Tools to help your business get the most out of your next Digital Marketing Campaign

So, your business is ready to take on a digital marketing campaign, or at least prep for the next one. Where do you start? What are some of the best practices/technology that can help me optimize? Below are some sections that walk you through some technologies and tools you can use during specific stages of your digital marketing campaign. None of these technologies or tools are better than the other, but some might be better for your industry than others. Play around with them and find the best one for you and your business! Before you dive in on your next digital marketing campaign, take a look at this post about Marketing and the Customer Experience.

QUICK NOTE: Project Management Software

Before you get started with allocating your resources and rolling out a new digital marketing campaign, try to organize your business in this digital space. With not being able to come face to face with our employees as much right now, project planning and managing can become difficult. Project management software is a great way to optimize campaigns in almost any industry. Your entire team and other stakeholders will be able to see daily tasks, resource allocation, and progress for a campaign. A central place for information about a project is a great way to make sure you and your employees are optimizing as much as you can during a project or campaign.

Starting- Tools and technology to help Research

Perhaps one of the most important things you can do during times of economic uncertainty is plan! Whether you are going to be rolling the digital marketing campaign out soon or a year from now, research is essential. The good news is there are tools made to make this process easier and get rid of that “gut feeling” decision-making tactic. Here are tools that you can use to do your research for organic (free) search engine optimization (SEO), paid SEO, drip marketing campaigns, Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and LinkedIn ads. One of these tools might be more useful for your business than others. Use this as a guide for what you should look for in a research digital marketing tool.

Moz– This is a great tool to have access to during the duration of an entire digital marketing campaign. A great feature they have is trends and keyword explorer. You can check when the best times to advertise specific keywords through paid ads, organic SEO, and drip marketing campaigns.

Google Trends– This is a great tool specifically for digital marketing. Most of your customers you will obtain through a digital marketing campaign will come from a search engine result, social media platforms, and direct to consumer advertisements through email. Google has a broad platform for what it can do for your digital marketing campaign, as you will see as you progress through this guide. •

Simple Spreadsheet for the Organization of Research: In some respects, you might already have the research for your campaign. But how can you organize it without having to use a third-party tool? A simple spreadsheet that you and your team can add to, can optimize the functionality of your research. When to use it, what words to use, and time of year you want to post.

Middle/ During- Tools to use during campaigns

Once you have a campaign up and running, it’s important to think of the digital marketing strategies as a garden. You must make sure the soil is adequately watered, the flowers are getting the correct amount of sunlight, and no weeds pop-up. Your business’s digital marketing campaign needs to be treated the same way! You cannot expect to just throw all the information out in the first few weeks of a campaign. Digital marketing campaigns take time and need to have some consistency in the way they are run! Here are a few tools that will help your campaign run as smoothly as possible.

Google AdWords– If you are looking to make a robust online presence, Google AdWords can be your best friend. Google has an entire algorithm that ranks your website and deems how reputable your business sites are, even if it is on a third party site such as Yelp. That is, if you can correctly use keyword research to utilize words people are most likely to search for when looking up your product, Google AdWords can give your company as much visibility as you put into it.

Hootsuite (Marketing automation tool)– There might be many moving parts to your digital marketing campaign. With countless amounts of social media platforms at the fingertips of consumers, social media ads are essential! Hootsuite simplifies posting on social media platforms. With a digital calendar for posts, this online platform can post on almost every social media platform. Say you are a West Coat company but have a massive following on the East Coast. Time frames are not the same. You can set times to post automatically on all your platforms well in advance!

Customer.io (Drip Campaigns/ Email Marketing)– There have been some speculations that drip marketing through email has not been quite as productive lately. However, there are a few industries that would contradict this. Not everyone is a Millennial or Generation Z. For example, Fandango, a ticket industry company, sees most of the customers that buy tickets through them. See what type of psychographics your target audience has. There are a few drip marketing campaign platforms out there in the market. Customer.io is a great platform to send out useful emails and collect data for how the emails are performing.

Finishing/End- Tools to help you see progress

Whenever you finish any sort of project, it is essential to look back and see how each type of digital marketing strategy performed and if it sticks with your customers. There is software out there that can help you answer critical questions you may have with a campaign’s performance. The significant part about a lot of these tools is they are included free in some of the technology we have covered above. Use these tools to check how your customer is feeling. Are they buying your product or service in one season more than another? Are some posts having a vast reach but a low conversion rate? Here are some tools that can help you!

Google Analytics– If your digital marketing campaign relied heavily on SEO or call to actions to your website or app, Google Analytics can be a significant asset! How you compare to your competitors or how you are doing individually is extremely important, especially in the digital realm. As we have mentioned earlier, most of your traffic will come through a search engine result, make sure you are optimizing!

Social media platforms you post organically or paid ads on (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn)– Many of the social platforms you post on, have a free analytics tool built into the platform. SIDE NOTE: your social platforms must be set as business platforms! Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn will give you key statistics to see engagement with your posts. Use this tool as much as you can, whether it is your business page or your company’s business page to optimize your social media engagement.