In the ever changing, every evolving, revolutionary times we live in if you are a marketing professional in 2019, it is challenging to say the least just finding out about (let alone prioritizing between) the latest and greatest marketing tools. From subscriptions to downloads, apps to websites, data-driven to social, there are new marketing solutions popping up literally DAILY.
After sorting through the chaos, here are our top 10 picks for the best marketing tools you can’t live without (or shouldn’t):
#1: BuzzSumo
What it is:
Buzzsumo’s promise is to “analyze what content performs best for any topic or competitor” and “find the key influencers to promote your content”. By searching across the top social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest and Google+, you can see what content is getting shared and who is doing it – FAST.
Why we like it:
Because it is up-to-date in real time, you get a quick overview of how a topic is trending, content-wise, across social media. You can filter by type of content (videos, articles etc.), by date, even by country and language. You can check out competitors and what is getting shared about them. You can find out who the influencers are in your niche. And you can find potential backlinks partners for content you want to promote to those influencers for SEO purposes. Yum!
#2: MajesticSEO
What it is:
The largest links database available to mine the mother lode of search engine rankings SEO juice. Find the links relationships that can put your site on page 1. Find out how content is linked on the web to identify which links matter. Search by keyword to see who is targeting that keyword in their anchor text.
Why we like it:
Reliable databases of links are keywords are important to subscribe to. There just aren’t that many that in the case of keywords, only include organic searches by real people (not bots, spiders) and links data which is continually updated.
#3: Buffer
What it is:
Buffer (similar to Hootsuite) allows you to easily connect their content sharing platform to your social media accounts (even LinkedIn groups) to share your own original content or content you find on the web. You can schedule posts to deliver by day of the week and frequency per day.
Why we like it:
If you are a busy marketing maven, you have to binge read much of your inbound feeds from Twitter, Feedly and other content aggregator sources (e-newsletters, buzzsumo etc.). You certainly don’t want to inundate your followers with all this curated content all at once. Buffer gives you a “holding bin” where you can collect relevant content and later share in scheduled posts. Used in combination with Pocket, it’s magic! And with a free account, you get to post your Buffer content to one page per social media network. You can even use Buffer to highlight great quotes and share images and infographics.
#4: Pocket
What it is:
Pocket is a great app and online tool for simply saving content you want to read later. Think of it as your virtual library, quickly enabling you to bookmark any online material to revisit later.
Why we like it:
Pocket and Buffer (seamlessly integrated with each other) are a great way to quickly catalog valuable content and then share it with your followers. The ultimate content curation engine! Pocket’s interface is visually beautiful and looks and functions like a magazine you published for yourself. Cool!
#5: Post Planner
What it is:
Post Planner is a great resource for pre-producing and scheduling content on Facebook. For a nominal monthly fee, you can queue up a whole month of content in your feed.
Why we like it:
Post Planner saves you a ton of time and has a ton of features. You can make images out of links, target to a specific audience, see trending content to post about, and you can even post to lists. You can search for content to post by keyword and posts are automatically timed to go out at whatever hour you select in every country by timezone (e.g. 8 am regardless of where your readers are).
#6: Newsle
What it is:
Newsle (acquired by LinkedIn) takes your contacts (from sources you define from email to social media) and other experts or celebrities you want to media-track and sends you alerts via email when news is published by or about your contacts. It’s a fabulous way of getting essentially a Google Alert across everyone you know. Naturally, if you track competitors, this is an essential “must have”.
Why we like it:
Whether you want to follow the headlines being made by your Facebook friends or your LinkedIn contacts, Newsle aggregates it all and sends you a digest summarizing who’s doing what, where. Sometimes the “Steve Martin” they send you news about is the wrong one, but we’ve found them to be pretty accurate for the most part. They even send you who’s included in the subject line of the email so you can determine if you want to check out their summary. Nice!
#7: Leadpages
What it is:
“Landing page on the fly” is the way we like to summarize Leadpages. If you need to create a conversion spot quickly and easily, then integrate it into your Word Press website, blog or Facebook page (think contests, webinar signups, e-downloads), LeadPages can do it.
Why we like it:
LeadPages has prebuilt professionally designed templates from “Coming Soon” early-bird solicitations to event registrations, e-content downloads, giveaways, special offers, you name it! If you want to build your e-list, this is definitely the easiest way to do it. And all their landing pages are mobile responsive and easily sync with Constant Contact e-lists and most other 3rd party e-list managers. YES!
#8: MOZ
What it is:
To be fair, Moz is actually a suite of SEO tools not a single tool. MozPro subscribers can tap into rank checkers, links evaluators, keyword monitors and competitive analytical tools to evaluate opportunities to improve SEO positioning.
Why we like it:
Reading the Moz blog alone is value added. Mozlocal lets you get listed locally for $89. And when you add their powerful set of SEO tools and the ability to tap into the Moz Academy educational videos and the Moz Community to ask questions and monitor algorithm update news, well, that just seals the deal!
#9: Mobiletest.me
What it is:
Mobiletest.me is a mobile tablet and smartphone emulator which allows you to view a site across screen sizes and devices.
Why we like it:
When we conducted our Best Practice Review of Mobile Sites in Travel, we needed to quickly evaluate a lot of sites displayed in a mobile browsing experience (on desktop). Mobiletest.me is a great tool for “mobilizing” sites so you can see how competitors line up as well as identify other mobile-features you might want to add to your own site. You can also test beta sites or new site features prior to launch.
#10: Google Page Speed Test
What it is:
A Google diagnostic for technical speed.
Why we like it:
SEO is now so technically-tuned that even if you weren’t worried about page load issues before from a usability perspective and user bounce perspective, well you better be now. The Google Page Speed Test is just one of Google’s many tools which are now not optional.
What are your top 10 marketing tools? Did we leave any out that YOU love? Tell us on LinkedIn>>>