Innovative Digital Tools to Improve Your Marketing Strategy

In today’s day and age, marketers have a plethora of free and inexpensive digital tools that can help them ramp up their marketing strategies, gain insights on customers and competitors, and better understand the market. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or just starting out, there’s nothing wrong with getting a little help—especially if that results in an increase in sales and new leads.

To help you get started on your next marketing strategy, whether it be a new social media campaign or an email marketing initiative, we’ve compiled a list of the top innovative digital tools you’ll wish you’d used sooner. Keep scrolling to learn how you can take your marketing strategy to a new level.

1. Social Media Publishing Tools

Social media is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to all types of businesses, big or small. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter—these are just some of the popular social media platforms users flock to in order to interact with their peers and their favorite brands.

As a brand, it’s important to keep your leads and customers coming back for more, which means you need to post content regularly, whether it’s a thread of tweets, a detailed Facebook post, or an Instagram giveaway. But being a business owner or marketer can be tough, especially with a lot of other important tasks on your plate. To help free up your plate, consider investing in social media publishing tools that do the hard work for you. Some popular tools include:

• Hootsuite
• Buffer
• Cision
• Falcon
• Grin

With these social media tools, you can schedule your social media posts in the future, so you don’t forget to keep your feeds updated.

2. Customer Messaging and Live Chat

When a customer or lead visits your site, more often than not, they’ll have a question. One of the drawbacks of having an online store is the lack of social interaction. With no sales representatives roaming the aisles, customers have no one to turn to when a product description confuses them, or a price seems wrong. That’s where live chatbots come in.

Thanks to AI, online stores can implement chatbots, which have the ability to “think” on their own and answer frequently asked questions. A live-person customer service team can also manage chatbots for a more personable experience.

Take Comcast Xfinity, for example. As an internet service provider, customers always need answers, whether it be a faulty internet connection or an unexpected fee on a monthly bill. On their support page, customers can access Xfinity Assist, which is a live chat feature where customers can ask questions and get answers.

Some website plugins and services you can use to power a live chat box and customer messaging system include:

• Olark
• Liveperson
• HappyFox

3. Email Marketing Automation

Email continues to reign supreme when it comes to converting leads and boosting sales. Through email, companies have the ability to send monthly newsletters, information about new product launches, and provide email subscribers with exclusive deals and promotions.

To make this happen, invest in email marketing automation services. Through email marketing automation services, you can draft emails, schedule when they’ll be sent, and manage your email list. Some popular email marketing automation tools include:

• Mailchimp
• GetResponse
• Moosend
• Adestra

4. Blogging Tools

As they say (we’re looking at you, digital marketers), content is king, or as we like to say at Colibri, content is queen. Blogs are an exceptionally powerful tool for many reasons—one being the ability to make your website seen on popular search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Search engines have complex algorithms that help rank sites. One of the top-ranking factors is content, or how much useful information a website has to offer internet users.

A tried and true strategy to beef up the content on your site is by making a blog. While a blog might not result in many sales, it can increase your site’s ranking status by showing search engines what you do.

Let’s take MySmartMove, for example. This site provides background checks for renters to screen tenants. Pretty simple, right? So, why would they need a blog? While search engines can gather some information from the site’s homepage and product pages, search engines might not have all the information they need to fully understand what the site is about.

On MySmartMove’s blog page, they can write about a wide range of topics related to landlords, tenants, businesses, employees, and so much more. This allows search engines to get a fuller understanding of what the site is about, which will result in the search engine deeming the site as a credible source of information. So, when someone conducts a search for “background checks,” MySmartMove will have a better chance of appearing toward the top of the search engine results page.

To help you get your blog started, some helpful blogging tools include:

• Hubspot
• WordPress
• Movable Type

5. SEO Keyword Analysis Tools

Now that you know content is queen, it’s important to know how to write rank-worthy blog posts. One of the best ways to make your content noticed by search engines is by using keywords. Keywords are a word or phrase that relate to something you’re trying to sell. To create SEO-friendly content, having a keyword plan in place is crucial.

Let’s say you’re in the marketing department for an online running wear store. Some keywords you may want to rank for include “running shoes,” “running apparel,” and “running watches.” Once you have keywords defined, you can begin to incorporate them into product pages, category pages, and blog posts.

Some useful SEO keyword analysis tools include:

• SEMRush
• Google Trends
• Ahrefs

Wrapping Up

Whether you’re a marketer or business owner, knowing how to grow your brand is crucial. Through marketing, you have the ability to reach a broader audience, boost sales, and convert leads into lifelong customers. However, marketing is a full-time job, and with various areas of marketing, such as email, social media, and blogs, it can become extremely overwhelming.

Fortunately, there are plenty of useful and innovative digital tools that can complement your marketing strategies and ensure you stay one step ahead of your competitors.

Samantha Rupp

Samantha Rupp holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. She is the managing editor for 365 Business Tips as well as runs a personal blog, Mixed Bits Media. She lives in San Diego, California and enjoys spending time on the beach, reading up on current industry trends, and traveling.