The marketing industry is evolving, and technology has played a big part in revolutionizing marketing functions. We are in an age where marketing techniques are being continually shaped and reshaped by new ideas, trends, concepts, strategies, and best practices.
In 2019, the MarTech revenue stood over 121 billion dollars worldwide, which tells that several businesses across the globe benefitted from marketing technologies.
The good news is that everyone, despite their technical knowledge and budget, can benefit from MarTech – you too. This article lists some must-have MarTech tools available in the market for streamlining your marketing processes.
Table of Contents
What is MarTech?
Marketing technology, also known as MarTech, describes a range of software and tools that harness technology to help marketers meet their marketing goals and perform their work efficiently. These tools and software simplify campaigns, enable better content workflows, and automate tasks, making marketing activities easier and more efficient. When a marketing team utilizes a group of marketing technologies, it’s known as their marketing technology stack.
Must have Marketing Tools for Businesses
Whether you’re an experienced marketer or have just started your marketing activities, keeping on top of the latest technologies and tools available can help you gain a competitive edge. Below are some must-have MarTech tools to help you stay on top of the game:
1. Website Analytics
Every business that has a website can learn a lot about their website visitors and their website’s performance with the help of website analytics. With the help of actual reports and analytics, they provide valuable information about your website visitor’s demographics, their behavior on your website, how they landed on your website, total conversions, and your most popular content.
Google Analytics, offered by Google, is a free web analytics tool to measure your digital marketing effectiveness. For example, in the below image, Google Analytics shows all of the pages on your site that people have viewed over a certain period of time. Such types of reports help determine what type of content people are more interested in.
There are many other tools that you can use besides Google Analytics, such as – MonsterInsights, which is a Google Analytics WordPress plugin that helps you obtain snapshots of website analytics inside your content management system (CMS). Available in the free and premium versions, MonsterInsights can help you improve your site’s overall experience. The image below is a snapshot from MonsterInsights giving information about site users’ locations, ages, and interest areas.
Source: monsterinsights.com
2. Content Management System (CMS)
This software application for producing and managing your website can help you keep track of your website with ease. Even an organization without a lot of formal technical knowledge can easily manage its digital presence using a Content Management System.
There are many open-source CMS available that can be modified by anyone to create their own functionality. The below image compares some of the most popular open-source Content Management Systems based on their ease of use, beginner friendliness, operating systems, plugin or extensions, and eCommerce feature.
Source: TemplateToaster
3. Customer Relationship Management
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is used by businesses to gain insight into their customers’ and prospects’ behaviors and their interactions with their brand so that customers can be served in the best possible way.
When it comes to CRM, there are several choices available. Your specific needs and budget should guide you when choosing an ideal CRM for your business. Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, and Oracle are some good options available, with several unique features.
The image below offers a comparison between the different free and open-source CRM options you can use for your business.
Source: goodfirms.co
4. Marketing Automation Tools
Marketing automation tools consist of software that allows businesses to automate repetitive marketing tasks designed to save marketers’ time and efforts and boost marketing processes’ efficiency. Such platforms use a combination of tools to assist marketers with tasks, such as – executing email marketing, improving personalization, social media publishing, and a lot more.
What Can Marketing Automation Platforms Help You Do?
With 77% of marketers witnessing an increase in conversions, marketing automation is an area you should definitely explore.
Each platform is different, allowing you to achieve different benefits, such as:
- Email Automation: As per statistics, automated emails generate a CTR of 39%. This tells us that if your business is not using email automation, you are missing out on a big advantage. Using email automation, you can send action or time-triggered emails to your email recipients with relevant information.
- Social Media Publishing: Social media publishing tools enable marketers to schedule posts in advance and track follower behavior, respond to comments, and manage their social media ads.
- Personalization: The marketing automation tools use artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver the most relevant content, offers, or recommendations to the visitors. Many marketing automation platforms also have a CRM component. The below image offers a comparison of some of the leading marketing automation platforms so that you can pick the best as per your marketing needs.
Content Marketing Software:
Content marketing is one of the most critical elements of any marketing activity. No matter what marketing strategy you use, it will always involve content. So how do you ensure your content is reaching the right audience and having the right impact? By using content marketing. Content marketing helps businesses generate 3 times more leads than outbound marketing. While every business should do content marketing, the challenge comes when businesses have to organize all aspects of content marketing, such as blog posting, article posting, SEO, digital campaigns, email marketing, etc. A content marketing software takes the burden off marketers’ shoulders by organizing all the aspects of content marketing and planning, implementing, and measuring content marketing campaigns’ success.
Some good tools for content marketing are – SEMrush, Buzzsumo, Kred, and Ahrefs.com
Every business has its own unique content marketing needs. Here are some tips you can use to choose content marketing software for your business.
- Make sure they are easy to use and simple.
- They should be able to integrate into your existing infrastructure effortlessly.
- The interface should be easy.
- Don’t choose a tool based on what your competitor has; use a tool that helps you achieve your content marketing goals.
Conclusion:
We are in an age where the number of choices marketers have regarding how they do their job is almost endless. The marketing space is constantly expanding and reshaped by new concepts, trends, ideas, strategies, and best practices. The result is a massive swamp of marketing technologies that can leave you confused. The trick is to take a step back and ask yourself what problem are you trying to solve with the technology? Asking this question will help you plan a better marketing technology stack and achieve your marketing goals easily and efficiently.
