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Steve Jobs once said: “Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.”
Not sure what tools Mr. Jobs had in mind but here’s a list of tools that can help any marketer at any level do their jobs just that much easier and more efficiently.
1. Deluxe Logo Maker
Don’t underestimate the power of a good logo. Signs.com reports that about 94% of the world’s entire population recognizes the Coca Cola logo. You might be setting your sights a little lower than universal recognition, but a good logo is still essential for communicating your brand’s identity and values and helping it stand out from the crowd. Deluxe Logo provides multiple different price levels for custom-designed logos, ensuring you get the most out of this important branding tool.
2. Packlane
Shopify estimates that the e-commerce market will generate $4.5 trillion in annual global sales by 2021. That means a ton of companies need or are going to need packaging and shipping options for getting their product to customers. Packlane ensures that your customer’s “unboxing” experience is a pleasant and branded one. Companies can easily use Packlane’s user-friendly website to customize packaging style and size, create color schemes, and even upload original art.
3. Yotpo
Yotpo helps you leverage one of the most powerful branding tools you have: satisfied customers. ReachLocal reports that 90% of shoppers use online reviews to help them decide on a purchase, and 70% of consumers will leave a review if asked. Yotpo provides frictionless tools to help you solicit reviews from recent customers, as well as valuable information such as photos and Q&As. It automatically displays your best reviews on your website and across a wide variety of platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram. Consumers trust each other far more than they trust marketers–Yotpo uses the most of that trust.
4. Traackr
Influencer marketing is essential for digital branding. According to Marketing Profs, companies see an average of $7.65 return on each dollar spent on influencers. Influencer marketing can be informal and difficult to track, but Traackr provides a platform for monitoring influencer efficacy, discovering new influencer trends related to your topic, and establish long term relationships.
5. ReBrandly
Your marketing strategy likely includes distributing a URL, perhaps just to your homepage, or perhaps to a specific discount offer or blog post. But URLs, and especially URLs for pages within larger websites such as Facebook posts, can be ugly and off-putting for customers. Many URL shortening services will destroy your domain identity in the process, creating ambiguous links that customers find untrustworthy. Rebrandly offers branded domain shorteners, which means you can very briefly share a link to content while preserving your brand identity in the URL. Social Media Examiner reports that branded domains can increase click-through rates on Twitter by up to 34%.
6. Unbounce
Landing pages are essential for branding because they’re often the first real encounter a websurfer has with your company’s digital presence. The Landing Page Course advises that a dedicated landing page is essential for starting any new marketing campaign. Unbounce allows you to create aesthetically pleasing, brand-consistent landing pages for new marketing campaigns–quickly, and without having to learn any code.
7. Frontify
Your careful branding efforts can be easily undone if your branding seems inconsistent–customers might think you’re unreliable, or even assume your one great brand is, in fact, two lightweight ones. Brand consistency covers everything from your tagline to your color scheme. Pixelnomics recently recreated several famous logos in “regular” fonts, and the contrast between these recreations and actual logos will drive home that even font choice matters. With Frontify, your brand can create cloud-based, sophisticated style guides, brand portals, media and pattern libraries, and shared collaboration spaces.
8. MailChimp
Email marketing is another essential component of any branding strategy. Wordstream reports that companies can get up to $44 in returns from just one dollar spent on email marketing. MailChimp is an email automation platform that can be connected to any ecommerce website, providing custom email content and newsletters to potential customers. MailChimp’s services involve abandoned cart email reminders, beautiful email templates, and Facebook ads management.
9. WiseStamp
A simple but effective tool, WiseStamp lets your company create individual branded email signatures for your employees. Centralized control allows you to implement changes across all signatures all at once, emails appear professional and polished, and consistent branding and contact information is maintained no matter who in your company is sending an email or when they last remembered to update their signature. Popular online tutoring provider, Grad Coach, recently implemented WiseStamp and saw a 21% increase in social media traffic from email signatures, according to the MD, Derek Jansen.
10. HootSuite
HootSuite is one of the world’s most popular social media marketing platforms. It allows you to compose and schedule posts to a wide variety of platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, all from one user dashboard. It can also allow your employees to coordinate social media marketing through task creation and assignment, and it creates analytic reports to help you figure out whether your social media plan is working.
What are some other essential tools for marketers?
