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10 Sales Tools for Boosting Results, Efficiency, and More

Without customers, you wouldn’t have much of a company. For this reason, spending time and money on sales and marketing-related tasks is never time wasted.

In this post, I’m going to examine some of the top sales tools for boosting results, improving efficiency and organization and helping you generate more revenue.

Let’s get started!

 

10 Sales Tools for Boosting Results, Efficiency, and More

1. HubSpot

Are you seeking a sales platform to handle all the needs of your sales process?

If so, HubSpot fits the bill. When it comes to sales and marketing tools, HubSpot is considered the cream of the crop.

From a sales perspective, there are three distinct solutions:

• HubSpot Sales Free
• HubSpot CRM
• HubSpot Sales Professional
• HubSpot Sales Hub Enterprise

With the free solution, which is a great place for everyone to start, you gain access to tools that boost every aspect of your inbound sales strategy.

For example, there are a variety of email tools, such as access to email templates and sales content.

For those who want to learn more about their prospects, locate the decision-maker, HubSpot once again has you covered.

You can collect data related to visitors, broken down by company, as well as the pages that they are viewing. This gives you a better idea of who’s interested in your product or service, thus allowing you to target the right type of prospects who are the decision-maker in the sales process.

HubSpot has a tool for every type of sales team, sales manager and sales professionals. With the ability to poke around for free, there’s no reason to put off dabbling with this tool.

 

2. LinkedIn Sales Solutions

Did you know that LinkedIn has more than 450 million registered users, scattered all over the world?

As the largest professional network, by far, it only makes sense that it’d be full of sales opportunities in digital marketing.

While you can mine for prospects on your own, you’re better off considering the many sales professional tools provided by LinkedIn Sales Solutions.

Comparing available products will open your eyes to which approach is best for you in social media and digital marketing.

For example, Sales Navigator is a popular choice. With this tool, LinkedIn hopes to make sales prospecting easier than ever before and that’s exactly what you’re looking for.

This tool helps in many ways, including:

• Receive custom lead recommendations.
• Access to an advanced search to find the right leads for your business.
• The use of InMail to contact any LinkedIn member.
• A dashboard for measuring and tracking your social selling results.
• Real-time sales updates for customers and prospects.

With a free trial, you should give the Professional Edition of Sales Navigator a try. Even if you’ve never used LinkedIn for a sales process in the past, this could be the push that you need to take full advantage in the future.

3. InsideSales.com

When it comes to sales lead management, there aren’t many companies that do it better than InsideSales.

There’s more to this company than meets the eye, thanks to its large list of features within its Playbooks offering.

The product manages leads, automates admin tasks, and uses data from 27 billion sales interactions to predict who, when, and how to engage with prospective customers to get the best outcome.

If you’re anything like me, you dig through mounds of data, in an attempt to learn more about your prospects. With this tool, you can better understand how leads are interacting with your business and empower your sales team to say the right thing at the right time.

4. Marketo Sales Connect

Are you interested in turning more sales prospects into customers?

Of course, you are. With the help of Marketo Sales Connect, you can equip yourself with the sales tools that you need to reach all of your sales team goals.

One of my favorite features is the ability to create a “pipeline playbook,” complete with all of the data that you and your team need to stay in touch with a contact throughout the sales process.

This feature provides several ways to improve your pipeline, such as:

1. Integrated email and phone activities. With email and phone system integrations, it’s easier than ever for sales professionals to schedule meetings and communicate with other team members.
2. Sales campaigns. Do you have trouble remaining consistent with your approach to prospecting? Marketo allows you to stay in touch with sales campaigns that include email, social media and phone, ensuring that everything and everybody is on the same page.

Also, Marketo offers email, website and document tracking tools. This allows you to track engagement, based on every type of communication including social media platforms.

Not only is this done in real-time, but it provides you with actionable data that will help you make more informed sales decisions.

Last, but certainly not least, this is one of the top tools for sales team collaboration. If you have more than one person working on sales and marketing, you need a tool that keeps everyone on the same page. Marketo makes it simple to share updates with others in real-time.

At first, you may not use all of the tools provided by Marketo. However, as it becomes a bigger part of your sales strategy, you and your sales reps will turn to it more often.

 

5. Yesware

Have you set the goal of selling smarter? Do you even know what this means?

There are tools that are meant to save you time and money. Yesware is one of them.

There are several reasons why I recommend Yesware to entrepreneurs who want to sell smarter, but it all begins with its analytics tools.

You probably have what it takes to collect data, in regards to your prospects, the decision-maker, and the sales cycle, but, do you know what to do next?

This is where Yesware steps in, to make your life easier.

With access to high-level, actionable insights, you’ll never again wonder what you’re supposed to do with the data that you’ve collected. Instead, you can share it with the appropriate team members, to ensure that everyone’s making the right moves.

The only downside of Yesware is that it can be difficult to fully understand its power and functionality until you have first-hand experience. Fortunately, once you get started, there’s no looking back with this sales process tool.

6. Calendly

What process are you using to schedule meetings with prospects?

In the past, the preferred option was email or a phone call. While there are still times when this works, you don’t want to overlook the power of an appointment scheduling tool, such as Calendly.

The nice thing about this tool is that it can be used to schedule anything and everything. From sales calls to sales meetings, from interviews to demos, it has all of the features that you require.

Calendly has several high-level competitors, but this solution remains my favorite, because of its ease of use for a variety of sales reps.

It all starts with setting your availability preferences. This shows others when you’re available to meet.

From there, all that you have to do is to share your personal link with your contacts or the prospective decision-maker.

For example, if you want to give somebody a sales demo, you can send them your link and ask that they select a time that works for them. This goes a long way in avoiding the traditional “back and forth,” often associated with scheduling a meeting.

One last thing worth noting is the team scheduling feature. With this, your team’s availability can be viewed from one page.

In addition to a free 14-day trial, there is a no-cost package that provides basic features.

With no money out of your pocket and a variety of high-level features, you should look into using Calendly. It will save you and your sales reps time in the sales process.

 

7. Zoom

Do you remember the days of meeting with prospects in person to conduct demos?

If you want to leave this experience in the past, at least to a certain degree, you should become familiar with Zoom.

There are many video and web conferencing services to compare, but through my experience Zoom is one of the best digital marketing sales tools.

With more than 461,000+ customers, you know you’ll be in good hands if you rely on Zoom for your remote conferencing needs.

If that’s not enough to convince you, let’s examine some of its many features:

• Ability to host a meeting with or without video, or with screen share only.
• Mobile screen sharing for iPhone and iPad, making it easy to conduct meetings on the go.
• Webinar capabilities.
• Easy to share a meeting with one or more contact.
• Group collaboration.

On this page, Zoom lays out its many cloud video conferencing features, all of which you’ll enjoy. Some of my favorites include:

• HD video and voice
• dynamic voice detection
• full screen and gallery view

Another key feature is the ease with which the other party can join a meeting. Once you create a meeting, it’s as simple as inviting the other person. He or she can then access the event by entering the Meeting ID or Personal Link Name.

The process is simple and the technology is advanced. That’s what makes Zoom a top dog in the video and web conferencing space.

 

8. ClinchPad

Do you find yourself struggling to use your CRM software? Have you turned to a more simplified solution, such as a spreadsheet?

When the sales process is on your mind, the last thing that you need is trouble with your CRM solution.

ClinchPad is an online CRM, built for small teams that crave big results.

Not only is it easier to use than a traditional CRM, but it’s more advanced than a spreadsheet. Lying somewhere in between, many sales professionals find that it has all of the features they need, without overdoing it.

It’s hard to pinpoint one feature as being my favorite, but the Sales Dashboard is on par with the best that the CRM industry has to offer for sales professionals.

With all of the necessary data in one place, you’ll find that the Sales Dashboard feature saves you tons of time, while also helping you to stay up to speed with the sales cycle.

From prospects at the beginning of the cycle to deals that are about to close, everything that you need is right in front of you. And, best yet, you don’t have to jump from screen to screen to stay informed.

You can create a free account to get started. From there, if you like what you see, paid accounts start at $9/month.

 

9. Proposify

What is your current process for creating sales proposals?

Believe it or not, many companies are still using Microsoft Word, or a similar solution, to create proposals.

Even if this has worked for you in the past, you should consider a change. A switch to Proposify, or a similar solution, could do wonders for your close rate.

With this software, you can share beautifully created proposals with prospects in the cloud. In turn, you hope to close more deals in a more time-efficient manner.

Here are some of the many features that I like:

• Access to a variety of professionally designed templates.
• Drag and drop library for ease of management.
• Access to an online preview tool.
• Use of electronic signatures.
• The ability to track everything, knowing exactly where things stand in the sales pipeline.

The last feature is one of my favorites, as I always like to know what’s going on with a proposal.

You’ll gain access to metrics, such as how many proposals you’ve created, how many you’ve closed, and your overall close rate.

If the lack of proposal software is holding your business back, let Proposify step in and be your guide. With a free trial and pricing starting at $25/month, it’s an affordable solution that can help boost your bottom line.

 

10. SalesLoft

Much the same as HubSpot, SalesLoft offers many tools to sales professionals and business owners.

In an overall sense, this tool is built to help you “increase qualified demos & appointments.”

While this sounds good, you need to learn more about its many options, to see what best fits your business.

Some of the features include:

• sales conversations
• deal forecasting
• analytics and reporting
• dialer and messenger
• cadence and automation

Thanks to a large selection of features, SalesLoft is one of the more advanced tools for a sales team on this list. However, even if you’re only going to use one of its products, there’s a good chance that it can do wonders for your sales strategy.

 

Sales Tools FAQ

 

Conclusion

Just as there are many marketing tools that can help you reach your goals, the 10 sales solutions in this blog post will have you on a better path in the months to come.

As you know, the sales process is full of challenges. If you want to achieve more success than your competitors, take advantage of every tool and solution that is available to you.

Do you have experience with any of these sales tools? Would you add any others to the list?

Source: neilpatel.com

25 Tools for Bootstrapped Companies

The good news is there’s plenty of free, freemium, or affordable digital tools you can use instead. These tools are often just as powerful as enterprise-level tools while helping you remain cash flow positive and maximize your runway.

You’ve heard the phrase to pull yourself up by your bootstraps, right? But what do we mean when we talk about bootstrapped tools?

Pulling yourself up by your bootstraps refers to succeed through your own efforts without relying on investments or help from anyone else. (Though the phrase’s meaning has shifted over time.)

Bootstrapped companies are those that grow through the dedication of their founders, rather than relying on cash flow from investors. Basecamp is a bootstrapped company, for instance. Apple isn’t.

Bootstrapped companies must focus relentlessly on sales, cash flow, and profit because they don’t have the luxury of VC investments to fall back on. They need to remain lean and keep costs to a minimum.

As a result, there’s no room in the budget for expensive enterprise tools. Luckily, there are a variety of bootstrapped tools that can help. Today I’m going to share with you some of my favorites.

What Are Bootstrapping Tools?

Before we dive into the tool suggestions, let’s talk about what bootstrapped tools are — and why the distinction matters.

Starting a business, even a bootstrapped one, is expensive. But you can’t build a great SaaS or e-Commerce company without the help of digital tools. Unfortunately, the best tools are often prohibitively expensive for companies on a tight budget.

The good news is there’s plenty of free, freemium, or affordable digital tools you can use instead. These tools are often just as powerful as enterprise-level tools while helping you remain cash flow positive and maximize your runway.

Planning and Project Management Bootstrapping Tools

If you’re serious about growing your startup, you’ll eventually need to put down the pen and paper to-do list and upgrade to a SaaS solution.

Wrike for Bootstrapped Companies

Wrike is a versatile and comprehensive project management tool, perfect for startups and businesses of all sizes. It has all of the features you’d expect from a SaaS project management tool, including Gantt charts, Kanban boards, briefs, and request forms.

Wrike also makes collaboration seamless with shared calendars, file sharing, and team reports time tracking.

Wrike is used by some of the world’s biggest companies, including Google, Airbnb, and Dell. It also integrates with over 400 other SaaS tools and software platforms like Salesforce, WordPress, Hubspot.

You won’t have to worry about the security of your data — enterprise-level security comes standard and everything syncs instantly to the cloud.

Wrike is free forever for up to five users. The professional version costs $9.80 per user per month for up to 15 users. If you need it, the business version costs $24.80 per user per month.

Other Bootstrap Project Management Tools:

Asana offers a robust project management package with features that vary by account level. Their free version includes unlimited tasks per team, projects in the board or list view, unlimited file storage, an activity log, and more.

Trello is a popular project management tool that offers a free basic version. Their free version offers 10 “boards” (project views) per team, unlimited “cards” (tasks), and 10MB per file attachment.

Paymo offers their lowest-cost plan for  $9.95 per user per month. With this plan, you can access features like task views, time tracking, project templates, and recurring tasks.

Microsoft Projects starts from $10 per user per month. It offers grid, board, and timeline view; co-authoring and communication on tasks; and project planning and scheduling.

Bootstrapping Tools to Create a Website

You can’t have a digital business without a website.

Even running an offline, local business can be challenging without a strong web presence. However, you don’t need to spend thousands of dollars on an expensive web design agency. It’s possible to build a website from scratch using an intuitive website builder.

Webflow for Bootstrapped Companies

One option is Webflow, which was labeled “the development platform of the future” by Smashing Magazine. It is a hugely capable website builder that lets anyone create visually stunning websites without a developer or designer’s help.

It comes with CMS and e-commerce capabilities, meaning you can turn the platform to any task or goal and integrates with tons of leading SaaS and web apps. Hosting is also built into the platform, so there’s no need to mess around with a separate hosting company.

It’s not just a platform for startups and solopreneurs, either. Webflow has built some pretty major websites, including Zendesk, Hellosign, and Dell.

You can use Webflow free forever, but you’ll want to play for a plan to get the most out of the platform. The basic plan costs $12 per month, and a CMS version costs $16 per month.

Other Bootstrap Website Builders

• Contact Contact is more well-known for email marketing, they also have a website builder that’s great for bootstrappers. You don’t need any SEO or developer experience to use it. Features include mobile responsive design, logo design, creating easy e-commerce websites so you can sell your products with minimal effort, and more. The Constant Contact website service is $10 per month.
• Squarespace helps customers create sleek and professional website design. You can also integrate some of your favorite SEO tools, have access to data analytics, and get help with your company blog. The cost of your account varies by which services you use. Squarespace offers monthly payments or a lump sum.
• HostGator costs only $3.84 per month for their cheapest package. For this plan, you have access to the website builder, a website hosting service, and 12 months of ownership of your domain name.
• WordPress is one of the most popular website builders. Their cheapest plan is $4 per month and includes free domain hosting for a year, no WordPress ads, and free email support.

SEO Tools for Bootstrappers

You need a strong SEO game, especially if you are a bootstrapped business that can’t afford to spend a lot on Facebook ads or other online advertising forms. But, you don’t need to pay a fortune for the right tools or even hire an SEO agency.

Ubersuggest for Bootstrapped Companies

My SEO tool, Ubersuggest, is perfect for anyone running a bootstrapped company because it’s free. Even better, it gives you all of the insight and advice you need to optimize the heck out of your pages.

You’ll get an overview of your domain and its strengths and weaknesses, a report of the top pages ranking in your niche and how to beat them, keyword suggestions with accurate search volumes, backlink data, content ideas, and so much more.

Even the tool’s premium version is cost-effective, starting from as little as $29 per month.

Other SEO Tools for Bootstrappers

• Moz: The free version of Moz has robust services such as keyword research, a link explorer, and domain analysis. It offers a pro version and a local version.
• Screaming Frog: Screaming frog’s free website crawler alerts you to technical SEO problems like broken links, metadata issues, and discovering exact duplicate content on pages.
• AnswerthePublic: AnswerthePublic is a tool that identifies content topic opportunities based on what people are searching for.

Each tool provides similar data and insight, but you’ll find these slightly more expensive than Ubersuggest. Moz, Ahrefs, and Semrush all start from $99 per month, for instance.

Bootstrapping Tools for Design, Stock Images, and Prototyping

Whether it’s a beautiful header image for your blog, great looking stock photos, or a banner for your new Facebook ad, having access to a designer is invaluable. It is also prohibitively expensive for most bootstrapped companies.

The good news is, you don’t need to outsource design to an agency or hire a full-time designer. Instead, use the following tools to create the designs you need.

ZeBrand for Bootstrapped Companies

While there are many free or cheap design tools out there, very few bring everything you need together in one place like ZeBrand. With ZeBrand, you can create logos, fonts, color palettes, inspiration boards, and whatever else you need.

There’s a massive library of high-quality photographs to use for free, too. The platform even provides Brand Coaches, on-hand experts who will help you create and execute your brand strategy.

The starter version of ZeBrand is available for free. The premium version is significantly more expensive at $399 per quarter, including brand coaching sessions.

Other Design Tools for Bootstrappers

• Canva: Canva is known for its design prowess. The free version has a robust collection of templates for users to choose from. With the paid version, you have access to designers, premium custom templates, premium fonts, and a background remover.
• Dribbble: Cribble’s primary goal is to connect users with graphic designers or creatives. Users are able to hire freelancers directly from their website.
• Crowdspring: In addition to designing logos and web pages, Crowdspring also offers a service that helps users find unique business names.
• Design Pickle: Design Pickle provides graphic design services on demand. Their work quality is great, but you’ll pay for it. Design Pickle is a pricey $499 per month.

Automated Email Software Tools for Bootstrappers

Are you still sending out email campaigns manually? Are new subscribers automatically added to your welcome email flow? Automating your email marketing can save a lot of time, but it can also make your business a heck of a lot more profitable.

Squeezing as much value as possible from your email list is essential if you’re bootstrapping. You don’t need to waste your money on expensive enterprise platforms, however.

HubSpot for Bootstrapped Companies

HubSpot is a freemium marketing automation platform perfect for every business, from a one-person startup to a 300-employee company.

Creating and optimizing automated email campaigns is easy once you get the platform set up — and you’ll be able to do it all by yourself. Personalization is included to easily create specific email marketing waterfalls for different types of users.

You can also A/B test your campaigns to improve open and conversion rates.

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the HubSpot platform, however. You can also build landing pages to capture more email addresses, gate content that already exists on your site, and get a full picture of how every lead came into your CRM.

HubSpot costs just $45 per month for up to 100 contacts.

Other Automated Email Software for Bootstrappers

If you’re not a fan of HubSpot, consider:

• Marketo: Marketo has a wide range of marketing services, one of which is email automation. Marketo’s email solutions include creating campaigns quickly and easily, creating personalized emails, ensuring you’re targeting the right audience and tracking KPIs.
• Salesforce: Salesforce boasts they are the number one email marketing solution. Their product offerings include tailoring your emails for every step of the sales funnel, delivering engaging content to your email subscribers, and using AI tools to improve upon the process.
• Blueshift: One of Blueshift’s product offerings is an email marketing service. They intend to generate emails quickly, send emails that are triggered by user behavior and the sales funnel, and offer predictive segmentation.

Team Communication Tools for Bootstrapped Small Businesses

As your bootstrapped team grows, communication will become more critical. Emails, texts, and phone calls will only take you so far.

It doesn’t matter if your team sits in the same office or works across the globe; you need a SaaS communication tool to ensure you’re all singing from the same hymn sheet.

Here are some of my favorite bootstrapped communication solutions.

Slack for Bootstrapped Companies

It will probably come as no surprise that I highly recommend Slack as a bootstrapped team communication tool. Slack is the perfect combination of email, instant messaging, and voice calls, and it’s all available for just $6.67.

A limited version of the platform is available for small teams to use for free. What’s better than that?

Other Team Communication Tools for Small Businesses

If video conferencing is a more pressing need for your business, you may want to consider:

• Zoom became a household name during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since Zoom is free, friends and families use it to stay connected during the pandemic. Zoom is also useful for businesses. You can use Zoom for team meetings, chats, webinars, conference meetings, a phone system, and a marketplace.
• Microsoft Teams is another popular tool for communications. Its services include chat channels, video meetings, screen sharing, and more. Teams is a good choice if you’re already using Microsoft products.
• Skype was one of the first iterations of communication software. You can use it to chat to your friends via messenger or video chats, as well as make direct calls. Skype has not changed much since the early days, so it might be a great fit if you’re looking for something that’s budget-friendly with basic features.

 

Conclusion

So there you have it, that’s my list of the top bootstrapped tools for your startup.

Whether you want to get on top of your projects, improve your SEO, assess your competitors, or automate your email, there’s a tool that can help.

Which bootstrapped tool will you try first?

The post 25 Tools for Bootstrapped Companies appeared first on Neil Patel.

Source: feedproxy.google.com

12 Marketing Tools We Are Thankful for This Year

At Convince & Convert, we are thankful to have so many awesome marketing tools at our disposal. Let’s dive in now to our list of 12 marketing tools we are thankful for this year.

Back in the early-ish days of marketing technology in 2011, there were about 150 martech solutions available.

But now, there are a seemingly endless number of marketing tools. In fact, according to Scott Brinker’s most recent Marketing Technology Supergraphic, there are around 8,000 martech solutions, up from about 7,000 in 2019. Incredible!

Image courtesy of ChiefMarTech.com

 

At Convince & Convert, we are thankful to have so many awesome marketing tools at our disposal and to work with so many amazing marketing technology companies (check out our content marketing creation services when you have a sec).

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we asked our team to share some of their favorite marketing tools this year. This list is in no way conclusive — if it were, we would be writing a book and not a blog post. A few of the tools are from C&C clients (accessiBe and SharpSpring), most are tools we use daily, and all are tools we love!

Let’s dive in now to our list of 12 marketing tools we are thankful for this year, plus a few additional shoutouts for marketing solutions we love but just didn’t have the bandwidth to cover in this blog post.

 

List of 12 Marketing Tools We Are Thankful for This Year

#1: SparkToro

Audience intelligence platform

“This is a relatively new tool from Rand Fishkin and his associates that is an easy and illuminating way to find circles of influence online. I use it to find possible collaborators, websites to sponsors, podcasts to sponsor, and even search terms and hashtags of interest. It’s a flexible tool that should be part of every project and program.”

 

Jay Baer, Founder, Convince & Convert

#2: Miro

Visual collaboration software

“Miro is my favorite new tool for visualizing content like org charts, content workflows, brainstorming, user stories, whatever. It’s basically an online whiteboard for collaborating visually, which is so helpful now that the entire world is remote.”

Fun Fact: The Miro template library has hundreds of layouts just waiting for you to try them out!

Jenny Magic, Strategist

….and Anna Hrach loves Miro too!

“I’m with Jenny on this, and she was the one that brought it to my attention. I love Miro for visualizing information and content and remote/virtual collaboration. Plus, they have a ton of existing templates (over 150+) to work from that are all easily customizable.

The free version of Miro is also fantastic, so it’s easy to try out and see if the tool is a good fit for any organization. Miro also has over 70+ integrations, including Slack and Google Drive, so it fits into a lot of existing virtual workflows.”

Anna Hrach, Strategist

#3: accessiBe

Automated web accessibility

“Over my twenty-year career in digital, I have learned A LOT from web development teams and website requirement documents. What I love about the approach accessiBe has developed is there is virtually ZERO code changes needed to ensure your site is not only ADA compliant but also a positive experience for visitors.

The dashboard is simple to configure, allows for your branding to be matched, and adjusts to the needs of each site visitor without sweeping code changes. At an affordable price, this tool is a win for site visitors, a win for site developers, and a win for marketers. The legal team will likely find it a win as well!”

Fun Fact: accessiBe estimates that “the disabled population in almost every society is about 20% of the residents.” This has a huge impact on the function and services your website can (and should) be offering the entirety of your audience.

In addition, check out our recent technology tour of accessiBe, with special guest Rafi Glantz.

Kelly Santina, Director of Operations

#4: RivalIQ

Social media analytics

“It’s vital to be able to monitor your social media performance and compare it to your peers or competitors, so you can continue to learn, iterate, and improve performance. RivalIQ is one of our go-to tools to benchmark our clients’ competitors on social media.

Not only can we monitor growth rate, breakout posts, and look for boosted posts, we can also use RivalIQ’s ability to tag content to analyze the best performing types of content by medium and content.

RivalIQ also makes it easy to bring data from Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other platforms into one place to create attractive, easy to use dashboards to share with clients and internal teams.”

Fun Fact: Highly data-driven organizations are 3X more likely to report significant improvements in decision-making, according to PwC research.

Side note: Our founder Jay Baer is an investor in RivalIQ, but our team would still use the solution, even if he weren’t.

Zontee Hou, Director of Strategy

#5: ScreamingFrog

SEO spider tool and crawler software

“Despite the odd name, this SEO spider is a powerful and flexible site crawler, able to crawl both small and very large websites efficiently while allowing the user to analyze the results in real-time. It gathers key onsite data to allow SEOs to make informed assessments, both on your own internal site or a competitors’ site.

This is primarily used to identify SEO best-practices and shortcomings (there are always more than one would think), but also helps in content identification that may be difficult to find via main navigation options.

They offer a free version (limited to 500 URLs) and a paid license option.”

Anthony Helmstetter, Strategist

#6: Airtable

Cloud collaboration

‘” As the resident Airtable queen at C&C, I have both convinced and converted the consulting team of the power of Airtable. A cloud-based DIY software solution uses tools we’re familiar with, like databases, spreadsheet grids, and calendars, to create unique ways to get work done.

Airtable offers flexibility and an ecosystem for pulling together any project. In the past year, Airtable has super-powered the product with pro-level automation, apps, collaboration, and integrations.

At C&C, we use Airtable for a range of client and internal tasks and project management. My favorite use cases bring together audience journey maps, content gap analysis, and content marketing production into a single (massive) tool, as we did for clients like Oregon State Ecampus.

Tracking the team submissions for our ‘People We Love’ series is emotionally rewarding and brings our team closer together.

To get started, check out the numerous base templates Airtable gives away for free. Then go deeper into the Universe to see how others use this powerful tool to manage their professional and personal lives.”

Fun Fact: Over 15 million bases have been created on Airtable. And their content is also awesome.

Lauren Teague, Strategist

#7: SharpSpring

Marketing automation and CRM

“When I joined Convince & Convert, we were using a simple email solution to deploy blast-style emails. No lead scoring. No drip campaigns. No automation. No A/B testing.

As we ramped up our efforts, we quickly reached the limits of our previous solution (we were actually A/B testing emails by uploading our email list to Google Sheets and random sorting—not good!), we evaluated a few marketing automation solutions and finally selected SharpSpring.

Like all marketing technology transitions, there were a few bumps along the way, but within a few months, we got into a good rhythm and really ramped up our efforts.

The automation is really easy to set up, and unlike most of the solutions we evaluated, SharpSpring has a built-in CRM, which was key for us. We are a lean sales & marketing team, so we don’t have the resources to manage a standalone CRM.

We’re now 18 months into our initial setup, and we continue to grow and optimize our efforts. Plus, the support team is only an email, phone call, or chat away. Big fans!”

Megan Leap, Director of Content

#8: SEMrush

SEO and content marketing

“The other tool I love geeking out in is SEMrush. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing our rankings improve for key terms! The Keyword Magic Tool is ridiculously useful — especially the ‘Questions’ tab. I get a ton of inspiration for our content in SEMrush, and it’s helped us achieve big gains in our SEO.”

– Megan Leap

#9: Litmus

Email testing & analysis

“I first was introduced to Litmus over 12 years ago when the web developer I worked with used it to test and check the rendering of HTML on emails. Since then, I’ve signed up for it in every single digital marketing position I’ve had.

It’s easy to sell a solution to your boss when it makes your job easier, your marketing more effective and keeps your brand on-point. I even used it for browser testing, but Litmus has since retired that feature in order to focus on email. If you’re sending emails, you need to make sure they render correctly on all browsers and in all email clients.”

– Megan Leap

#10: AgoraPulse

Social media management

“AgoraPulse is our go-to tool for social listening and engagement. We use this tool daily to monitor brand/name mentions and to engage with our community. We use the browser-based dashboard during normal business hours and the mobile app when on the go.

Three standout features of AgoraPulse are its ability to gather comments and activity on Facebook and Instagram ads, its ability to monitor YouTube comments, and its insights on Instagram Stories.”

Christin Kardos, Community Manager

#11: CoSchedule

Content marketing management

“I probably use CoSchedule more than anyone on our team. We use it for planning social media content, sponsored content, podcasts, and more. There’s no better way to manage and plan multiple types of content across business units and virtual teams (both internal and external). I love it. It keeps me sane.”

Side note: Our founder, Jay Baer, is an investor in CoSchedule, but we’d still use it regardless.

– Christin Kardos, Community Manager

#12: BuzzSumo

“BuzzSumo offers a great place to start when thinking about content planning. It offers effective ways to stay on the pulse of what is trending in traditional media and in social. It also provides a great place to identify influencers and get new ideas for different topics within your planned content pillars.”

Mary Nice, Strategist

Notable Mentions

This wouldn’t be a “marketing tools we are thankful for” post without a few other shout outs. In no particular order, here are a few more martech solutions we love that you should check out too:

• Ceralytics (content intelligence platform)
• NetLine (B2B content syndication)
• Oracle Marketing Cloud (integrated digital marketing solutions)
• Cisco WebEx (video conferencing and online meetings)
• Podium (messaging tools for local business)
• Calabrio (workforce optimization)
• Cision (cloud-based communications/PR)

The post 12 Marketing Tools We Are Thankful for This Year appeared first on Content Marketing Consulting and Social Media Strategy.

Source: convinceandconvert.com

10 Free Google Tools All Content Marketers Should Use

It doesn’t matter if you’re a content marketing beginner or have many years of experience under your belt, this post could change your approach.

If you consider yourself a content marketing professional, there’s a good chance you already use Google tools that will make your life easier.

But regardless of how much experience you have and the results you’ve achieved in the past, you know there are always new ways to boost your performance.

Social media, just the right keyword tool, Google’s Keyword Planner, honing your search term — these things can all have a big impact on your volume and your success as a content marketing pro.

Many people look at Google and see nothing more than a search engine. While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to see your website at the top of the search engine giant’s results, you can’t ignore the process for reaching this goal.

When it comes to content marketing, the tools you use, and the strategies you employ will greatly impact the end result.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a content marketing beginner or have many years of experience under your belt, this post could change your approach.

Below, I’ll discuss 10 free Google tools that all content marketers should use.

You may not use all of these tools, and some might not suit your marketing strategy. Even so, I’m confident that you’ll find one or two that can alter your approach for the better.

 

10 Free Google Tools that All Content Marketers Should Use

1. Google AdWords: Keyword Planner

Are you seeking a tool that helps you find and target the best keywords for your business?

While there are many to choose from, the Google Keyword Planner remains one of the best ways to conduct keyword research.

There’s a lot to like about this free tool, including the fact that it’s extremely simple to use.

As a content marketer, you should always be searching for keywords that can give your website or a particular blog post a boost.

My top suggestion for using this keyword tool is simple: experiment, experiment, and then experiment some more.

The more searches you run, the more you’ll understand how the tool works. Also, multiple searches give you a better idea of which keywords the best suit your site.

For example, “content marketing” may be your primary keyword. In a perfect world, you’d rank at the top of Google for this term.

However, you know that this will be difficult. You also know that there are long-tail terms that can increase your search results.

This tool helps you uncover these terms. Check out this screenshot:

With this in mind, you now have a better idea of what to do next. Maybe you find that “b2b content marketing” is a keyword that makes sense for a future blog post.

At that point, you can plug the term, in as your primary keyword, to dig up even more long-tail ideas.

Even though Google Keyword Planner appears to be nothing more than a basic tool, it does everything right for content marketers who want to uncover keywords that can improve the bottom line: the search result it delivers.

Pro tip: If you want more information, try a dedicated keyword planner like my tool Ubersuggest.

2. Google Analytics

What goals have you set for your content marketing strategy?

If you don’t know the answer to this question, now’s the time to take a step back and reassess your situation.

If you’ve already set a few goals, there’s a good chance that many of them are based on search engine results and related statistics. If so, you need to become familiar with the inner workings of Google Analytics.

No two people use Google Analytics in the same manner. But, there are several things to keep in mind if you’re a content marketing professional.

To start, you can use this tool to get an instant snapshot of your performance over a particular period of time.

This alone will give you a clear idea of whether or not you’re on track to achieving your goals.

From here, you have the ability to dig deeper for more data.

As you click-through to each section, you’ll find yourself digging deeper and deeper. For example, I always enjoy checking out my top pages for a particular time period.

This gives me a clear idea of what’s working and what isn’t, in regards to topic selection, the type of content that I’m providing, and whether readers are sticking around to see what I have to say.

The more you use Google Analytics, the easier it is to focus your time on the data that has the biggest impact on your site.

3. Google Search Console

Similar in many ways to Google Analytics, the time you spend with this free tool is never a waste.

There’s so much to learn from the Google Search Console. You could soon find yourself spending hours combing through data.

In addition to reviewing your site’s overall health, there are several other things you can do with this tool.

My favorites are all listed under the Search Traffic drop-down:

For example, Search Analytics allows you to quickly analyze your performance on Google Search.

If you’ve ever wondered how your keywords are performing, you can click the Position box to learn more. This will show you the average position for all of the keywords that appear in Google Search.

Content marketers should become familiar with everything the Google Search Console can do for them. Even if you only use it to track a few key metrics, it’s well worth it in the long run.

4. Google Trends

Do you find it difficult to continually generate fresh ideas for your blog and other content marketing opportunities?

There’s no denying the fact that the search engine giant’s Keyword Planner provides hundreds of keywords related to your business and industry. Even so, this isn’t always good enough, when it comes to creating compelling content. In other words? You need another way to perform keyword research.

This is why I make it a habit of checking Google Trends when I’m brainstorming new blog ideas.

With this tool, you can explore any topic to see what’s trending. You can also view “stories trending now,” to see if there’s anything that matches your industry and the approach that you want to take.

For example, the upcoming World Cup is sure to be a hot topic.

Is there a way to tie this into your blog or other content marketing efforts?

If you write about sports, you know there’ll be plenty of information to keep you busy. But, even if you don’t, you can use Google Trends to help you get creative.

Sticking with the example above, maybe you could write a blog post entitled: “How the World Cup is Using Marketing to Drive Views.”

With this title, you’re providing your audience with targeted information, while harnessing the power of a trending topic. It’s the best of both worlds.

You don’t need any experience or much time to use this tool. Simply type in your topic and review what Google spits out. From there, let your creative juices point you in the right direction.

5. Google Sheets

Content marketers need a system for recording and tracking data. Furthermore, there may be times when you want to share this information with other team members.

I’ve found Google Sheets to be one of the simplest and most efficient ways to record data, track changes, and collaborate with others.

Here’s an example. I’m often asked about the best way to track email outreach campaigns. While there are many software tools for this, some of which provide a high level of features, some people don’t want to part with the money.

While Google Sheets may not offer the exact same functionality as these tools, it’s still one of the best ways to remain organized. It still has plenty of advanced features, such as the ability to create pivot tables and sort data.

As long as you’re on-board with the idea of regularly updating your spreadsheet, it’s powerful enough to have a positive impact on your content marketing efforts.

Pro tip: you can also use Google Sheets to create a to-do list, which is something most content marketers heavily rely on. Even with a basic list, you’ll always have a clear idea of what you need to accomplish.

6. Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a Google tool that makes it easy to monitor the web for brand mentions, interesting new content, and news. Then, Google sends you an email once a day or once a week — your preference — with a notification if keywords you are interested in are mentioned.

In short, Google Alerts makes it easier to stay on top of news and new content without spending hours a day on social media.

For example, I could set a Google Alert for my name:

As a content marketer, I suggest setting alerts for:

Your brand name Your personal name Key industry terms Major competitors

These alerts will help you see new trends fast and might even give you some great content to share on your social media channels.

7. Gmail

A big part of content marketing is getting in touch and staying in touch with a variety of contacts.

There will be times when you spend hours sharing a new blog post with influencers in your space. Since email is one of the best ways of doing so, you better be comfortable with the application you’re using.

Gmail has long been my favorite email client, thanks in large part to the built-in functionality. That being said, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

I use a variety of plugins to ensure that my Gmail account does exactly what I need. For example, WiseStamp helps me to create a custom signature. Along with this, I use FollowUp.cc, so that I never forget to follow-up on an important email related to my content marketing efforts.

You don’t have to use Gmail as your email provider, but I strongly suggest giving it a second look, if you’re open to making a change.

With so many plugins to choose from, you should be able to customize your inbox to meet your every need as a content marketer. This alone can save you quite a bit of time and money.

Pro tip: Even if you prefer another email provider for daily communication with coworkers and clients, you can still use a Gmail account to carry out many aspects of your content marketing strategy.

8. Google My Business

For some companies, GMB isn’t a big deal. For others, such as local businesses, this is not something you don’t want to overlook.

With Google My Business, you can easily get a free business listing on Google. Better yet, this allows you to provide a variety of information, including, but not limited to, your phone number, address, and business category.

The benefits of using Google My Business include:

• The opportunity to get your business in front of customers interested in what you have to offer.
• People can learn more about your company, based on the information that you provide.
• Use images to show how your company is unique.
• Show off customer reviews.

Remember, there is more to content marketing than producing high quality blog posts.

Think about the word “content” for a second. Anything you write about your company and/or anything you can share with others can be a big part of your content marketing plan.

Since Google My Business listings are front and center in the search results, you probably want to use this as part of your content marketing strategy.

9. Google Docs

If you stay current with my blog, you know I do my best to publish new posts as often as possible.

There’s a lot that goes into creating high-quality blog posts, so I’m always seeking new ways to improve my efficiency.

While I’ve used many tools over the years, to improve efficiency, Google Docs remains one of my favorites. Not only is it free, but it’s extremely simple to use. On top of this, there are tons of features and plugins to experiment with.

Here are some of the things that Google Docs as I work through the creation of a blog post:

• Checks for spelling errors.
• Provides an accurate word count.
• Allows me to easily insert screenshots.
• Makes it simple to share the document with the rest of my team, such as my editor.

As you know, a big part of content marketing is content creation. If you’re doing a lot of writing, make sure you’re 100% comfortable with the tool that you’re using.

There are other options out there, such a Microsoft Word, but Google Docs has been my top choice for many years.

10. Google Calendar

How do you organize your day, as it relates to content marketing? What steps do you take to ensure that you’re maximizing the use of your time?

Google Calendar is one of the top organization tools among marketing professionals. It doesn’t have all of the features included in some of the paid tools, but it provides more than enough to keep you on track at all times.

Here are some of the ways that I like to use this free tool:

• Create events for important marketing tasks.
• Share my availability with team members.
• Better understand “open spots” in my schedule, as this allows me to make the most of each day.

I don’t use Google Calendar as often as some of the other tools on this list, but it has definitely improved the way I organize my day.

As somebody who understands the demands placed on a marketing professional, I suggest looking into what Google Calendar offers. It may improve the way that you operate.

Conclusion

With only 42 percent of B2B marketers claiming they have a sophisticated content marketing strategy, it goes without saying that there’s always room for improvement, from keyword research that can boost your search volume to using long-tail keywords in your blog posts.

Personally, I enjoy every tool developed by Google. Some are more effective and powerful than others, but each one deserves a second look.

Have you used any of these free Google tools to improve your content marketing efforts? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

The post 10 Free Google Tools All Content Marketers Should Use appeared first on Neil Patel.

Source: feedproxy.google.com