Online Marketing

Online marketing can seem daunting, but the internet has made many things easier than they were in the past. If you’re an entrepreneur looking to market your company, there are tons of tools available to help you achieve success and save time and money along the way. This list of 7 online marketing tools will show you some of the best options out there and help you decide which one or ones will be most useful to your business.

1) MailChimp

Send up to 12,000 emails per month for free with MailChimp. Emails are a great way of staying in touch with your followers, and when you’re just starting out, it’s crucial that you create a professional first impression. A good email marketing provider will help you achieve that goal. I personally use MailChimp because they give me access to everything I need at no cost. More experienced users may want something more robust, but if you’re just getting started and don’t have any money to spend on anything else yet, MailChimp is definitely a tool worth considering.

2) Buffer

Social media scheduling tool; lets you schedule posts in advance, then Buffer automatically posts them throughout your social media platforms. Great way to post on multiple accounts without having to log into each account individually. Allows sharing across different social networks and saves time posting content that is relevant for your audience.

3) GetResponse

GetResponse is one of my favorite email marketing tools because it allows you to create online forms, landing pages, build customer lists and much more. It’s easy-to-use and has a drag-and-drop interface so you can optimize your email campaigns quickly. From just $1 per day, you can send up to 12,000 emails per month for free and upgrade for around $30/month (the maximum amount I recommend) for unlimited emails. Personally, I love that GetResponse is 100% intuitive—it offers everything you need without any crazy setup. Plus, its built-in analytics suite offers in-depth reporting that helps me track who opened my emails and which links they clicked on most often.

4) SumoMe

Hello Bar is an easy-to-install bar that shows users a call-to-action when they scroll near it. It’s like Google’s above the fold ads for your site, but for desktop and mobile web pages. Hello Bar can also be used as a clickable link, like a Facebook Like or Tweet button. One of its coolest features is that you can easily track which CTAs (such as links and buttons) are most effective at driving traffic to your site by making them conditionally appear or disappear depending on user behavior. For example, if you use it on a webpage with an email optin form, Hello Bar will automatically hide that CTA unless someone scrolls down near it.

5) BuzzSumo

This incredibly easy-to-use tool lets you instantly find out what content is resonating with your target audience. With BuzzSumo, you can not only see what’s being shared on social media, but which social networks it's being shared on. In a matter of seconds, you can see which topics are trending and use that information to write amazing content. And as we'll discuss later in Step 2, doing research is essential if you want to create high-quality content. To help you get started, we've included an easy tutorial in Appendix A: How To Use BuzzSumo Effectively.

6) Proposify

Sometimes, you need a little extra help with your pitch. And for that, there’s Proposify. This service is great because it gives you an easy way to present your proposal from start to finish. Plus, if you’re looking for sample proposals to download and use as templates, they have those as well. (It’s also helpful that they share how much freelancers can make on different types of proposals.) The site has a variety of packages available starting at $29/month (which includes 3 gigs). If you want additional features like Pro-Dos and live-chat customer support then Proposify is definitely worth a look.

7) Hello Bar

If you have a website or a product that you want more people to see, Hello Bar is a tool that helps you do just that. In addition to your standard site-wide pop-up, it can also be used for emails. For example, if someone signed up for your email list but has not checked their inbox in 90 days, Hello Bar can remind them of your product/service and get them back on track. It's super easy to set up and simple for users as well (no coding skills needed). Best of all? It’s free!

Ahrefs

If you want to be a successful marketer, you need all of your bases covered. And by that, I mean you need an entire arsenal of marketing tools at your disposal. Not only do those tools help make your marketing efforts more effective and productive, but they also give you valuable insight into what works—and what doesn’t—for your company’s marketing strategy. After using a number of different online marketing tools for my own digital agency and other companies, Ahrefs has become my go-to digital marketing tool . If it comes down to all things being equal, I will always choose Ahrefs over any other tool on the market. Why?

Magento

A great ecommerce solution for small businesses, Magento offers several advantages over other platforms. It's free to get started with, it's powerful enough to take on even large-scale projects and it boasts a huge collection of shopping add-ons that extend its functionality. As with all enterprise-level software though, it does come with a hefty price tag: $1,000 per month or more depending on usage. If you're looking for a cost-effective ecommerce platform for your business, there are cheaper alternatives out there—so if money is an issue you may want to look elsewhere.

7 Online Marketing Tools You Can't Afford to Ignore