Henry Ford once said that a man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time. Ford also said that if he was given $4 to improve his business, he would spend $3 on promoting his product.
A hundred years later and marketing still remains a major part of any successful business. Due to the digital era of advertising, marketers have a much more versatile toolset for business promotion, this, in turn, allows them to create elaborate multi-channel marketing campaigns with a high return on investment.
In this article, we are going over 5 online marketing tools that are as effective as they are affordable or even free.
1. CRM
Customer relationship management tool is important for the mere reason of having a clear picture of your business’s interaction with the customers. Even free CRM software works to help marketers better understand customers’ actions by collecting conversion data. This makes it easier to keep track of the buyer’s journey, CRM sort of helps bring sales and marketing together and this allows to make changes to a promotional campaign on the go.
2. Landing pages
You may not have your website as of right now or your business doesn’t really need it but a landing page is a simple yet powerful marketing tool and it has to be reckoned with. It serves many purposes of being a 21st-century business card, a call to action, or a lead generation medium. It can even serve as a minimalist online store. The best thing about landing pages is that they are easy to create and customize, all you really need is a decent landing page builder and some creativity to set you apart from the competition and attract a potential customer.
3. Messenger chatbot
It’s hardly a surprise that a chatbot makes this list of marketing tools and for that, there are several reasons. For once, a messenger chatbot may not necessarily be a substitute for your customer care team but it sure can be a first responder should a customer have any questions. Chatbots can also generate leads by requesting phone numbers and email addresses as well as lead the customer up to a purchase. And again, it doesn’t have to break your bank since platforms like SendPulse make it really easy to create a Facebook or WhatsApp chatbot of your own for free.
4. Email campaigns
While many think email has lost its edge, many successful businesses still use it to build long-lasting relations with the customer. Starting with welcome or order confirmation emails and going all the way to abandoned cart email notification or review request email, this marketing channel has a lot to offer. With one of the highest ROI on the market, you can’t go wrong with email marketing.
5. Email verifier
It may not seem as obvious as other tools on the list but when you think about it the whole email marketing campaign thing won’t fly if your email list is a mess. Email list cleaning is an important process as email addresses get abandoned, they are often misspelled or invalid. This leads to your deliverability and open rates go down the drain and what is even more important your sender’s reputation suffers and may not be possible to restore. Running your email list through an email verifier once in a while is a precautionary measure worth taking.
So, that’s about it. A list of digital marketing tools, most marketers can agree, is essential when it comes to building a comprehensive promotional campaign.
