As 50% of companies increase their marketing spend in 2015, we take a look at some of the cost-effective marketing tools that will get marketers talking this year, and how they’ll help you to stay ahead of the crowd.
1. ReferralSnip: Get the recommendations flowing in
ReferralSnip is a handy way for small businesses to set up a referral program online. It allows customers to refer contacts to your site at the click of a button. Some 85% of small businesses win customers through word of mouth, so this could help get the recommendations flowing in.
2. Socedo: Winning new business via Twitter
Socedo helps businesses to find and qualify leads on Twitter. Entering criteria such as keywords or hashtags returns a prospect list for your review. Socedo even helps you automatically ‘favourite’ tweets, follow prospects and send direct messages to start a conversation.
3. BuzzSumo: Research winning content
BuzzSumo helps you research content that will delight your audiences. If you enter any keyword or backlink into BuzzSumo, you’ll get a detailed report showing how well previous content on that topic performed.
4. Canva: Create compelling images for free
Canva is a cost-effective tool to create engaging graphics within minutes. It’s completely free and allows you to create everything from social-media images to presentations. To make things easier still, you can use Canva’s templates, store everything online and access a range of stock images.
5. VWO: Test the effectiveness of your web pages
VWO is a testing tool that helps companies to identify the most effective pages on their site. For example, it can be used to test things such as which headline, website design or copy your visitors like best.
6. Ducksboard: Monitor your mailing list
Ducksboard is an all-in-one dashboard that will help you to stay on top of your most important analytics in real time, taking the pressure off the task of monitoring your mailing list and who’s buying your products and services.
7. Person: Creating targeted marketing campaigns
Person makes visualising customers easy by allowing you to add their gender, likes, behaviours and goals in a simple-to-read layout. It’s a great tool to help you plan targeted marketing campaigns. You can also share the customer’s ‘persona’ with the team.
8. Autosend: Send personalised communications
Autosend is a great way to send personalised, targeted email and text messages to every customer, based on what they do on your website. This means you can take a more proactive stance on marketing, rapidly sending tailored messages relating to visitors’ activity on your site or when you’ve won a new customer.
9. Oktopost: Manage your social media presence
Oktopost is a ‘one-stop-shop’ social media tool that allows businesses to share content, manage conversations and measure the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns.
10. Mention: Track conversations on your brand
Mention gives companies the opportunity to track key phrases and brand names in real time. It’s a good way to see what people are saying about you and your competitors, and make the most of opportunities to engage with customers and prospects.
For more information on smart marketing tools or for more cost-effective marketing ideas, please contact the CJAM team or check out our ‘Marketing in a Box’ programme for small to medium-sized businesses seeking high impact marketing on a budget.
