10 email marketing tools to help build, send, automate and optimize your campaigns

Email isn’t the easiest channel to master, but luckily there is a wide range of email marketing tools to help nail every step of a campaign.
This article covers everything from building an email template to post-campaign optimization. So what can these email marketing tools help with?

Building email templates

There are several levels of complexity when it comes to building emails. At the simplest end of the spectrum is purchasing a pre-built email template. Some email marketing tools will even provide their own database of templates for you to choose from. If you’re looking for a simple, easy-to-manage solution, this is a safe bet.
If you need a custom email template (or simply don’t like any of the existing templates), then an email builder should be your next port of call. These come in two flavors – a ‘WYSIWYG’ (What You See Is What You Get) drag-and-drop builder, or actual HTML code.
Most major email service providers (ESPs) will provide a template builder (with varying degrees of success), and all will allow you to input straight HTML. However, HTML requires you to code the email from scratch, or adapt an existing one. Both of these options are time- and resource-intensive, even if you have the skills to do it. However, it does allow you to access more advanced functionality, like dynamic content in emails.
Below are three good examples of email marketing tools that can be used to build emails. And if you’re in the market for a new ESP, here are seven things you mustn’t forget to ask your email marketing vendor.

• Litmus offer a collection of free, high-quality email templates. They even have a tool to help you see how they’ll look in different email clients.
• Benchmark offer a simple drag-and-drop editor and allow you to create branded signup forms.
• Campaign Monitor offer a template builder with the ability to add dynamic content. For each element in the email, there is a drop-down menu labelled ‘who should see this’ from which you can select segments of your audience.

Segmenting and sending emails

Now you’ve built your email template and it’s polished to a high shine, the next step is to work out which part of your audience to send it to – and, of course, to actually send it.
A recent study by Mailchimp found that segmented campaigns delivered an average of 14% higher open rates, a 9% lower bounce and a whopping 101% increase in click-through rate. So it’s worth investing the time into properly segmenting your audience before sending your emails. Tailoring the messaging, subject line and body content of your emails to each segment is a great strategy to improve engagement.
Of course, any time spent segmenting your audience is ultimately wasted if those messages aren’t delivered. So it’s also a good idea to invest in tools that ensure deliverability. Tools like Sendforensics let you test your emails before your campaign goes out, giving you a sense of whether your emails will land in inboxes or junk folders.
When it comes to actually sending your emails, below is a selection of email marketing tools that allow you to do so in bulk:

• Mailchimp is the market leader in terms of number of users, primarily because of the sheer simplicity of its interface. It also has a bunch of free email marketing tools which are great for small businesses – such as an HTML to text email converter that ensures your recipients can always see the content, regardless of their email client.
• Sendpulse offers a range of features like forms, mobile-optimization and a scheduler. It can also handle high volumes of emails (good for large mailing lists).
• Fospha is a ‘Customer Data Platform’, designed to track behaviour and customer profiles, using that data to create smart segments based on specific interests and behaviours. It also uses machine learning for clustering and personalization.

Automating email campaigns

Automation is one of the best email marketing tools available. Simple rules-based automation is offered by most providers, allowing you to set up entire campaigns based on user behavior, demographics and stage in the funnel.
One common application of email marketing automation is sending abandonment emails. This is a simple remarketing strategy used by ecommerce retailers to target customers who either add items to their basket but fail to complete the checkout, or simply browse items before leaving.
On average, 69% of customers leave their order behind before purchase. Using email marketing automation, a simple rule can be set up to trigger an email send to these customers, encouraging them to return to the site and complete their purchase. One shoe retailer was able to recover 24% of abandoned carts and drive an additional 5% revenue per month using this method.
Below are a few email marketing tools that can help automate elements of your campaigns. For more on marketing automation, check out our guide on How to choose the right marketing automation vendor.

• HubSpot is one of the biggest and most versatile players in the market, offering an intuitive interface to set up triggers and responses, along with lead scoring capabilities to help make your automated campaigns more intelligent and targeted.
• GetResponse offer time-based email triggers, which are effective for campaigns that require multiple touchpoints, such as welcome emails. GetResponse call these ‘autoresponders’ and list a few examples here.
• Marketo is another big player in the automation space, with a diverse range of features including automated push notifications, in-app messaging, and real-time location-based marketing.

Tracking, testing and optimizing your emails

As with any high-volume marketing channel, optimization is essential. Small changes to things like send time, subject lines and sender address can have a significant impact on open and click-through rates.
The first step is to track these metrics. Every ESP on the market has analytics in some form or another. Keep an eye on any spikes in bounce rate and other delivery metrics to ensure you aren’t penalized for spam, and on open and click-through rates to assess performance.
Once a baseline is established, it’s time to test the performance of regular emails against experimental ones. Make sure to only test one thing at a time, and for a period of at least a few weeks, to ensure changes cannot be attributed to other factors.
By continuing to test and track results, regular emails will be optimized over time. Here are a few email marketing tools that can help speed up that process:

• Salesforces’ Pardot offers A/B email testing, lets you view test data in real time and automatically selects the best-performing email to send to the rest of your recipients once the test is over.
• Phrasee applies its machine learning tool to every aspect of an emails, including subject lines, body copy and calls to action and triggers.
• The Hemingway App is, honestly, just great fun to use. It analyzes text and grades it based on boldness and clearness, highlighting hard-to-read phrases, clichés and use of the passive voice. For marketers who struggle with copywriting (come on, don’t be shy), this is a great little tool.

For more on making sure that your email marketing technology is ready for the future, don’t miss ClickZ Intelligence’s report, Email and the Age of First-Person Marketing: Is your email technology ready for the future?

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The ABCs of A/B testing | How to base your subject lines on science

 When time-starved customers are bombarded with emails every day, your subject lines can make an enormous difference in whether subscribers actually see your messages.

In fact, recent research shows 47 percent of email recipients quickly decide whether to open or ignore emails based on the subject line alone. Worse, 69 percent of readers who report email as spam are motivated to do so by how the subject line reads.

Of course, psychology plays a major role in that behavior, and researchers are continually trying to determine the parameters involved. For example, Experian last year found personalizing subject lines led to a 42 percent lift in unique open rates for the consumer products and services segment, an improvement that averaged out to 29 percent when applied across industries. However, personalization was completely ineffective in emails pitched to publishers, and it only improved opens by 1 percent when sent to media and entertainment representatives.

Because applying reader psychology to the email creation process is an inexact science, the only way to determine the most effective wording of your subject lines is often via A/B testing.

“There are limitless possible emotional combinations of language available,” observes Parry Malm on Econsultancy.com. “Knowing which work best for your audience is impossible without testing. The opportunity is to quantify emotion … then optimize based on the results … then profit from better subject lines.”

Fortunately, such testing is easy and convenient through the use of online tools.

VerticalResponse, for example, boasts an A/B testing feature that allows Pro Plan users to quickly and easily compare alternate email subject lines. Two different subject lines are sent to 25 percent of an address list, and within minutes of initiating the tests, the technology automatically sends the subject line that drew more opens to the remaining contacts, boosting the open rates for the entire campaign.

Testing options offer choices for better open rates

So how does A/B testing work? As its name implies, it helps you make decisions in your email campaign by temporarily presenting two different options to your audience, then gauging response rates to determine which option is better received. Here’s what the process generally entails:

1. Determine which factors you’d like to test. Before getting started, you need a good handle on the subject-line variables you’d like to compare. Industry research in that regard is valuable, but you often can’t determine what will work best for your specific audiences and circumstances without going directly to the source.  To think about elements to compare, consider the questions that have occurred to you as you’ve tried to finesse your subject lines in the past. For example, you may be wondering:

• Are short or long subject lines more appealing?
• How would my audience respond to numbers and dollar figures?
• How would recipients react to their names in the subject line?
• How much other customization is advisable?
• Should my subject line be phrased as a statement or question?
• Are exclamation points OK?
• Should I use industry jargon or more colloquial terms?
• Will humor be well received, or should I maintain a straightforward tone? Once you’ve established your most burning questions, you can create a spreadsheet allowing you to record and compare results.

2. Establish logistics. In designing your test structure, you must establish ground rules so results aren’t skewed; that way, you gain real, scientific insights. Aim to control as many extenuating variables as possible. For example:

• Your test groups should be equal in number.
• Your tests should run for an equal time interval.
• The tests should go out at the same time of day. Run your tests as frequently as you’d like. After the completion of each, you can fill in the results on your spreadsheet, after which you can take them up for consideration when crafting future emails.

Some common variables

As mentioned, you’ll need to decide which variables are most relevant to your campaign. However, you may want to be aware of research already conducted and how that might affect your own testing. You might also consider the following best practices in getting started:

• Question versus statement
  Sources differ on the advisability of incorporating question marks into your subject lines, but many recommend against it on the grounds the recipient may not open the email if his immediate mental answer to your question is negative. One source recommends instead making the subject line a statement, like “Question about your career,” which could prompt the reader to click to learn the nature of the question.
• Short versus long Brevity is of the essence when trying to appeal to busy consumers in a world vying for their attention. One study found subject lines of six to 10 words gleaned the most opens (21 percent), followed by those with zero to five words (16 percent) and 11 to 15 words (14 percent). Note 68 percent of emails are opened on mobile, and most mobile devices display only four to seven words of subject lines.
• Humorous versus straightforward That depends heavily on your target audience and whether it veers toward the conservative. Obviously you should stay away from anything that’s offensive, but in general, audiences respond positively to clever lines that are unexpected or make them smile. One study also points to much higher open rates for subject lines readers view as original. Still, overly ambiguous lines may lose you fans; one source points to 56 percent better open rates for messages that are very clear as to their intent.
• Emojis versus no emojis
  Salesforce reported last year on the increased use of characters and emojis in subject lines, estimating some 2 percent of B2C subject lines included them last year. “Using special characters and emojis in subject lines may seem gimmicky or silly,” advises Chad White in the report. “However, adding these visual elements to subject lines has proven quite effective for some brands, which should come as no surprise since adding images to tweets, blog posts or just about any other media also improves response.”
• Personalization versus no personalization
  Research differs on the extent to which personalization improves open rates. But most analysts believe it’s a good concept to embrace as consumers increasingly expect big data to help customize their business transactions. “Consumers expect their interactions with a brand to be dynamic and personally relevant,” notes Shelley Kessler on MarketingSherpa.com. “A brand that recognizes a subscriber by name in the subject line of an email is able to establish an immediate, personal connection with that subscriber, and that is reflected in our research.”

Recommended reading: Our Vice President of Product, Thomas Fanelli, gives readers five ways to to get started with personalization.

Also worth your consideration

Recent research points to the following other helpful information as you attempt to create meaningful subject lines for your emails. However, we still recommend testing these concepts on your own to determine whether they hold true for your audiences and circumstances.

• Email opens decrease 19 percent when the word “newsletter” is included in the subject line.
• Emails with no subject line are opened 8 percent more often than those with a subject line.
• Emails with “FW:” (denoting forwarding) in the subject line are opened 17 percent more often.
• Text that creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity improves open rates 22 percent.
• Using the words “daily” or “weekly” in subject lines boosts open rates, whereas the word “monthly” is detrimental.
• Subject lines that simply describe email content are more effective than those including a hard sell or call to action.
• Subject lines incorporating the word “free” are opened 10 percent more often.
• Other words that often perform well in subject lines include “content,” “video,” and “news.” Words that typically do more harm than good include “perfect,” “good,” “donate,” and “report.” 
• Certain words in subject lines are more likely than others to derail your email to spam; learn some of them here.
• Subject lines incorporating passive words perform up to 14 percent better than those with active words.
• Fewer than 1 percent of B2C subject lines include hashtags, which can deter opens but are nevertheless useful in pointing traffic toward social media campaigns. “Hashtags let you tap into big ideas and themes,” notes Chad White at Salesforce. 

Recommended reading: See more magic marketing words you should be using.

Ready to get started? A/B testing requires some thought, but it can help narrow down your email marketing strategy so you can take maximum advantage of one of the least expensive and most effective marketing tools available.

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105 ways to build your email list | Tips, tactics, and best practices

 One of the first steps in any email marketing campaign is pulling together a list of addresses from people likely to be interested in what you have to say or promote.

That said, building a list from scratch can seem a little overwhelming at first. After all, newbies are in a bit of a catch-22 situation: They can’t start a campaign without addresses, but they’re often so dependent on email that they don’t know how to ask customers to opt in without emailing them. So how do you build an email list without email addresses? Once you have addresses, what do you do with them? How often should your send emails? What can you do to ensure your emails are delivered and not lost in spam or junk filters?

Find the answers to these questions and more in our free eBook, Guide to Email List Management. Download it today to learn the tricks and tools to managing a successful email list.

Still need to gather more email addresses for your contact list? Fear not! With diligence and a little creativity, you can build a solid list of interested addressees through a variety of methods. Here we’ve compiled by category 105 strategies, tips, tools, and ideas to help you find viable, interested consumers to add to your email subscriber list.

General tips to keep in mind

1. Only use email addresses you have gathered with permission. Buying a list of consumer names is a bad idea since it heightens the risk of complaints, bounced addresses, unsubscribes, or accusations of spam. 
2. Experiment with new methods – ranging from pen and paper to online forms – and maximize the most effective ones.
3. Methods borrowed from others may not work for you, depending on your industry or business.
4. Once your list grows, segment audiences to increase strategy effectiveness.
5. Avoid being pushy; if you offer value, loyalty will follow.
6. Consider automation tools that can handle your busywork.

Fine-tune your opt-in form

7. Make signups less invasive by initially requesting only addresses.
8. Offer subscription options addressing content and intervals.
9. Leverage testimonials from satisfied recipients.
10. Mention subscriber numbers if they’re substantial.
11. Promote exclusivity by offering subscribers something only they can get.
12. Give away something valuable to all subscribers.

Optimize email addresses you already have

13. Gather your addresses from transactional business communications.
14. Share email lists with complementary businesses (with permission from your subscribers).
15. Include a signup link in all your personal emails.
16. Place forward-to-a-friend links in all emails.

Use your website as a portal

17. Promote your email by social media, website, and blog. There is no limit to where you can include a signup form for your email list.
18. Design a separate landing page specifically for signups.
19. Treat your blog home page like an email capture form.
20. Use Leadboxes from Leadpages in author bylines used on your site.
21. Conduct a heat map test to identify best places for opt-in buttons.
22. Test-drive CTA locations including your 404 page, sidebars, headers, footers, pop-up boxes, slide-ins that appear halfway down a page, or “sticky” forms that move down with scrolling.
23. Require commenters on your own blog to provide addresses.
24. Offer opt-ins to anyone “liking” comments on your blog.
25. Exchange opt-in links with other businesses’ newsletters.
26. Incorporate opt-ins within online forums your prospects might visit.
27. Buy paid ads on websites your customers are likely to frequent.
28. Offer subscribers free downloads of your business app.
29. Offer subscribers a free eBook or informational guide.
30. Establish a riveting blog that ends in an opt-in request.
31. Post limited content on your site; offer upgrades upon subscription.
32. Launch a viral competition in which subscribers benefit by recruiting others.
33. The SumoMe List Builder app launches opt-in ads toward visitors about to leave your site.
34. The SumoMe Scroll Box app launches ads toward visitors who scroll down.
35. Custom poll creator Qualaroo can ask visitors about subscribing.
36. Establish a highly visible confirmation page on your site that reiterates subscription benefits.

Promote signups on social media

37. Incorporate opt-in links to your promotional YouTube videos.
38. On Pinterest, attract subscribers via Pins leading to your signup form.
39. Add opt-ins to your business and personal social media profile sections.
40. Email opt-ins to anyone mentioning your business on social media.
41. Publish opt-ins on your LinkedIn company page and within LinkedIn discussions.
42. Create compelling images to post on Instagram; include opt-ins.
43. Stage sweepstakes and require entrants to provide addresses; Rafflecopter runs Facebook giveaways.
44. Create a contest inviting minute-long videos on why customers like your product. Post results on social media, asking voters to submit addresses in order to vote.
45. Run paid Facebook ads touting you email newsletter.
46. Online tool Woobox sets up quizzes related to your brand; participants share results on social media and provide addresses.
47. Online tool Binkd gathers addresses from participants who tweet about your brand in exchange for entry in a prize drawing.

Capture in-store customers

48. Print opt-in information on your receipts.
49. Gather business cards/addresses for a weekly or monthly prize drawing.
50. Place signs and signup sheets in highly visible places.
51. Make opt-in by smartphone effortless by displaying your QR code.
52. Ask all callers if they’ll opt in.
53. Use a sandwich board to request emails.
54. Ask for email addresses as customers sign receipts or business agreements.
55. Add opt-in invitations to shopping bags.
56. Gather addresses during in-store promotional events.
57. Offer customers discounts or free products for referrals.
58. Gather emails from customers responding to your Groupon, LivingSocial, or similar promotions.

Don’t forget snail mail

59. Mail postcards offering incentives for subscribing.
60. Include opt-in invitations with invoices.
61. Include inbox requests inside every shipped package.

Look for other opportunities

62. Use your smartphone to log addresses at business networking events.
63. Feature opt-in offers on your business cards.
64. Bring signup forms to trade shows, chamber of commerce events, and other business gatherings.
65. Text customers about your pending newsletter and invite them to opt in.
66. Place ads in local publications that prospects are likely to read.
67. Solicit addresses when your business appears at fundraisers, festivals, artisan markets, etc.
68. Tout the benefits of your subscriber birthday or anniversary club.
69. Pay employees commission for securing viable addresses.
70. Offer discounts to customers providing others’ addresses.
71. Stage daily deals at your business, requiring participants to opt in.
72. Book speaking engagements; offer subscribers free consultations.
73. Gather addresses of those who mention your business on Foursquare.
74. Justuno can automatically provide subscribers a relevant coupon code.
75. Set up a WordPress community for your business, then post opt-ins.
76. Use BuiltWith.com to discover tools competitors use to build their lists.

Build repeat business through credibility

77. Create a comprehensive year-long email marketing plan.
78. Optimize personalization tools to customize your campaign.
79. Keep subject lines creative, clear, and urgent.   
80. Develop a voice likely to appeal to your key audience.
81. Keep messages brief and highly digestible.
82. Create a not-to-be-missed email newsletter.
83. Use variety, interspersing promotional messages with helpful information.
84. Create emails informing customers of your latest and greatest inventory.
85. Create emails explaining how to get the most from your business or product.
86. Consider emails that share your company’s successes.
87. Repurpose popular blog posts, videos, or other marketing messages into email.
88. Ensure all visuals are crisp, high quality, and engaging.
89. Use humor when appropriate.
90. Optimize messaging opportunities centered around holidays and other events.
91. Create and tout clever special events related to your business.
92. Incorporate effective calls to action (CTAs) that are easy to respond to via link or button.
93. Offer visually appealing, easy-to-digest layouts.
94. Ensure all messages are mobile-friendly and easy to open on any device.
95. Sign up for and evaluate competitors’ email campaigns and newsletters.
96. Study industry trends and how they might work for you.
97. Resist giving away valuable longer-form content without subscriptions.
98. Use creative videos within emails to grab viewer attention.
99. Tease recipients with hints about your next email(s).

Gauge your effectiveness

100. Frequently employ A/B split testing to fine-tune audience preferences.
101. Use surveys to ask audiences how you’re doing. Free services like SurveyMonkey, KwikSurveys, and SurveyPlanet can help.
102. Measure your conversion rates, bounce rates, open rates, and unsubscribe rates relative to industry standards.  
103. Constantly cull your list by deleting subscribers that haven’t interacted with your emails or brand.
104. Include unsubscribe links allowing users to indicate why they’re unsubscribing.
105. Listen closely to customer feedback and adjust accordingly.

Want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of using and implementing your email marketing list?

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The Beginner’s Guide to Email Marketing

Email Marketing Best Practices

So you’ve heard the buzz about how easy and cost effective email marketing can be for your business. But, you might not be sure where to start?  We’ve put together this handy guide of email marketing best practices to help you get started in a snap.

Build your email marketing list

If you’re just getting started with email marketing, your list might be fairly small. That’s okay. Everyone starts somewhere, and you’ll grow your list over time. Just make sure you’re collecting email addresses, and especially that you have an opt-in form on your website, blog and applicable social networks so new people can sign up to join your list.

It is a email marketing best practice to include information along with your sign-up form to let your new subscribers know exactly how often you plan on emailing them (whether it’s once a month or twice a week, or another timeframe), and what type of information you’ll be sending. That way, people know right away what they’re signing up for when they sign up, and expectations are set, so there aren’t any surprises.


It also allows you to offer an incentive for subscribers, whether it’s special email-only discounts and deals, or information about new products and specials before they’re released on your website.

Start small

Not sure how often to send email? It’s better to start small, emailing subscribers once or twice a month, or more often if that is what you offered when they signed up. It’s important to only send what you promised. If you need to increase the frequency later, or during a busy season like the winter holidays, you can email your subscribers and let them know in advance what to expect.

A word of warning: Don’t add anyone to your email list without their permission. If they’ve entered a contest or drawing or you’ve gotten their business card, make sure to drop them a line to ask if they want to be on your email list – instead of adding them directly.

If you need ideas of what to send, we’ve got 50 unique ideas for you here.

Segment your list

Even if you only have 20 or 30 people on your email list, it’s not too soon to start segmenting it based on the type of information people are looking for. Local customers interested in events or workshops may go on a different list than those who live out of town. You may offer three different products for three unique groups – in which case it’s a perfect time to begin tailoring your marketing to specific groups of people, offering information specific to them instead of a one-size-fits-all approach.

Do what’s right for your subscribers

You may get emails from chain clothing stores each day, telling you what to buy and what’s on sale. “That’s how they do their marketing,” says Jill Bastian, our own Training and Education manager. “For them it’s pretty successful, but for small businesses, people have different expectations.”

If you try too hard to emulate big companies, you could get in trouble. People may get annoyed with a high volume of emails. “Pay attention to your stats,” Bastian advises. “If subscribers drop off, look at your content. Are you sending the right information? Are you sending too often? Too many messages saying ‘Buy! Buy! Buy!’ can be really off-putting to people,” so make sure to intersperse useful messages with informational content in your email marketing.

Find your voice

As a small business owner, your tone may be able to be a bit more conversational than an email sent from a big business (depending on your industry or type of business, of course). Spend some time finding your company’s voice to ensure your messages hit the mark.

Be consistent

A rookie email marketing mistake is to simply send an email when you have something to say. But it’s better to email on a regular basis. Disappearing for even a couple of months can confuse your readers, who may forget about your business before you hit send nine weeks later.

Quality content

Another common mistake is to only send sales pitches to your readers.  “There’s more to sending out an email than putting some pictures of your product and saying, ‘okay, go buy it,’ because people won’t keep looking at the email if you don’t spend a little bit of time writing it,” says Bastian. Instead, post highly valuable content your readers are interested in and which they would benefit from, whether they use your product or not. Things like how-tos, tips and product help are popular types of content.

Make it readable

You’ll want your messages to be easy to read, no matter what device your readers are on, or how much time they have. Using bullets and subheadings makes your email easy to scan, even, for example, if someone’s quickly checking messages on their phone while taking the subway to work.

Also, make sure to break up longer paragraphs into shorter ones to make your material more digestible.

Proof and edit

Have a co-worker glance at your message before hitting send to avoid typos, broken links or other errors after the emails hit your subscribers’ inbox.

Testing

A simple web search on online marketing can present you with a dizzying array of often contradictory information on the best way to market to your readers. The thing is, there’s no one approach that works for every business, let alone each specific group of people. And since nobody can offer you the perfect blueprint for your unique email list, the most important thing is to test.

You’ll want to analyze your data from time to time, with a special look at the following:

• Subject matter. Are there specific topics people gravitate towards? Look at the open rate on your emails to see if there are any surprises. In some industries, people are always asking about a specific topic, but the open rate for emails addressing it is low. Sometimes people think they’re interested (or not interested) in reading information about certain topics, but the data shows otherwise. Keep an eye on which types of emails are read most often, and which aren’t, so you can modify the subjects you cover appropriately. Your readers may even change their interests and preferences over time.

• Subject line. What does better for you, emails with lots of information in the subject line or those with just a bit? If you have 200 addresses or more on your email list, A/B split testing can help you analyze two different subject lines for the exact same post to see which one gets a better response. There may be specific subject lines for your list that you’d like to test as well.

• Email length. There’s no cookie-cutter answer for what the best length is for your emails. It may vary by message depending if you are sending a newsletter, an offer, an invitation or another message. And you can also mix up your email length, if appropriate, with some short and sweet messages and some longer, more comprehensive reads.

• How often. Sending to your list on a regular basis is the best recipe for success. Stick with what you promised when the subscriber signed up and change it as needed as your business dictates.

• Counting clicks. Including links to products or areas of your website can help you see what your readers are interested in – just look at the number of clicks per link.

It’s tempting to feel like you’re done after the email you crafted is delivered to your email list, but it’s really just the beginning. Bottom line: Your email marketing campaign isn’t done when you hit send. Spend some time seeing what your customers or readers like and what they’re interested in – which products they look at or buy, which links they’re clicking on, which articles they’re reading, and so forth. Keep giving them the kind of information they want. If you’re not paying attention to the people reading your emails, then your email marketing won’t be successful.


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Attitude of Gratitude

It’s a solid rule of thumb in the retail world: Keeping existing clientele is easier, more profitable, and less expensive than trying to hunt down new clients.

That’s why it’s so important to let those in your current customer base know how much you value their business.

“We’re living in what I like to call the ‘Thank You Economy,’ because only the companies that can figure out how to mind their manners in a very old-fashioned way — and do it authentically — are going to have a prayer of competing,” writes social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk on Entrepreneur.com.

Research backs up the impact on your bottom line when you show appreciation to your clientele. The likelihood of selling to an existing happy customer is up to 14 times higher than that of selling to a new customer, reports a Marketing Metrics study. And businesses that grow their customer-retention rates by as little as 5 percent can see profit increases ranging from 25 percent up to a staggering 95 percent, according to studies by Bain & Co.

Fortunately, email offers an excellent vehicle for fast and efficient (but heartfelt) thank yous that help make customers feel appreciated while offering them a break from more promotional messages. If they’re genuine, such expressions can also put you head and shoulders above the rest in a marketplace that sometimes sees people as dollar figures instead of human beings.
Here are some tips for crafting thank you emails.

Massaging the messages

Need specific reasons to show customers appreciation? There are several kinds of emails to help express your gratitude while further cementing the positive relationships that can build your business. Consider these five options:

1. Thank you after a purchase – Ideally, these emails address the recipient by name and offer specific thanks for the item(s) purchased. If possible, the message should be positioned as coming from a real, genuine person within your organization instead of a faceless business; it might even include a small photo of the sender. But it need not be wordy; in fact, sometimes succinct messages pack a bigger wallop.
2. Holiday celebration – While recognizing the major holidays is a no-brainer, you’ll stand out even further if you recognize minor or tongue-in-cheek holidays that might have significance to your business and/or customer base. Consider the growing economic impact of Star Wars Day and the increasing awareness (Argh!) of Talk Like a Pirate Day. Copious online sources list similar commemorative days of all kinds. Note that recipients are apt to be even more responsive if you throw in a discount or freebie that keeps with the theme.
3. Birthday wishes – These are an excellent way to connect with customers — and make them feel recognized — in a non-promotional way. You can have fun with this via online tools that can customize your good wishes with animated GIFs, music, cool designs, and other bells and whistles. For even more impact, consider a birthday present such as a virtual gift card or special offer. Consumers who get a product for free provide valuable word-of-mouth by talking about the product 20 percent more, according to the Journal of Marketing. Examples of effective birthday emails are here.
4. Feedback requests – Asking customers their opinions about your business, products, and services can also make them feel valued and important. One of the easiest methods is a survey that can be automatically tallied; the results can help identify customers’ needs and wants, as well as monitor your brand’s identity in the marketplace. Make sure your survey is brief and easy to answer, though, as your audience could be turned off if they perceive it as inconvenient, time consuming, or overly personal.
5. Celebration of company milestone – Did you just make your 10,000th sale? Fifth anniversary? Unveil a new website? Whatever the milestone, let your customers feel as though they have helped you reach that goal. Tell your story in an engaging way, then explain how instrumental your customers have been in that journey.

Open sesame

It’s important to note, however, that even the most riveting message can’t serve its purpose if the recipient isn’t motivated to open it. Follow these suggestions for maximizing your chances of being noticed among the 90 business emails sent and received by the average human being each day, worldwide.

• Marketing firms or do-it-yourself tools can help you segment your email list so you’re not sending the same email to everyone. Your messages can then be tailored by any number of factors, including how recently or frequently the recipient has bought from you and the monetary value of their purchases. The same tools can automatically send messages on your behalf in response to what the customer does on your website, strategically timing the message to maximize the chance it will be opened.

• Keep your message focused and to the point, limiting each email to one call to action, if any. Ask yourself if you’d want to read the message, whether the tone is appropriate for your audience, and if you can edit out repetitive or meaningless copy. For these kinds of emails less is more, and three or four paragraphs should be your maximum length.

• Summarize the content in the subject line so recipients know your message isn’t self-promotional, (i.e. “Many thanks for your recent purchase, Rufus” or “The happiest of birthday wishes, Esmeralda”).

• Consider a freebie or special offer in the way of thanks. “On the surface, freebies look like obvious money losers,” notes Martha C. White on the Time website. “But when handled wisely, giveaways are all but guaranteed to boost sales. When consumers get something for nothing, they respond in a host of surprising, mostly unconscious ways — and the net result is often that the companies handing out freebies are rewarded well for their ‘generosity.’”

• Avoid sending from email addresses (i.e. noreply@domain.com) that don’t allow responses. Such addresses make you appear impervious to feedback and deny you further chances to connect with customers.

• In order to customize future messages, consider AB testing to determine which versions perform most effectively.

Email provides an affordable and relatively easy way to connect with your customers in ways that come across as less self-serving. Foster goodwill among your clientele by letting them know you value their support and business.


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A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: But What About Emojis?

In today’s digital age, communicating your marketing message is all about being clear, concise, and direct. Twitter gives us 140 characters to get our point across; we abbreviate “OMG,” “LOL,” and “OMW,” for text messages; crowded inboxes require standout subject lines for readers to open your campaign; and Instagram now allows you to hashtag emojis. We’ve all heard the idiom before: “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and it’s never been more true.

In a recent study by Appboy, they discovered emoji use in emails has increased an unprecedented 7,100 percent compared to last year.



So what does that mean for your email marketing? If you’re already in the process of spring cleaning your marketing efforts and coming up with fresh new subject lines, content, and creative, consider the impact of emojis to convey your message.

Keep in mind that emoji use in your marketing may look different than in your personal communications. Are you trying to highlight a specific promotion, deal, or point? Are you celebrating a milestone or event? Is there a seasonal campaign you’re running? Emojis can be a great way to draw attention to these programs or add an emotional, visual element to your communications.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your marketing and get a little creative. Try running an A/B test to see if emojis work for your brand. While emoji use is on the rise, you may find that they aren’t the right fit for your brand. ()



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Four Email Marketing Myths Debunked

 

Just like old wives’ tales, myths about what does and doesn’t work in email marketing can outlast unbelievers. We’ll let the medical establishment debate whether wet hair and cold weather gets you sick, but we think it’s time to set the record straight on some of the most common email marketing myths.

We sat down with Jerry Jao, the co-founder and chief executive of Retention Science, to clear the myth-filled air. His company helps small businesses keep customers around for the long haul by crunching marketing data. Jao says four myths seem to live on despite evidence that they’re not true and he’s more than happy to dispel them with numbers and facts.

Myth: Sending emails first thing in the morning is best

Many marketers insist that sending an email to a customer in the morning means they’ll open it as soon as they sit down at their computer. That has led to the general rule of thumb that the morning is the best time of day to send a marketing email. There may some logic behind the idea, says Jao, but it’s simply not true.

By combing though 100 million online transactions, 20 million user profiles and 100 email campaigns, Retention Science found that the afternoon is actually a better time to send an email. According to their research, most online shoppers are active later in the day but typically receive shopping-related promotional emails early in the morning. Other research supports this. At best, the rule of thumb about sending early is harmless. At worst, you’re killing your conversions.

Solve this conundrum by testing different times with similar or identical messages.

Myth: Emails sent on Mondays are the most successful

Sending emails on Monday is another rule of thumb that may have a logical underpinning but little in the way of convincing proof. Marketers assume that everyone has a case of the Monday blues. Since no one really wants to jump back into work, people are more likely to sift through their email on Monday, or so they think.

Retention Science’s data showed the opposite: Tuesday and Friday had the highest conversion rates. Test out different days to see if they make an impact on open rates and conversions.

Myth: More frequent email is better

If you send a bunch of emails to your customers they’re bound to open some of them, so why not send a dozen, right? Wrong. Jao says this is a common myth that needs debunking.

“It’s important to understand that less is more when it comes to email campaigns,” he says.

Of course, finding the right email frequency is tough. There isn’t a definitive number that works for every business, but Jao suggests testing your email frequency while watching unsubscribe rates to make sure you find the right balance.

Myth: Subject lines packed with info get opened

A subject line is important, no question about it. However, some people believe that packing a subject line full of information leads to high open rates. Untrue.

While you can squeeze about 70 characters into a subject line, that doesn’t mean you should. Rather than cramming the header full of words, focus on making the subject line conversational, Jao suggests.

“A subject line should sound like something a friend would say,” he says. “Don’t be wordy or pitchy, just be conversational.”

While there isn’t a plug-and-play formula to create a killer subject line, there are practices that you should avoid. Don’t use all capital letters, don’t be deceiving, ditch any symbols or emoticons, take it easy with punctuation and refuse to be boring. If you stay away from these no-nos, your open rates will improve.

When in doubt, A/B test your subject line to see what kind of wording works best for your customers. In fact, it’s a good takeaway message. Testing email content can give you statistics to back up your marketing moves, Jao says. It will not only give you an insight into the habits of your customers, but it will keep you from falling victim to marketing myths.

This post contributed by guest author, Lisa Furgison. Furgison is a media maven with ten years of journalism experience and a passion for creating top-notch content.

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101 (Neatly Organized) Marketing Tools For Nearly Any Marketing Task

Looking for a definitive list of “marketing tools”? Then look no further.

We’ve painstakingly researched, refined and distilled hundreds of them.

The result: this fully-categorised list of what we believe to be 100 of the best tools out there.

But, before we get to the tools, here are a couple of things to keep in mind:
It would be impossible to create a list of every tool, so this wasn’t our focus. We instead focussed on collating the most popular and widely-used tools (and categorizing them).
We’ve put a lot of focus on SEO tools. Why? Because we’re talking about online marketing here, and SEO is a HUGE part of it.

OK, let’s get to the tools!

Analytics Tools

Without analytics, there’s no way of knowing how your visitors are reaching or interacting with your website.

And, if you don’t know this, you’ll be in the dark about what’s working and what isn’t.

This is a dangerous place to be, as it can lead to all kinds of errors.

For example, you may continue spending money on that PPC campaign that isn’t generating a return on investment. Or keep creating content that nobody is actually reading.

Analytics tools allow you to gain insight into these areas, so you can base your marketing strategy on cold, hard data (rather than guessing).

They can tell you where your visitors came from, who they are, and the traffic sources that convert best.



And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

These days, there’s an analytics tool for virtually everything.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Google Analytics — comprehensive analytics platform from Google (we recommend all websites use this!)

KISSMetrics — digs deeper into your visitors/customers behavior.

MixPanel — helps you learn more about your users. Great for product development and/or increasing conversions.

HotJar — shows how visitors are using your website with heatmaps.

Competitive Research Tools

Sometimes, you’ll be working on a site and realize one thing: your competition is absolutely crushing it.



It can be depressing, but remember this:

If you can just reverse engineer what they’re doing (i.e. everything responsible for their success), you can then implement similar tactics on your site.

But, here’s the problem: it’s almost impossible to do manually.

This is where tools come in handy.

Competitive research tools can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about your competitors, including:
Which content has the most backlinks?
Which content has the most social shares?
What terms are they bidding on in AdWords?
What keywords are they ranking for?

It’s also possible to identify “content gaps” (i.e. content your competitor has, yet you don’t) for your own site.

Here are our favorites:

SimilarWeb — estimates traffic and engagement statistics for any website.

SEMRush — shows the keywords your competitors are ranking for, the terms they’re targeting with ads and much more.

Ahrefs — lets you see who’s linking to your competitors, their most popular content, and more.

SpyFu — spy on your competitors and find their most profitable keywords (in both organic and paid search).

Link Prospecting Tools

Building backlinks is never an easy task.

It takes time, effort and a meticulously personalized approach to outreach.

Even then, you’re still only going to convert a handful of your prospects.

Therefore, successful link building requires two things:
A large list of prospects.
A way to meticulously vet these prospects.



Here are a few of the best tools for any serious link prospector:

Google Results Extractor (by Chris Ainsworth) — scrapes Google search results into a neat, copyable list.

LinkClump — lets you open a bunch of links in one fell swoop (perfect for vetting large lists of prospects).

Check My Links (for Chrome) — checks for broken links on any web page from within your browser.

NoFollow (for Chrome) — check for nofollowed links on any web page (i.e. links that pass no SEO value).

SEERS SEO Toolbox — adds insanely useful SEO-focussed formulas to Google Sheets.

URL Profiler — crawls and scrapes content from websites. It can also pull in data from Moz, Ahrefs, Majestic, and a ton of other data sources.

Backlink Research Tools

Links remain one of the most important ranking factors.

Many studies (including our own) have confirmed this.

But, building links (without buying them!) can be extremely difficult.

And, if you don’t have access to a backlink research tool, it will be even harder.

Why? Because nearly all link building strategies that work (e.g. broken link building, etc.) rely heavily on data from such tools.

For example, you might want to reverse engineer the top 10 Google results (in order to figure out why they’re ranking) then copy their strategy.

But, with links (still) being a crucial ranking factor, you can bet that any site ranking in the top 10 has a ton of links.

So, you’ll probably need to reverse engineer (and copy) their backlinks to stand any chance of outranking them.

And the only way to find out who links to a particular piece of content is by using a backlink research tool.



Without relying on metrics (e.g. DR, UR, etc.) from such tools, it’s also pretty difficult to figure out the potential value of a link.

So, here are our 3 favorite backlink research tools:

Ahrefs Site Explorer — finds backlinks pointing to any domain or URL. It also has great filtering, shows anchor text, and even surrounding link text. Yeah, we’re biased, but this guy isn’t.

Majestic — the closest competitor to Ahrefs when it comes to “backlink research”. It has a few useful metrics such as TrustFlow and CitationFlow.

Open Site Explorer (from Moz) — backlink checker created by Moz.com. It has the smallest index of the three.

Keyword Research/Discovery Tools

Many people begin creating content without first conducting keyword research.

This is a big mistake.

Without comprehensive keyword research, your content typically won’t stand a chance of ranking for anything worthwhile.

And, if it doesn’t rank for the right terms (i.e. the keywords/phrases your target audience are searching for), you won’t get the traffic you deserve.

This means that the time, money, and effort you put into creating your content will be wasted.

Keyword research is actually a two-step process, consisting of:
Discovery
Research

Sidenote.Here’s a great 19-step process if you’re seriously about learning more, but we’ll keep things simple for the purpose this post.

Discovery involves finding as many keywords (related to your niche) as possible.

Finding related keywords from a “seed” keyword is one way of doing this.



Research involves looking at things like search volume (i.e. how many people search for a keyword each month) and keyword difficulty (i.e. the effort required to rank for a keyword).



And using this information to decide which keywords to target.

Both of these processes are equally important, so here are our favorite keyword discovery/research tools:

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer — grabs search volume and keyword difficult for any keyword. It also suggests related keywords and has great filtering options.

SEMRush — show a ton of information for any keyword (including search volume).

Long Tail Pro — grabs keyword volume, determines keyword competitiveness, and pulls in metrics from Majestic.

KeywordTool.io — amends your seed keyword with hundreds of variations, then scrapes Google’s related searches to find thousands of similar keywords.

AnswerThePublic.com — finds questions people are actually searching for (from your seed keyword).

On-Page SEO / Crawl Tools

Most “on-page SEO” tasks fall into one of these two buckets:
Finding errors (or optimization opportunities)
Fixing them

When you’re working with a small website (<5 pages), manually searching for and fixing problems is pretty easily done.

You load up a page, inspect the HTML, and note down any areas for improvement.

Simple.

But, with a large site (say 10k+ pages), doing this manually could easily take weeks or even months. It would also be pretty boring.

This is where web crawlers and various other on-page tools are needed.

Web crawlers make finding errors en masse as simple as hitting a “crawl” button — the program does all the work for you.



But, there’s another problem: big sites typically have big (i.e. many) problems.

Diving into the HTML to fix hundreds of problems would be pretty time-consuming. Fortunately there are a tons of other on-page tools/plugins that make life a lot easier.

Here are a few must-have tools:

Screaming Frog — powerful website crawling application that’s perfect for discovering on-site issues (e.g. broken links, etc.)

DeepCrawl — powerful industry-leading website crawler (also cloud-based, unlike Screaming Frog)

Yoast SEO (WordPress Plugin) — gives you the ability to easily edit on-page meta information (e.g. title, description, etc.) without sifting through the code.

OnPage.org — crawls your website, finds on-site/technical errors, and kicks back a detailed report.

Beam Us Up — powerful crawling application (somewhat similar to Screaming Frog, but 100% free),

Xenu Link Sleuth — lightweight website crawler with a focus on finding broken links (only for Windows).

Rank Tracking Tools

Knowing where you rank for your target keywords is super-important.

Without tracking this information, you’ll never know where to prioritize your efforts.

For example, if you rank #1 for a particular keyword, you probably don’t need to launch a massive link building campaign for that page/keyword (as it can’t get any higher).

But, if you’re ranking at the bottom of page 2, that page may benefit from such a campaign.



What’s more, if you have clients, they’re going to expect a “ranking” report every month.

And, with most websites ranking for hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of keywords, it would be crazily time-consuming to do this manually.

So, here are a few of the best rank tracking tools on the market:

Pro Rank Tracker — track up to 50,000 keywords with daily automatic updates. They also support both local and mobile rank tracking.

STAT — track an unlimited number of keywords, all with daily tracking. Mobile and local SERPs included.

SERPWoo — track up to 4,000 keywords (includes mobile + local). It also lets you track the top 100 positions for any query.

AWR Cloud — daily rankings for desktop, mobile and local searches. You can also generate white label ranking reports.

Accuranker — fast rank checker (updates in seconds). It also tracks social metrics and integrates with Google Analytics.

Content Research Tools

Millions of blog posts are published every single day.

And here’s the truth: most of them go completely unnoticed.

Why? Because most people never research the type of content that is likely to work well in their industry.

They simply start writing and hope for the best.

So unless you want to waste time creating content that your target audience won’t care about, you need to do your research.

This is where content research tools come in.

These tools allow you to gain insight into your industry before you write a single word.

Just type in a keyword or phrase and you’ll be able to see things like:
Number of social shares
Number of backlinks/referring domains
The exact wording your target audience uses when searching for a topic



And from this, you can make informed, data-driven decisions about the best way to attack your chosen keywords/topics.

Here are a few of our favorite tools:

Buzzsumo — easily find content with the most social shares and backlinks (you can also filter by content type and time period).

Ahrefs (Content Explorer) — find niche-specific content with the most social shares, backlinks, and traffic. Also lets you get super-granular with the filtering (e.g. filter by publish date, languages, etc.)

Reddit — popular community site where you can find tried and tested ideas for your content.

Email Discovery/Verification Tools

Many marketers still search for email addresses manually.

They spend countless hours sifting through hundreds of websites, social profiles, and other web properties, searching for that elusive email address.

This takes a ton of time.

Simply finding the contact information for, say, 100 people can easily set you back a full working day.

This is where “email discovery/verification tools” come in handy.

Using super-smart algorithms, they visit, parse, and scrape sites to gather contact information.

Many of them will find a person’s email address in seconds — all you need is their name and website.



But, here’s the bad news:

None of these tools are 100% accurate (most claim 80–90% accuracy), so occasionally they won’t find anything.

This is where email guessing and validation tools come in handy.

Here are our 5 favorites:

Hunter.io (formerly EmailHunter.co) — tackles both email discovery and verification. It has a clean UI, API access (which works in Google Sheets), and a Chrome extension.

Voila Norbert — discovers and verifies email addresses (very similar to Hunter.io). It has an API, but no Chrome extension.

FindThat.Email — claims an 85% delivery rate on all email addresses it finds. No API access, but there’s a Chrome extension. It also works within Ahrefs Dashboard.

MailTester.com — will verify the existence of an email address by pinging the server. It’s ugly, but it works.

Guesser.email — does what it says on the tin: it’s guesses someone’s email address (from their name and website).

Email Marketing Tools

Email marketing tools have come a long way over the last few years.

No longer are they restricted to bland broadcast emails (i.e. an “email blast” to your entire list).



You can now:
Segment easily
Get extremely granular with campaign monitoring
Create smart action-based autoresponder sequences

This is why email is reported to have a 3800% ROI.

So, if you’re serious about email marketing, you need to invest in email marketing tools.

Here are a few of our favorites:

MailChimp — email marketing made simple. Offers easy integration with a ton of third-party apps/services (e.g. UnBounce, WordPress, etc.)

ConvertKit — conversion focussed email marketing for bloggers.

InfusionSoft — email marketing platform focussed on smart automation (also incorporates a CRM).

GetResponse — claims to be the “world’s easiest email marketing” platform. It also offers some automation features (although not as advanced as InfusionSoft).

Outreach Tools

Manual outreach is one of the most effective ways to promote new content.

It’s also a great way to build links.

But, if you take the fully manual approach, it can take hours to compose and send just a few outreach emails.

This is because generic email tools (e.g. Gmail) aren’t built for mass outreach. So, you’ll end up writing each and every email from scratch (this is crazily time-consuming).

Outreach tools make everything much simpler and quicker.

Many have features such as auto follow-ups, email open tracking, pre-built templates, and even mail-merge capabilities.



They can also drastically simplify the process of discovering relevant prospects.

Some even allow you to discover hundreds (or even thousands) of targeted prospects in seconds.

Here are our favorites:

Buzzstream — find prospects and send outreach emails with ease. Includes a basic CRM and lets you track all emails sent.

Pitchbox — outreach platform focussed on automation and scaling.

ContentMarketer.io — lets you send and track outreach emails using Gmail. Includes a ton of templates.

JustReachOut.io — allows you to discover and pitch to journalists easily. Integrates with HARO.

NinjaOutreach — all-in-one influencer discovery and outreach management tool.

Local SEO Tools

If you’re involved in “local” SEO, things like citation building, reviews, and reputation management will be a big part of your life.

But, here’s the problem: these tasks can be extremely time-consuming, boring, and repetitive.

For example, It can take hours to find local citation opportunities. And when you do find them, you’ll then have to spend even more time submitting to each of them. One. By. One.

It’s the same story with local blogger outreach, attracting reviews, and virtually any other “local SEO” task, too.

But, what if all this could be simplified, or perhaps even automated?

With “local SEO” tools, you can automate tasks such as, local rank tracking, and even finding local citations.



Here are a few useful “local SEO” tools:

BrightLocal — pulls your local SEO data into one dashboard. Offers a ton of tools including citation auditing and online review monitoring.

WhiteSpark — offers three main tools: local citation builder; reputation builder; and local rank tracker. There’s also a link prospector.

Moz Local — helps you ensure that your local business listings are accurate and correct.

FreeReviewMonitoring.com — monitors your businesses reviews on all the major review sites, daily.

Mobile Analytics Tools

If you don’t know exactly how people are using your mobile app, something needs to change.

Sure, looking at the number of downloads gives you a basic insight.

But, if you’re looking to optimize your app for UX (as you should be) or analyze where mobile users are falling out of your funnel, you need to dig deeper.

This is exactly what mobile analytics tools allow you to do.

They’ll help you figure out who your users really are; what they’re clicking; and even the exact features they’re using.

You can then use this data to improve UX, guide your feature implementation strategy, and even increase your bottom-line.

Here are a few great tools:

Apsalar — app analytics platform focussed on ROI. Assesses return on ad spend (ROAS) and helps with remarketing.

LeanPlum — comprehensive mobile analytics platform that helps to drive app engagement and ROI.

App Annie — app analytics and marketing data intelligence platform.

Online Mention Tracking Tools

Most businesses are constantly being mentioned online.

Some people will be talking about their experience(s) with you, others will be asking questions about your product in forums, and so forth.

Now, it’s easy to see how monitoring these mentions could be beneficial; for example:
You could follow-up and answer questions from potential customers in forums
You could reclaim links from those mentioning you, but not linking to your site (thus helping with SEO)
You could promote future content to those who’ve mentioned you in the past

But monitoring these mentions manually is literally impossible.

The solution: mention tracking tools.

These tools constantly monitor the web for mentions of, well, whatever you ask them to monitor the web for.

You can enter brand keywords (e.g. “Ahrefs”), competitor keywords (e.g. “SEMRush”), or even topics (e.g. “marketing tools”).



Whenever they spot a new mention, they’ll let you know.

Here are a few of our favorites:

Google Alerts — lets you monitor the web for any keyword/phrase (completely free!).

Ahrefs (Alerts) — monitor alerts for any query and get updates in real-time (or daily/weekly).

Mention — monitors mentions of your brand on the web. It also helps uncover influencers and allows you to react instantly.

TalkWalker — listens for brand mentions on social platforms. It also tells you whether those mentions are positive or negative.

Social Mention — real-time keyword monitoring and analysis.

Social Media Marketing Tools

Facebook has 1.7+ billion monthly active users.

Twitter has 313 million.

Even Pinterest has 100+ million.

So it’s clear that social media marketing is a must for all businesses, regardless of size.

But, managing a Facebook page, Twitter account, Pinterest board, and LinkedIn group is a time-consuming process.

And here’s the truth: most small business owners simply don’t have the time or budget to do this.

I mean, if you’re doing everything manually, it can easily take an hour just to post one link across all your social media channels.

Luckily, social media marketing tools can help streamline the process.

Not only can they help with management, but many use smart algorithms to determine the best time for posting.

They even automate the entire process.



Here are a few of the best:

Buffer — allows you to queue your social media posts and publish to multiple platforms in one place.

CoSchedule — lets you build a smart content marketing editorial calendar.

HootSuite — helps you to manage all your social platforms from one place.

FollowerWonk — helps you to analyze your twitter followers (e.g. who they are, and where they’re from). Also useful for discovering “influencers”.

Landing Page Tools

Landing pages have one job: to convert visitors into leads.

In fact, a good landing page should convert at 20%-40%.

But, here’s the problem: each time you promote something new (e.g. ebook, webinar, “cheat sheet”, etc.), you’ll need a completely redesigned landing page.

But, most businesses can’t afford to shell out a couple of hundred bucks for a custom landing page design every few weeks.

Landing page tools solve this problem by offering sets of pre-designed, easily editable landing page templates.



Most also keep track of conversion rates, allowing you to gain some insight into how well your pages are converting.

Some even allow you to create and optimize entire funnels, which ultimately leads to a nice increase in revenue (when used wisely).

Here are a few we love:

LeadPages — a landing page builder (with a ton of templates!). Integrates with most email marketing platforms.

ClickFunnels — map out your entire funnel and build all the landing pages (and more) you need.

UnBounce — a simple landing page builder with over 200 templates.

Instapage — build, publish and continually test (with A/B testing) landing pages.

A/B Testing Tools

Most people are quite “trigger happy” with their ideas.

For example, when they have an idea for increasing conversions on their sales page, they’ll waste no time implementing that idea.

This is a huge mistake.

Why?

Because that change could just as easily decrease conversions. And if that happens, it will have a negative effect on your bottom-line.

A/B testing solves this problem by offering a data-driven approach to any changes.

Here’s how it works:

Instead of simply implementing a change and hoping for the best, A/B testing tools will create two versions of a page.

The first version is the original page (no changes), and the second is identical to the first, but with one change.

These two pages are then tested against each other — you can then choose whichever performed best as the winner.



Here are a few great A/B testing tools:

VWO — easily run A/B tests (and multivariate tests) on your website. It also helps you target and personalize content to different types of visitor.

Optimizely — run A/B tests and personalize web content with ease.

Convert.com — enterprise-level A/B testing with “seamless” Google Analytics integration.

Marketing Automation Tools

Most businesses use a ton of different marketing tools.

But, there’s a problem: most of these tools aren’t very good at talking to each other.

For example, if a customer purchases something via PayPal, getting that information into your CRM can often be a manual, time-consuming process.

Wouldn’t it be easier if these services could talk to each other?

Marketing automation tools make use of APIs and other smart technology to connect seemingly unrelated tools to one-another.

So, automatically importing form-fill data (e.g. from TypeForm) into a spreadsheet (e.g. Google Sheets), for example, is now possible.



And that’s just one example — you can create your own triggers and actions to do almost anything you can imagine.

Here are a few of the best tools:

IFTTT — connect hundreds of different services with a simple “If [THIS] then [THAT]” formula.

Zapier — automate tasks between seemingly unrelated apps with “zaps”.

Marketo — create, automate and measure marketing campaigns (across a number of different channels).

Center.io — automate tasks based on the actions your leads take (created by LeadPages).

Hubspot Marketing — all-in-one marketing automation platform (it literally does everything).

Webinar Tools

Webinars are powerful lead generation tools.

According to these stats, 20%-40% of webinar attendees turn into qualified leads.

So, if you can get 100 people to attend your webinar, that’s potentially 20–40 qualified leads for your business.

Convert those leads at, say, 50%, and that’ll be 10–20 new clients.

For an SEO company charging a monthly retainer of $500 (which is apparently the most common figure), that could be an additional $5k-$10k in MRR from hosting just one webinar.

But, here’s the issue: many businesses struggle with the technicalities of hosting a webinar.

Luckily, webinar software has come a long way over the years. There are now many webinar tools that are both feature-packed and easy-to-use.

Some of them even help you to monetize your webinars with certain features.



Here are a few of the best:

WebinarJam — an enhanced version of Google Hangouts, heavily focussed on increasing webinar revenue.

GoToWebinar — lets you host and record webinars with live Q&A’s (and much more!).

ClickWebinar — lets you educate your prospects with branded webinars.

WebinarNinja — create a webinar in as little as 10 seconds.

Lead Capture Tools

Traffic is great, but it doesn’t always directly correlate with revenue.

Some sites get hundreds of thousands of visitors per month and only make a few hundred dollars. Others receive a fraction of that and make tens of thousands.

So what gives?

Well, the sites making real money are typically the ones that understand the importance of lead generation.

Remember, you can have all the traffic in the world but if it doesn’t convert, you’re fighting a losing battle.

Lead generation tools essentially help you to convert visitors into business leads.

They make implementing common lead acquisition strategies (e.g. content upgrades; overlays; pop-ups, etc.) easier by handling the technicalities.

Most have a user-friendly UI, which allows you to implement advanced lead generation tactics in seconds (without needing to know how to code).



Here are a few of the best:

SumoMe — a suite of lead generation tools (including various opt-ins).

OptinMonster — build, test and analyze lead generation forms.

Thrive Leads — add “content upgrades” and other opt-ins to your WordPress website with ease.

PPC Management Tools

Facebook alone earned $1.51 billion in revenue (from advertising) in the first 3 months of 2016.

And Google’s ad revenue recently hit $19 billion.

With PPC networks like this (and yes, Facebook and Google are effectively PPC networks) making such astronomical amounts, it’s clear that PPC advertising can be hugely profitable for businesses.

If it wasn’t, businesses wouldn’t be willingly handing over such crazy sums to these companies.

But, here’s the problem: when you start to scale your PPC spend, things become increasingly difficult to manage.

It gets to a stage where your messy spreadsheet just won’t cut it.

This is where PPC management tools come in super-useful, as they drastically simplify the management process.

But, that’s just one feature.

Many of these tools also have sophisticated algorithms built-in. These constantly analyze campaign performance and give you recommendations for improvements (e.g. cutting that unprofitable ad before it costs you dearly).



Here are a couple of must-have tools for those involved in PPC:

WordStream — helps you create, manage and optimize your PPC campaigns.

AdEspresso — optimization tools for Facebook ads (includes A/B testing and detailed analytics).

Optmyzr — manage and optimize PPC campaigns (including keyword, bid, and ad optimization).

CRM Tools

Sales management can be a messy process.

It’s usually fine in the early days (when you’re dealing with very few customers).

But, when you start getting more leads, things can turn to chaos pretty quickly.

I mean, when you’ve got a few thousand people in your sales funnel (all at different stages), you need a robust management system.

Without one, customers are going to fall through the cracks, and you’ll be leaving money on the table.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tools solve this problem by pulling all your data into one robust management application.

You can then keep track of every touchpoint, every interaction, and every sale in one place.

Many also automatically pull in data from other platforms (e.g. MailChimp).



Here are a few of the best:

Salesforce — possibly the most powerful CRM application on the planet.

Hubspot CRM — 100% free CRM for up to a million contacts.

Close.io — a CRM for salespeople (focussed on helping you make more sales).

Pipedrive — a sales management application for small businesses.

Customer Communication Tools

Many marketers spend the bulk of their time chasing new leads but remember: existing customers are the lifeblood of your business.

Here’s a quote from Market Metrics:

The probability of converting an existing customer is 60 percent to 70 percent. The probability of converting a new prospect, on the other hand, is only 5 percent to 20 percent


Market Metrics

Clearly then, it’s important to keep in contact with your existing customers.

But how do you do this, at scale?

Customer communication tools solve this by automating the customer communication process.

So, we’re talking things like website live chats (that ping you on demand).

And even fully-automated marketing solutions that send personalized messages to customers based on their activities.



Here are a few great tools to consider:

Intercom — communicate, engage with and solve the problems of your visitors (in real-time).

LiveChat — clutter-free live messaging application for your website.

Customer.io — automate your customer communication based on visitor engagement.

Miscellaneous (but still useful) Tools

And, finally…

Here are the tools that didn’t fit neatly into the categories above, but are still super-useful:

Google Tag Assistant — a Chrome extension for troubleshooting the installation of various tags in Google Tag Manager (e.g. Google Analytics).

DownNotifier.com — alerts you when your website is down. Simple.

BuiltWith — find out what any website is built with (e.g. WordPress, Magento, etc.).

Microdata Generator (by Schema.org) — a structured data generator for (almost) anything you could ever need!

JetPack (for WordPress) — speeds up image loading, adds extra security, and gives visitor stats for self-hosted WordPress websites.

WebCodeTools.com — generate web code for just about anything you can imagine!

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