Conduct a search online for “marketing tools” and you’ll very quickly be bombarded with a flurry of options, ranking for social tracking tools to full-on digital marketing software suites, and everything in between.
With so many paid and free options out there, it can be hard to zero in on a solid handful that work. That’s precisely why so many of us marketers love finding, talking about, and trading tools. There’s so many out there and every once in a while someone either does it better, or perhaps automates another aspect of our jobs.
And over the years, our marketing team has certainly experimented with our fair share of marketing tools. We’ve been through several large platforms and countless, independently developed plugins and web apps.
Below you’ll find a list of some of our favorites that have stood the test of time and continue to serve us (and our clients) today.
Organic Research
Google Search Console
A “gateway” between businesses and Google’s search kingdom, Search Console has undergone several important updates that make it more functional than ever for marketers. We’ll commonly rely on Search Console for the following:
- Organic Keyword Discovery
- Identifying 404 Errors
- Backlink Research
SEMrush Organic Research Tool
Few tools pack the intelligence punch for us like SEMrush. As a subscriber to their full suite of tools and widgets, SEMrush provides invaluable data for our marketing team, including:
- Organic Rankings
- SERP Features
- Top Organic Competitors
- Organic Visibility Over Time
Analytics Reporting
Google Data Studio
Our monthly reporting process used to involve quite a bit of manual labor, that is, until Google Data Studio came along to solve that. Being a Google Product, Google’s reporting solution integrates seamlessly with data sources like Analytics, Search Console, and Google Ads, while allowing plenty of flexibility of integrating data from 3rd party sources—even manual data imports.
Google Slides
Data Studio reports are great for data analysis and monthly reporting, however there’s still the occasional need to present data a little more concisely. While slide decks are no longer our go-to solution for analytics reporting, Google Sheets certainly keeps its place in our toolkit for client meetings, and when there’s a need for more polished internal presentations.
Social Media
LinkedIn Website Demographics
Being a B2B organization, LinkedIn provides a ton of value in its advertising offerings. With industry and function-specific targeting options, we’ve found it a really great option for low-cost, highly targeted paid ad campaigns. What’s particularly exciting, however, is its ability to provide intelligence on the companies interacting with our website. With the LinkedIn Demographics tool installed on our website, our sales team gets daily visibility on which companies are visiting or site, when, and how often.
GAIN App
When it comes to automating the distribution of social media content, marketers have quite a few options. Some we’ve used in the past include Hootsuite, Buffer, and HubSpot. However, for our needs, GAIN App has proven to be an amazing fit. From its excellent user interface to highly customizable approval sequences, Gain has been a game-changer for our Social team (and clients as well).
Paid Advertising Research
SEMrush Paid Advertising Research
Our friends at SEMrush have been absolutely knocking it out of the park with recent updates to their already powerful marketing platform. Their Advertising Research feature set has provided our team invaluable (and startlingly accurate) data on:
- How much the competition is spending
- What keywords they’re buying
- How they’re talking about their own products and services
Where marketing and technology meet, great things are bound to happen.
The right marketing tool or app has tremendous power, saving time, effort, and ultimately money. Marketing technology has progressed substantially in just a few short years, and with exciting developments like content personalization, and we can’t wait to see where this convergence of marketing and technology takes us next!
