There are millions of online businesses in the world, with more being created every day.

With numbers like that, it’s very important for you to look for a competitive edge. In this article, we’re going to take a look at 7 marketing tools that will give you a leg up on your competition when starting your online business.

Of course, there’s no way to know what your future holds, but by using the strategies outlined below, you can do your best to ensure that you’re not among the tons of people who try and fail to make money online.

I don’t need to convince you that digital marketing is important for your business – you already know that.

But are you implementing enough of the different aspects of it, or are you focusing on just the one component, like content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO)?

We are in a totally new era, and the days where you could simply post to your blog and update your social pages a couple of times a week and still succeed are long gone.

You simply cannot afford to ignore other elements of digital marketing if you hope to survive online.

You need to have a comprehensive online marketing strategy in place that makes use of as many channels as possible and leverages the media marketing advancements available to us today.

Use the marketing tools listed below to give you a competitive edge in the various areas of your business’s digital marketing campaign.

From simplifying your social and email marketing to effective project management, these tools will be invaluable to you when starting and growing your online business.

1. MailChimp

Email marketing is used by the vast majority of B2B and B2C companies for a reason.

It has an impressive ROI of $44 for every dollar you spend. That’s something that no other marketing channel has managed to do in the history of digital marketing.

Setting up your email marketing campaign is not something you want to wait on. It’s important that you get right on it as soon as you start your business. MailChimp is a free email marketing service that has quickly grown to become one of the most popular in the world thanks to their outstanding features.

Of course, there are many alternatives, but this one remains the most popular because they have a long history dating back to before most businesses were even using email marketing.

They also have stellar self-service support options to help you find answers to any question quickly and easily.

Furthermore, they have a free plan for anyone with fewer than 2,000 email subscribers and sends out less than 12,000 emails per month, which makes it ideal for those who are just getting started building their email lists.

2. HubSpot

I’m guessing almost every online marketer has heard of this company by now. They are among the top players in the field of online marketing, sales, and customer relationship management (CRM) software.

For this post, we’ll focus on their marketing solutions.

They have all-in-one marketing software that you can use for the entire process from attracting new visitors to converting them into loyal customers, and everything else in between.

They bring your complete marketing funnel together in an efficient way.

As a marketer, you know how vital it is for your sales funnel to always be in great working order, and this software gives you access to the right marketing tools to help you with the following:

• Landing Pages
• SEO
• Website
• Social Media
• Lead Management
• Calls to Action
• Marketing Automation
• Analytics
• Email
• Mobile, and more!

With Hubspot’s all-in-one online marketing software, there’s truly no stone that’s left unturned.

And that is why it’s a top choice to consider when starting a business – particularly if you’re not very well versed in all things digital marketing. You’ll have everything you need in one place and you won’t need to pull yourself in so many different directions.

3. Trello

If you’re working with an online marketing team, or if you outsource some of your blogging, SEO, or marketing tasks on a regular basis, this is going to be an invaluable organization tool that helps you manage projects so you and other members of your team can always be on the same page.

While this may not sound so important to some, this practice can save you a lot of time and frustration when working with other people on projects.

You’ll be able to know what they are doing, and how far along they are on their tasks at a glance.

In the past, the best way to collaborate with your team was through email, but since the creation of programs like Trello, you no longer have to deal with delays, confusion, and frustration caused by missed messages.

You can use Trello to share any and everything related to your business’s online marketing strategy with your fellow team members.

It only takes a few minutes to get set up, and you can quickly invite everyone who is involved in your project and they’ll be able to jump into action without delay.

Although Trello is not the only tool of its nature available, it’s certainly one of the best for collaborating on marketing tasks.

4. Hootsuite

Regardless of a business’s age, industry, or size, social media plays a huge part in its success.

If you want to thrive in today’s digital world, this is something you absolutely cannot ignore. But social media can be a huge drain on your time and energy unless you have the right tools for helping you manage it.

One such tool is Hootsuite.

It allows you to schedule your posts on social media in advance, which saves you tons of time and effort. You’ll find loads of exciting features that you can leverage as you launch your online business, including those that assist you with engagement.

For instance, you can identify influencers to target in your marketing, and you can identify potential leads for your business.

Hootsuite will also provide you with features that allow you to reply to mentions and comments using the dashboard. This means that you don’t have to visit each and every individual social media platform to get this done.

You can also take advantage of some of their pre-written responses to save even more time.

Hootsuite takes all the hassle out of social media and allows you to schedule and manage profiles on more than 30 social media platforms.

If you’re an online business owner who does their own social media marketing, can you try to imagine what your day would be like if you had to manage 30 platforms by hand and without having a central dashboard to assist you?

Even the most experienced entrepreneurs would be frustrated – let alone a novice marketer! Use Hootsuite as the marketing manager for all your social media activities and you’ll save yourself a lot of pain.

5. Google Analytics

This is one of my favorite tools when it comes to digital marketing.

The wealth of useful information you can get from this free tool from Google is unparalleled. You need to make this tool a part of your online marketing strategy from the start.

It takes only a few minutes to add the Analytics code to your website, giving you the ability to track each and every action users take on your site.

Although Google Analytics is considered by many to be a mere traffic tool, it can actually impact your entire marketing strategy in a huge way – if you know what you are doing.

For instance, of the best things about this tool is its ability to show you where your web traffic is coming from.

Say you realize that a certain social media campaign you’re running is driving lots of traffic to your site. With this information, you can now adjust your future digital marketing strategy to attempt to achieve the same results.

Or, maybe you discover that a specific set of keywords are bringing tons of organic traffic your way.

In a similar manner, you can now focus more of your attention on those keywords, and ensure that you keep them in mind when creating content down the road.

This is just a teensy tiny bit of what you can do with the data you get from Google Analytics, and this tool is one that you definitely shouldn’t ignore. Install it on your site as early as possible so that you can start your online marketing on the right foot.

6. BuzzSumo

This is a tool that I’ve talked about many (many) times in the past.

It’s a big deal for those who want to learn more about the market they’re aiming to capture. Knowing more about your target audience and your competition plays a big role in the level of your business’s success.

When starting a business, you obviously need to know some things about your industry and your primary competitors. But after you’ve been at it for a while, there’s some additional information that you can leverage to grow and scale your business even faster.

BuzzSumo helps you better understand your competitors. It also allows you to discover which type of content works best with your audience and the search engines.

They give you the complete set of tools so you don’t need to search for anything else to complete your research.

Each search you conduct on BuzzSumo gives you all the data you need, as well as additional high-level information that will help you make better-informed choices for moving your business forward.

For instance, when creating blog content, you don’t have to guess what type of content performs best in your industry or niche.

BuzzSumo will answer this question for you with 100% accuracy so you know exactly what to strive for in order to achieve that level of success.

7. Website Auditor

I saved the best for last.

If you’re anything like the rest of us, it’s likely that you sometimes find yourself wondering what’s working on your site and what isn’t. Well, this tool allows you to know for sure. You can use Website Auditor to make website changes and generate better results.

You don’t even need any advanced tech skills to get started. The tool guides you step by step in making dozens of little-known SEO tweaks that ensure that your site is working perfectly as far as the search engines and your visitors are concerned.

This is a powerful tool that lets you implement SEO tactics on your website that were previously done only by the gurus. If you want massive rank-boosting opportunities, this is how you find them.

Website Auditor does the following for you:

• It makes your entire website system perform seamlessly
• It boosts your website’s indexation by building Google XML Sitemaps
• It creates robots.txt files and manages them
• It optimizes each and every page on your website for search
• It spots the pages that are visited the most on your website
• It notifies you of broken links, page-loading issues, etc.
• And much more!

This is a tool that helps you understand what both the search engines and your visitors want from your website so you can maximize your rankings and your sales.

You may not know you need this tool, but after you use it for the first time, you’ll wonder how you got along without it.

In Conclusion

As an online marketer, the vast majority of your time is devoted to various digital marketing activities. Having a sound strategy in place is great, but you also need the right tools to help you execute it effectively.

The tools listed above will help you streamline your day to day management of your website and all other channels involved in your overall strategy, such as social media, email marketing, search engine optimization, and so on.

This will help you free up more of your time to focus on bigger things, such as growing your business.

Feel free to post your comment below.  An email address is required but it will not be shared with anyone, put on any list, or used for any kind of marketing, just to alert you if there are any replies. Thanks and happy hunting!

PlanetBizOp.com

->Steven

Updated: Originally published March 25th 2019