Unfortunately, many SMEs do not yet know how to use digital marketing tools for social media, SEO or marketing email to reach the huge Internet market. Good news, many digital marketing tools allow companies to operate social networks, SEO and marketing email. With some technical knowledge, anyone can use marketing tools for:
- Search for keywords (SEO)
- Program Newsletters (email marketing)
- Perform visuals and illustrations for social networks
- Do a competitive analysis
- Format web pages and analyze the performance of a website
In this article, I will share with you 10 tools to manage your online presence.
You may be familiar with one or two of these tools. Others may be new to you.
In any case, be sure of one thing. By combining these 10 digital marketing tools, you will be fully capable of managing your online presence and generating qualified leads thanks to your website or social networks.
You just need to use these 10 tools that I will present to you.
1) Publish with Buffer
Buffer is the tool that allows you to program your publications on all of your social networks in one platform.
Buffer is extremely easy to use. And in addition, it is not limited at all in free version (unlike its competitors).
Thanks to Buffer, you can schedule your content months in advance, at the time you want.
In free version, you can schedule up to 10 publications and you are entitled to 3 social accounts. The paid version starts at $ 15 per month and offers the possibility of managing 8 social accounts (perfect if you are a solo).
This time you are entitled to a total of 10 social accounts (profiles, pages or groups).
If you are an agency, business plans will obviously be more interesting for you.
For each social network, you can establish a calendar: choose the hours and days for which you want your posts to be published.
The functionality of Buffer Publish that I like most is without a doubt their Chrome extension.
2) Ubersuggest
After Buffer, Ubersuggest is my second favorite tool and one of the most useful to me. If I were to describe Ubersuggest in a few words, I would tell you that this is the ultimate tool for happy marketing and SEO
And I tell you from the start. It is completely free (for now).
So what does it do ?
Basically, it had only one functionality: finding long-traine keywords from a keyword.
For example, if I look for the keyword “digital marketing”, Ubersuggest will suggest several key long-range words like:
- Digital master marketing
- Digital marketing training
- Digital marketing definition
- Etc.
You quickly understand the interest of this functionality in the search for keywords which is essential when one wishes to position a content in search engines for a specific keyword.
It is this tool that I use to analyze all the keywords of long train linked to a generic key word like “Facebook advertising”, “digital marketing”, “content marketing”, etc.
Today, Ubersuggest offers far more functionality than I will not show you all in this article (it would take far too long).
For example, it allows you to find content ideas from a simple keyword. If I type “stories Instagram”, Ubersuggest will suggest articles that contain this keyword in their title.
In this example, I see that the article “How to use the Stories in the front page on Instagram” could quite fit into my editorial line. I notice it
But that’s (really) not all …
For only a few months, Ubersuggest has been able to analyze in detail the domain of any competitor. If you take mine, you can see on the screenshot below:
- The number of organic keywords that bring me traffic
- Monthly organic traffic (this is an estimate that is rarely accurate)
- The score for my domain (from 1 to 100)
- The total number of backlinks (incoming links to my site)
On this screenshot, you also saw that you could see the evolution of my traffic, the SEO classification of my best pages and all the keywords that bring me traffic.
All this for free of course.
If you click on the “Main pages” tab, you will get a fairly detailed view of the pages that bring me the most traffic with an estimate of the number of monthly visits, main requests (keywords) from this page and even the sites that have linked to the page in question !
Alternatives: SEMrush, SpyFu, Ahrefs (all paying, but much more complete).
3) Active Campaign
You dream of sending emails to thousands of people in a few clicks or automatically sending an email according to a specific action on your site ?
Active Campaign is the perfect tool to make your dream come true.
If compared to one of the best known solutions on the market, MailChimp, it is true that Active Campaign will make many marketers hesitate.
MailChimp has the advantage of offering a “pretty” interface, simpler to use and cheaper ! MailChimp also offers free use up to 2,000 contacts.
Conversely, Active Campaign is much less pretty, much more complex and more expensive ! So why am I suggesting this tool to you ?
Because I worked with these 2 high depths !
MailChimp is easier to use, it’s true, but it is much less effective than Active Campaign.
MailChimp is cheaper it is true, but it contains far less functionality. Automation options are light years away from those of Active Campaign.
With Active Campaign, you can send specific marketing campaigns as simply as on Mailchimp to people subscribed to an email list, or a very specific segment of this list.
For example, if you send an email to promote a Facebook advertising service, you may choose to send it only to people who have expressed an interest in Facebook advertising based on:
- The links they clicked on in your emails
- The resources they have downloaded to your site
- The pages they saw on your site
You can also plan a series of emails sent automatically and according to a scenario defined in advance. This scenario can range from simple to complex.
Not being an expert, I always limit myself to the basic scenario of a sequence of automatic emails, sending emails one after the other. I sometimes add conditions, but it’s rather rare.
Marketing email professionals send very specific emails depending on the links you clicked on, the emails you opened (or not open), the “tags” assigned to you in the middle surveyor, etc.
Planning this type of automatic sequence has clearly been an asset to my business in recent months.
These email sequences allowed me to increase sales of my online training (which was stalled for a while) and generate lead for my coaches and services.
4) Buzzsumo
I told you about Ubersuggest which allows you to analyze the SEO strategy of your competitors and discover content ideas from a keyword.
It is not always enough to develop a content strategy. Social networks are also important. Content that works well on Google may not have the same success on social media, and the reverse is also true.
And if you want to make sure that your next content collects a ton of sharing on social networks ?
With Buzzsumo, it is far from impossible !
Buzzsumo is a bit like the Google of shared content on social networks.
The principle is simple. You type a key word (ex. : “Facebook advertising”) and Buzzsumo returns the most shared articles that contain this keyword to you.
As you can see, you can see the details of the shares by social network and you can even filter the results by social network (ex. : show the content that has obtained the most commitments on Facebook).
In addition, Buzzsumo also tells you WHO shared the article in question on Twitter by clicking on “View Sharers”. These are people you can contact to ask them to share YOUR article (if it is close to the one they have already shared).
The other attraction of this research is to find any trend. What is the common point between all these articles on Facebook advertising that have been most shared ?
- A particular subject ?
- The angle of approach ?
- The type of article (list, guide, how-To) ?
As on Ubersuggest, you can also type a competitor’s URL and Buzzsumo will send you the most shared items from its blog.
All I just showed you is just a tiny glimpse of Buzzsumo’s functionality.
Buzzsumo also allows you to search Facebook for the content that has collected the most interactions !
In this example, I looked for the most engaging Live Facebook on Facebook advertising.
I see that the most successful Facebook Lives are those of Robin Vézina. The first talks about the future of Facebook advertising and the other about Facebook advertising campaigns with influenceers.
These are live article or video ideas that will no doubt work well
All of these features have a cost, Buzzsumo does not offer a completely free plan. The first plan starts at $ 79 / month.
This may be a problem if you start or you are not (yet) ready to invest in digital marketing tools.
In this case, use the free 7-day version and do as much research as possible before the end of your free trial to find as many ideas as possible
5) Google Analytics
It’s normal, it’s completely free.
However, the information you find there is very valuable.
If you are not familiar with Google Analytics, rest assured, it is very simple to take charge. Concretely, it will be used to analyze everything that is happening on your website, in particular:
- The people who visit your website
- Their behavior on your website
- How they got to your website
- The most visited pages
- The pages that offer the most conversions
- […]
Of course, in order to obtain this information, you must install the Google Analytics tracking code on your website. It will only take you a few minutes. Most CMSs allow you to integrate this code without too much difficulty.
Once the code is installed, this is where you will be able to analyze in more depth what is happening on your website.
Personally, I really like to analyze the “Source / support” report in the “Acquisition” section.
This is a report that gives you a general view of where your visitors come from.
On this screenshot, you saw that 80% of my traffic comes from Google, which is why I write so much on this blog
We also see that LinkedIn brings me more and more traffic. I also spend more and more time there.
Also, I see that Subscribers and Hellobar contribute well to the traffic of my site ! I will tell you about these 2 tools afterward
Often I do the comparison month by month to see the increases and decreases.
That way I can readjust what is not working and spend more time on what is already working (like Google).
I took a simple case to understand, but know that you can do an even more detailed analysis by analyzing the source of traffic for each page of your website.
6) SEMrush
SEMrush is probably the best competitive analysis tool in the market. In any case, it is the reputation that SEMrush has had over the years.
I’ve already told you about Ubersuggest, which offers enough opportunities to analyze a company’s SEO strategy, but that’s nothing compared to what SEMrush does.
SEMrush obviously allows you to discover at a glance the traffic, keywords, backlinks and most visited pages of your competitors (like Ubersuggest).
However, it also allows you to discover paid announcements on a competitor’s Google, both on the (text announcements at the top of the search results) and the (banners).
To give you an example, I analyzed Nike’s website.
We note that the main paying competitors of Nike are Sarenza, Spshoe.com, Sborta.com. All sites that I can analyze as well.
I can also see ALL of a competitor’s announcements and the keywords they paid for.
In other words, you are able to know the keywords for which your competitors pay as well as the paid traffic generated by these keywords (I let you imagine the usefulness of this information).
I told you that you can see what a competitor’s illustrated () announcements look like.
Here too, you can use this information to inspire the graphic designer responsible for making your announcements.
SEMrush does not stop at Google, it also integrates the social component.
With its “Social Media Tracker” tool, you can compare the number of subscribers and the commitment you have with your competitors (SEMrush will even suggest competitors).
In this example, we notice that I do not have many subscribers compared to my competitors, but I am in 2nd position if we look at the total commitment on publications.
Proof that the number of subscribers no longer matters on social networks!
You are going to tell me that it is not that useful to know what position we are in relation to a competitor.
With the Top Content report, you can find out which publications have obtained the most interactions or the highest engagement rate during a given period, for a particular competitor or all competitors combined.
This information is obviously enormously valuable when you know how social platforms like Facebook or Instagram reward Pages that produce engaging content.
So how much does SEMrush cost?
You guessed it, SEMrush is not free! It costs € 99 / month, but it’s really worth it if you invest your time and money in the SEO and SEA
Note that SEMrush offers a somewhat limited, but useful freemium version to familiarize yourself with the tool.
7) Subscribers
You surely know this statistic: 98% of visitors to a website leave it without converting (buy or leave their contact details)
In this article, I talked about marketing email to continue communicating with those who already know you (customers, Newsletter subscribers).
Did you know that there is another much simpler (and faster) way to communicate with people who already know you?
These are push notifications.
On a web browser, you can configure an alert like this using a tool like Subscribers.
When the user clicks on the “Authorize” button, the site owner can then send him push notifications.
I know you already know the notifications from your smartphone. On computer, push notifications look like this.
Those of Subscribers fit perfectly with Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari.
Like Google Analytics, just put a little bit of code on your website and then you will have a pop-up like the one I showed you that will appear on your website.
You can also specify a time before it appears. On my site, I chose 10 seconds.
Every day you will reap new ones and you literally have nothing to do.
In a few seconds, you can schedule notifications like this.
You can choose to distribute it to all of your subscribers or to a particular segment of your subscriber list.
One last feature I really like about Subscribers is welcome campaigns. As soon as a new person subscribes to your push notifications, they will receive a series of notifications that you have preconfigured.
Subscribers offers a free version, but this is limited. Beyond 200 subscribers, you must move on to the next plan which is $ 29 per month.
8) Canva
Canva is perhaps the simplest tool I know for creating beautiful illustrations for social networks. This time, I tell you at the outset, Canva is proposing a free plan which is more than enough to start.
Used by community managers to make visuals for social networks, Canva also creates covers for events, documents (e.g. : ebooks, CV) and more.
For example, if I want to create a design for an advertisement, I go to the “Advertising Announcements” section and I choose the banner of my choice.
If you click on “create a Facebook banner”, you will be redirected to a page that presents preconceived models for you with the correct image format for Facebook advertisements (1200 x 628 pixels). Canva really thought of everything !
To resume the creation of my advertising image, I can choose one of the Canva models to start …
… or create my own image.
I just made one !
I just used one of the free photos available on Canva (there are over a million) and added a rectangular shape that I colored orange (the color of my site).
I then made the form transparent and added text within the form.
It took me barely 3 minutes and know that you can do the same with their app iOS or Android if you ever prefer to work on a tablet or smartphone.
I love this tool, especially for these functionalities:
- Magic resizing: you can easily resize an image that you have created in one or more formats to share it on several social networks (available only with the paid plan).
- Adding icons and stickers to the images (the most beautiful are paid)
- Filters to make images more flashy !
- The possibility of integrating other members of your team and importing visuals made with other software
To conclude on Canva, its simplicity of use makes it almost essential as everything is facilitated for those who do not know how to serve more powerful software like the Adobe suite.
9) LeadPages
If you sell services and want to highlight them, you will need landing pages.
A landing page is a page that aims to present a product, service or even a free offer and on which only one action is possible, such as:
- Fill out a form
- Register
- Download an app
- Try SaaS software for free
- Etc.
Creating such a page is not easy, especially if you cannot code.
This is where LeadPages comes in.
LeadPages is a tool that allows you to create landing pages fairly easily and that requires no technical skills.
It is one of the tools most used by bloggers, coaches or experts because it creates pages that have both visually attractive and professional rendering.
The functionality that really attracts me to this software is undoubtedly the hundreds of landing pages models predefined and optimized for conversions for any type of objective or business.
All templates are classified into different categories (consultation, generation of leads, competitions) and / or for different fields of activity (e-commerce, finance, marketing, health, etc.)
Having such a library of templates really makes a difference if you are not a specialist in the creation of landing pages (yes, it is a real job in itself !).
In addition, you can observe any template and see which one you like the most before signing up for LeadPages.
How much does LeadPages cost ?
The first plan starts at only $ 25 per month (annual payment), which is very affordable for such complete software.
10) Hellobar
Do you like pop-ups like this …
Or floating bars like the one you see on my site ?
On computer, they are less disturbing than on mobile.
Typically, users are not big pop-ups.
And yet webmarkers (like me) love them ! This is because they are still effective today in collecting email addresses or promoting offers.
Of course, I think of you by choosing the “” options so that the pop-up will only go off when you try to leave my site.
On the market, there are also dozens of paid solutions to create pop-ups.
As you can imagine, I tested several and it was difficult to make a choice between Thrive Leads, Optin Monster, Bloom and Hellobar.
Clearly, if I had to choose one, it would be Hellobar!
Why ?
Because it is both simple, complete and the design of pop-ups is quite successful! The value for money remains more interesting than Optin Monster, which can quickly become expensive.
I’ll quickly show you the functionality of Hellobar.
For the time being, Hellobar allows you to achieve different conversion objectives such as:
- Collecting email
- Telephone contact
- Send traffic to your social networks
- Send traffic to a target URL
- Make a simple announcement
Then you have the choice between the horizontal bar, the pop-up, the slider, etc.
Finally, you can choose the design you like the most, regardless of the option you have chosen !
All these templates are infinitely customizable, but you will have to spend some time there
Hellobar exists in free (but limited) version and the first paid plan starts at $ 29 / month.
Conclusion
And here is the complete list of 10 marketing tools that I recommend to manage your online presence.
You saw that I thought of everything:
- SEO
- Advertising
- Social networks
- Happy Marketing
- Email marketing
As I told you, there are thousands of solutions in the market.
Some offer practically the same functionality and it is sometimes just a matter of preference. It is for this reason that I have also given you fairly close alternatives for each tool.
You are free to try all these tools (even the alternatives proposed) and see which ones you want to integrate into your daily life.
Most of these tools offer a free version or a free 7-day test. It seems enough to make the right choice
