforce lets you store and organize all your customer data in one place, including names, email addresses, phone numbers, and other relevant information.
• Sales automation: Salesforce provides tools to automate your sales process, from lead generation and scoring to pipeline management and deal closing. You can set up workflows, alerts, and reminders to ensure your sales team follows up with leads and customers.
• Marketing automation: Salesforce has a marketing automation feature that helps you generate high-quality leads and drive sales without breaking the bank to hire a marketing team.
• Customer service: Salesforce offers a range of features to improve your customer service, such as case management, knowledge base, and customer collaboration community forums.

2. Hubspot CRM

HubSpot CRM is a free customer relationship management tool designed to help businesses manage customer interactions and sales processes. HubSpot CRM integrates with other HubSpot tools, such as marketing automation, email marketing, etc., making it a comprehensive platform for managing the entire customer journey.

With HubSpot CRM, you can track the sales pipeline, automate repetitive tasks, and provide personalized experiences to your customers.

Hubspot CRM Features for Customer Relationship Management

• Contact management: HubSpot CRM allows you to manage your customer contact information, including their contact details, interactions, and deal history, all in one place.
• Task automation: HubSpot CRM allows you to automate repetitive tasks such as data entry, email communication, and appointment scheduling.
• Sales analytics: With HubSpot CRM’s robust reporting and analytics features, you can gain insight into your sales performance, track your team’s progress, and identify areas for improvement.
• Mobile app: HubSpot CRM has a mobile app that makes it easy to access and manage your customer data on the go.
• Customization: HubSpot CRM allows you to customize your CRM to fit the unique needs of your business, including custom fields, pipelines, and deal stages.

Bonus Tool For Social Media and Content Creation

Plann

Plann is your all-in-one auto-scheduler, social strategist, designer, and content calendar. With its robust features and intuitive interface, Plann simplifies the process of managing your social media presence.

Plan, schedule, and analyze your content effortlessly while optimizing your strategy and engaging with your audience effectively.

Plann empowers businesses to streamline their social media strategies and drive meaningful results. From content planning and creation to analytics and team collaboration, Plann provides the necessary tools for enhancing brand awareness and engagement.

Features for Improving Social Media Marketing:

1. Comprehensive Scheduling: Plan and schedule your social media content in advance, ensuring consistent and timely posts across platforms. Plan and schedule your social media content in advance, ensuring consistency and timeliness.
2. Visual Content Creation: Design captivating graphics and videos using Plann’s intuitive editing tools, making your content stand out and resonate with your audience.
3. Analytics and Insights: Track key metrics, analyze audience behavior, and gain valuable insights to refine your social media strategy and drive better results.
4. Collaboration and Communication: Seamlessly collaborate with your team members, streamlining the content creation and execution process for improved efficiency and productivity.

Importance of incorporating these tools into a digital marketing strategy

In today’s digital age, having a strong online presence is crucial to the success of any business. While many factors contribute to a successful digital marketing strategy, utilizing the right tools can make all the difference.

Here are some of the reasons why digital marketing tools are important:

1. Increased Efficiency and Productivity

By using digital marketing tools, digital marketing experts can automate time-consuming tasks such as scheduling social media posts, sending automated email campaigns, and tracking customer interactions.

This frees up time for you to focus on other important areas of your marketing strategy, such as creating high-quality content or developing new campaigns.

2. Data Analysis and Insights

With the aid of digital marketing tools, it’s easy to track and analyze marketing efforts and customer behavior in real-time.

This allows experts and businesses to make data-driven decisions and adjust their strategies accordingly. Businesses can optimize their marketing efforts for better results by understanding what works and what doesn’t.

3. Targeted Marketing

These tools allow you to create targeted marketing campaigns that effectively reach your target audience. You can segment the audience and deliver personalized content that resonates with the target customers. This leads to higher engagement and better conversion rates.

4. Improved Customer Relationship

Tools like CRM software can help you keep track of customer interactions and respond to their needs promptly and effectively. CRM tools also make it easier for you to build and maintain a solid and valuable customer relationship.

5. Lead Generation and Better Conversion Rates

Email marketing tools can also help you nurture and guide leads through the sales funnel. Also, when you use SEO tools properly, you can optimize your site for search engines, attract more traffic, and increase the possibility of turning site visitors into paying customers.

6. Competitive Advanatage

In this age and time, it’s clear as a day that businesses that utilize digital marketing tools effectively have a competitive advantage over those that don’t.

Next Steps

It’s necessary to stay up-to-date on the latest tools and trends. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting, the right tools can make all the difference in achieving your goals.

This list covers some of the most valuable and effective digital marketing tools, from conversion optimization tools like Hotjar and FigPii to content marketing tools like Canva and WordPress.

Although digital marketing tools are not limited to those on this list, there are many other tools out there, and your choice of tool can depend on your budget and personal or client preference. The important thing is to choose what works best for you.