The problem with the marketing stack? There’s no end to the list of tools for digital marketing
You could buy every single SaaS tool for marketing out there and still have no results to show. Or you’d rather spend on just a few tools (mostly free, options to upgrade) if you were smart and resourceful enough. Either way, it’s a choice : much like it’s a choice whether you want to be frugal (and rich) or show off (with debt hanging like a snake on your neck).
If I were you, I’d choose the frugal route. Digital marketing success comes with hardwork, patience, commitment, a digital marketing plan well-executed, and more. Digital marketing success doesn’t come from tools alone.
So, If I had to pick, I’d choose the following to have a comprehensive toolset to handle digital marketing better. Here are some of those tools I’d use:
SEMRush (Blogging, Content Strategy, Social, and PPC)
Publishing regularly with a focus on frequency of publishing is the best way to make blogging (and the ensuring content strategy) work for your business.
Somewhere along the way, you’d have to focus on SEO too.
If I had to pick just one tool for SEO, I’d pick SEMRush. There’s an SEMRush free account that you could use (upgrade if you want to do more) and it accomplishes a lot for regular business blogging, full-time bloggers, and marketers.
With SEMRush, you get a lot for your money. Ahrefs is close (and maybe just as good) but it’s way too expensive for regular businesses.
Here’s a snapshot of what you get:
— A Swiss-army knife equivalent of multiple tools and features inside for SEO audit, on-page SEO optimization (such as the On-page SEO checker), to help build and manage backlinks, traffic analytics, competitor strategy, and more.
— A dedicated social media scheduling tool to help you use social media better, schedule and plan your social media updates (including your content sharing), and more. You also get social media brand monitoring tools.
— Complete set of tools for keyword research (including the Keyword Magic tool) and more.
— The SEMRush Academy (complete with online courses with course completion certifications on everything to do with Search marketing, social media, Search engine optimization, competitive research, competitive intelligence, and more)
— Comprehensive toolkits such as the SEO toolkit, content marketing toolkit, Social Media toolkit, PPC Advertising toolkit to give you a kickstart for not just SEO but also a well-rounded content marketing strategy.
There’s so much more to SEMRush that a single blog post subtopic won’t ever do it justice.
Offer: Semrush’s backlink suite is the fastest and freshest backlink discovery toolkit ever created. Get free access to the largest backlink database for a limited time only!
Remember that you can pretty much use SEMRush for free (until you need to upgrade).
What this covers: Blogging, content strategy, content marketing, social media, SEO, PPC ads, backlinks, outreach, traffic analytics, and more.
Pick your landing page builders
Your digital marketing campaigns are never complete without landing pages and sales funnels. Of all the landing page builders and sales funnels software available, there are only three that I recommend (choose what you want from these three).
Note: there are several other ways to create landing pages depending on your setup and tools you might already have. For instance, with Elementor and Divi you already have the capability to create landing pages. Further, using Webflow also allows you to create landing pages within the system. The same applies if you use website building solutions such as Wix, Simvoly, SquareSpace, Mozello, and others.
Unbounce
With the new AI-driven smart builder, Smart Traffic™, direct integration with Unsplash, and more, Unbounce is now better than ever before. It’s a dependable, able, and reliable landing page builder — along with sticky bars and pop-ups for your lead generation campaigns that work in addition to full-time landing pages and sales funnels. With built-in A/B testing (along with Smart Traffic™), you don’t need to keep shopping for landing page solutions. Focus on your campaigns instead.
LeadPages
LeadPages is a robust landing pages/sales funnels building solution that you can depend on. With Leadpages, you also get pop-ups, complete lead magnet management, fast-loading landing pages, and even a website builder thrown in for good measure.
Instapage
Focusing on landing pages and nothing more, Instapage is a focused landing page builder with an emphasis not just on the landing page experience but also on the post-click experience for your potential leads and customers.
Instapage was created to help build landing pages fast and easy — with templates, building blocks (drag and drop), and more.
Depending on your needs, your budget, and your requirements, pick one of the three landing page solutions above.
What this covers: Landing pages, sales funnels, lead generation campaigns, pop-ups, and sticky bars.
Email Marketing Solutions: Choose one. Stick with it
Email marketing makes money. Period. The email marketing software you’ll choose will depend on your needs, email marketing style, the features you want, and your business type as well. Here are the three email marketing tools I’ll recommend and what you should choose when (in 3 short paragraphs — no need to write lengthy reviews).
Note: While you can use all email marketing tools below for all kinds of businesses, some email marketing tools are best fit for particular types of businesses. It’s like fine-tuning the choice depending on what you do.
Drip
Drip is the best email marketing software for eCommerce businesses, SaaS businesses, Software solution providers, and others including coaches, online course instructors, service providers, etc. Drip also comes with lead scoring, the choice to send emails as plain text or designer HTML emails, and more. It also comes with several advanced features such as automated Facebook Audience sync and others.
ConvertKit
Best fit for individual course creators, online course sellers, people who sell digital products, bloggers, publications, and others. ConvertKit also has landing pages, pop-ups, ConvertKit Commerce (for precisely the types of entrepreneurs and businesses above), and complete marketing automation.
MailChimp
Mailchimp is the best Fit for all other businesses that don’t fall into the above categories (think restaurants, coffee shops, traditional businesses, and practically all other businesses).
That’s it. That’s all the tools you need for digital marketing.
Stop making excuses now. Go ahead and kill it with digital marketing.