Small Business Marketing Tools Guide

Digital Marketing
Small Business Marketing Tools Guide
Article by Bisera Stankovska
Last Updated: March 24, 2023

Digital marketing evens the ground for most small and mid-level companies. Brands no longer need millions to highlight their product in the market, lightening the marketing burden for low-capital and -resource firms. Since digital marketing offers a high ROI, whether outsourced or done in-house, it cannot be compromised.

Small business marketing tools perform diverse functions such as keyword research, brand monitoring, email automation, and more. They offer paid, free, freemium versions with limited features, with options for free trials. More importantly, they can be used not only by small business SEO agencies or marketing firms but also by anyone who needs them to improve online marketing efforts.

Opting for a particular tool will be based on the brand’s goals and budget.

Here are some of the best marketing tools for small businesses.

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  1. Google Analytics
  2. HubSpot
  3. Zoho
  4. Trello
  5. Ahrefs
  6. MailChimp
  7. Slack
  8. Hootsuite
  9. BuzzSumo
  10. Canva
  11. Yoast
  12. KWFinder

1. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is completely free software that provides insights and an overview of website traffic and engagement. It also helps track and analyze customer data.

What sets it apart from other small business marketing tools is its being highly customizable. One of its best integrations is Google Search Console, also a free digital marketing tool. It optimizes the website and helps identify problems.

Google Analytics can help you with:

  • The number of website visitors (sort by day, week, month, or any chosen time)
  • PPC ads (pay-per-click)
  • Source of the website visitors (can be organic search, referrals, social, direct, or ads)
  • Keywords used to find the website
  • Users’ interests and demographics
  • The time spent on the website and the pages visited
  • These insights are helpful for website optimization and highlight the areas to focus on.

2. HubSpot

Handling multiple campaigns on marketing channels can be a huge challenge.

You need to track the results and see what works and what should improve in future campaigns. This includes marketing, sales, and customer service tools to improve multiple business dimensions.

HubSpot offers solutions to these challenges by providing a one-stop marketing tool that =brings multiple marketing channels together.

Besides inbound marketing and lead generation solutions, HubSpot also offers a CRM tool. It includes free and paid sales hubs, customer service hubs, content management, and learning resources.

It offers optimized templates for landing pages along with other features such as user action events and live chats. These features can amplify engagement and conversion rates.

Additional features include:

  • Optimized Landing Pages
  • Content Optimizations Tools
  • Email Templates
  • Lead Capture Forms
  • Lead Management
  • Marketing Automation
  • Social Media Management
  • Analytics Reports
  • Schedule Sales Meetings
  • Live Chats with Visitors

While the full version is expensive, small businesses or startups can begin with a free or basic package. However, overall content management is only available through a paid platform.

This tool gets much more sophisticated with starter, professional, and enterprise tiers.

3. Zoho

The all-in-one marketing tool offers a variety of solutions, including sales and legal management.

Zoho’s integrations include Canva, Facebook LinkedIn lead ads, and Zoho CRM for marketing automation. Further, brands can get an overview of their marketing campaigns with Zoho Campaigns, Zoho SalesIQ, Zoho Social, and Zoho marketing hub.

The tool encapsulates productivity tools, customer experience monitoring, human resources, reporting and analysis. Other features include creating landing pages, reporting capabilities, capture and manage contacts, and build automated marketing campaigns.

Its pricing differs depending on the product. However, Zoho Campaigns have a free version that allows you to send emails for up to 500 contacts.

4. Trello

Trello is a brainstorming and project management platform largely built around Kanban boards. It helps create a digital marketing plan and editorial calendars and is ideal for visual thinking aspects.

It helps individuals and teams collaborate and share ideas effortlessly through functions like notecards for article topics or marketing campaigns. These cards let users take notes, write instructions, update project status and assign tasks to people.

5. Ahrefs

Ahrefs helps brands rank higher on search engines by providing insights into their customers, competitors and the industry. This marketing tool for small business can identify millions of keywords and topics, ranking difficulties, and traffic potential.

It can help enhance performance and identify gaps through rank tracking and website audits. Ahrefs also lets you check keyword rankings on desktop and mobile.

Its most popular tools include:

  • Site Audit
  • Keywords Explorer
  • Rank Tracker
  • Content Explorer
  • Backlink Checker
  • Alerts
  • Site Explorer

6. MailChimp

The number of email users worldwide is expected to be 4.6 billion in 2022. It makes emails a rewarding way to reach audiences. MailChimp helps brands communicate with their customers, clients, stakeholders and other parties effectively.

Regardless of the business size, this software works well for a simple digital marketing tool or an advanced solution. Its best features include brand emails, building landing pages, designing digital ads, and more. MailChimp also has over 250 app integrations, which unlock additional features.

Other MailChimp features include:

  • Email Capture
  • Email Automation and Scheduling
  • Engagement Data
  • Segmentation and Personalization
  • Website Traffic Tracking
  • Drip Campaign Design
  • Widespread Software Integrations
  • Audience Insights
  • Predictive Insights
  • CRM Tools

The pricing plans may vary. Businesses may choose from monthly billing or credit depending on the use.

Its basic service is free for businesses that have less than 2,000 subscribers.

7. Slack

79% of small businesses use digital tools to communicate with suppliers and customers and this is where Slack can help.

Slack is a team collaboration software that helps with easy communication for cross-platform teams. It features easy data sharing options and message search options, making it more efficient than emails. Such transparency may even help wave off unnecessary meetings.

Communications on Slack run on #channels, so individual or specific team conversations remain uninterrupted and segregated.

Slack can also integrate project and office management functions, productivity, sales, design, and developer tools. This makes it easier for marketers to manage every marketing aspect.

8. Hootsuite

Successful marketing calls for being proactive in the social media space. However, doing it manually can be tough for a small business.

Hootsuite lets you handle social media activities more easily with its post-scheduling tool, analytics and monitoring features. It also helps manage time, resources, and operations effectively which can considerably streamline workflows and inefficiencies. Hootsuite also offers advanced reporting solutions to ensure that social media campaigns are working effectively. You can also track brand mentions and manage responses on a single dashboard.

Its integrations include Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, LiveChat, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and WhatsApp business API.

9. BuzzSumo

Content marketing requires in-depth research, and this is where an all-around tool like BuzzSumo comes in.

It is a comprehensive content marketing tool that connects influencers with companies. This platform is an excellent solution for firms that don’t know how to reach their audience.

It helps discover content ideas and data insights, view past trending topics and identify passionate influencers on social media.

It shows content trending across social media channels based on the searched topics. This search helps analyze the results to emphasize the appealing aspects of the current topics and shortlist interesting ideas to write about.

Other features include:

  • Keyword Research
  • Influencer Search
  • Crises Management
  • Content Analysis
  • Brand Monitoring Tools
  • Topic-Based Social Media Feeds

10. Canva

70% of businesses invest in content marketing, and graphic design is a prominent aspect that drives significant results. This includes visuals, infographics, videos, graphs, GIFs, charts, and more.

This is where Canva can help. It helps create appealing visual content with various tools and templates, which is useful for firms with short-term projects or those that can’t afford a graphic designer.

Canva allows you to create social media posts, infographics, business e-cards, e-books, marketing posters, and endless options to choose from. Businesses with a small budget can use free templates and photos from the Canva library with the freemium version.

Canva works on a simple drag-and-drop feature, which makes it easy to use even for amateurs. It also includes photo editing features, font combinations, color palettes, and custom images.

11. Yoast

Yoast helps with keyword research and topics for content optimization. It also offers a free version making it an ideal option for small businesses and startups.

It assists with keyword placement, improves readability, and flags problem areas that require improvement.

The paid version allows adding keywords, searching for semantic keywords within the plugin, getting instant internal link suggestions, insights, and more.

12. KWFinder

SEO is indispensable when brands want to stand out. You must follow the right structure, optimize the content and website for mobile devices, and include relevant keywords for a better ranking.

While some options might get expensive, tools such as KWfinder are accurate and cost-effective, making them ideal for small businesses.

With a seed keyword, the tool offers endless suggestions, trends, search volume data, and a ranking difficulty score for each one.

Small Business Marketing Tools – Key Takeaways

Surviving in the current business requires businesses to be proficient with the latest strategies, practices, and tools.

The above-mentioned small business marketing tools amplify benefits, are affordable, and are user-friendly. To begin, brands may opt for the free version which can be upgraded once the brands are comfortable.

As these tools cover almost every marketing element, it is difficult for firms to survive without them while working on tasks manually. Look for the best small business marketing companies to leverage the use of these tools to their full potential.

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