21 Best Marketing Tools to Grow Your Business

21 Best Marketing Tools to Grow Your Business

Marketing is essential for business growth. Just as gardeners use tools to nurture plants, marketers use tools to cultivate customers. With so many options available, it can get overwhelming to identify the suitable instruments for your unique business needs. This comprehensive guide features the 21 best marketing tools to help your business blossom.

Analytics: Measure Efforts and Optimise Strategies

Critical metrics are crucial for improving marketing campaigns, like checking soil pH levels, which allows gardeners to determine optimal growing conditions. Analytics tools provide the insights you need to gauge performance and fine-tune your approach.

Google Analytics

As the market leader, Google Analytics offers robust features for understanding customers' journeys across devices and channels. Drill into traffic sources, top landing pages, geo performance, and more with just a few clicks. Best of all, it's free!

Amplitude

For more advanced analysis, Amplitude goes beyond surface-level metrics to uncover behavioural insights. See which campaigns drive conversions, where users struggle, and how to optimise critical funnels. It's like having an X-ray into customer psychology! Pricing starts at $299/month.

Social Media Management: Cultivate Your Presence.

Tending to your social media presence regularly is as important as weeding and watering your garden. These tools make scheduling content easier, engaging followers, and tracking performance across all major platforms.

Buffer

Buffer's intuitive interface lets you easily queue up posts and share to multiple accounts in one go. It's an effortless way to maintain a consistent social media presence across networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest. Plans start at $5/month.

Sprout Social

With sophisticated features like social listening, competitive analysis, and advanced analytics, Sprout Social is a robust tool for managing multifaceted social strategies. But simple scheduling and messaging options also make it beginner-friendly. Pricing ranges from $99-$599/month.

• Compose and schedule posts in advance.
• Manage social profiles and collaborate with teammates
• Monitor brand mentions and analyse performance.

Email Marketing: Nurture Leads and Drive Conversions

Email is among the highest-converting marketing channels, delivering $36 for every $1 spent. Use these tools to segment contacts, create professional campaigns, and track engagement over time.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp is a longtime favourite for small businesses, making campaigns as easy as watering plants. Drag-and-drop builders, automation features, and detailed analytics help you nurture contacts from signup to sale—plans from free up to $299/month.

Customer.io

With AI-powered segmentation and event-based triggers, Customer.io enables ultra-targeted emails to encourage specific behaviours. Send timely messages when a customer abandons a cart, their subscription renews, or they return to your site. Pricing is from $50 to $150/month.

• Design on-brand campaign templates
• Segment contacts based on behaviours
• See real-time stats on email performance

Advertising: Expand Your Reach

Like satellite towers amplify radio signals across regions, advertising expands your reach to find more potential customers. Manage paid campaigns across major networks with these tools.

Google Ads

As the juggernaut pay-per-click platform, Google Ads offers unparalleled scale and targeting precision. Search, display, shop, video, and app campaigns using Google's extensive data on user intent. Cost per click varies by keyword competitiveness.

Facebook Ads

Tap into Facebook's 2.9 billion monthly active users with highly visual ads ideal for engagement and conversions. Target by location, demographics, interests and behaviours for as low as $1/day.

• Set daily budgets and maximise conversions.
• Retarget website visitors on Facebook
• Create lookalike audiences to find new customers.

Landing Page Builders: Guide Visitors to Convert

Your website is like the physical location customers visit. Landing pages are entryways to guide visitors to specific calls to action. These tools make crafting custom pages easy; no coding is needed!

Leadpages

The name says it all. Quickly create landing pages, opt-in forms, sales pages, webinars and alerts to generate leads. With 200+ mobile-responsive templates, just drag, drop and publish! Plans from $37-$79/month.

Unbounce

With lead gen features, Unbounce combines flexible templates, dynamic text replacement and AI-curated images for higher-converting pages. A/B test variations to find what resonates most with your audience. Plans from $99-$499/month, depending on traffic.

• Design scrolling parallax pages
• Embed video countdown timers
• Split test page variations

CRM Software: Tend to Customers

Customer relationship management tools nurture leads across the buying journey, like gardeners nourishing crops from seed to harvest. Track prospect interactions, gain insights to improve conversion rates, and retain more business.

Salesforce

The well-known CRM leader offers robust features for enterprise-level client management, lead scoring and sales pipeline analysis. With a thriving ecosystem of integrations and apps, it can scale to any business size. However, significant IT involvement is required for setup and maintenance. Pricing varies based on configuration.

HubSpot

For SMBs seeking an all-in-one inbound marketing and sales platform, HubSpot delivers ease of use with robust capabilities for attracting and nurturing leads to close more deals. Free CRM includes contact and deal tracking, email and live chat. Sales Hub plans start at $50/month per user.

• Manage contacts and track interactions.
• Facilitate the lead qualification process.
• Report on sales funnel metrics

SEO Tools: Boost Your Visibility

Like fertiliser makes plants thrive, search engine optimisation fuels growth by improving visibility in search results. These handy tools analyse site health, uncover high-potential keywords, and help build authority over time.

Ahrefs

Serious SEOs love Ahrefs for its rich keyword research capabilities and detailed auditing to assess technical issues limiting performance. Improve content ranking opportunities with comparative data revealing how competitors rank. Plans from $99-$999/month.

SEMRush

another robust SEO and competitive intelligence platform offer historical keyword rankings data, content auditing, and backlink tracking. Monitor your search visibility and fine-tune pages for better rankings. Plans range from $99.95-$399.95/month.

• Research keyword difficulty and traffic
• Check technical site health and on-page elements
• Analyse competitor link profiles

Graphic Design: Produce Visual Assets

Creating visual content is crucial for standing out across crowded feeds. Produce on-brand graphics and visuals with these user-friendly design tools.

Canva

The graphic design platform for non-designers, Canva, offers an intuitive drag-and-drop interface to create stunning social media posts, ads, posters, infographics, presentation slides and more—access over 75 million images, videos and design templates for instant professional polish. Plans are free up to $30/month.

Creative Market:

Give your designs an elevated look with Creative Market's marketplace of high-quality templates, fonts, photos, graphics and add-ons. The affordable curated assets integrate seamlessly with Canva while supporting Photoshop and Illustrator workflows. Many items are only $1-$5 each!

• Resize templates for any dimension
• Upload your photos/logos
• Save brand elements like colours, fonts, etc.

Analytics and Reporting: Track Performance

Like scientists study data to derive insights, analytics tools help you quantify marketing success and demonstrate ROI. These platforms integrate metrics from across channels to showcase your full-funnel impact.

Google Data Studio

For free reporting beyond Google Analytics, Google Data Studio connects to any data source to build interactive dashboards anyone can view or export. Drag and drop charts and filters to spotlight key metrics for stakeholders. Completely customisable and free!

Klipfolio

is a favourite self-service BI solution for SMBs. Klipfolio builds TV dashboard-style reports combining web traffic, social media, CRM data, and more. Schedule automated reports and enable live dashboards that update continuously as the latest data comes in a $ 12/month starter plan.

• Blend web, advertising and sales data.
• Map customer journeys across touchpoints.
• Save and schedule automated reports.

Voice of Customer: Gather First-Hand Feedback

Like taking tissue samples for lab analysis, VoC tools enable “biopsies” of customer interactions to gather candid first-hand feedback. Understand pain points, monitor CSAT trends and improve experiences.

Qualtrics

The premium VoC platform offers capabilities for building immersive digital, mobile and conversational experiences to capture NPS alongside detailed feedback. With advanced text analysis, you can automatically surface themes and insights to guide refinement—plans from $1,500/year.

Delighted

A simple yet powerful solution, Delighted sends email or SMS surveys to measure and monitor NPS over time. See at-a-glance trends and drill into verbatim feedback. Share results across teams to align stakeholders on improving delight—plans from $399/year up to enterprise pricing.

Account-Based Marketing: Target Key Accounts

Account-based marketing is like having special horticulturalists tend to prize rose bushes. These tools help you focus marketing efforts on nurturing key accounts likely to yield the highest ROI.

6sense

Using advanced AI, 6sense builds actionable B2B profiles identifying in-market accounts and buying teams. Scale ABM execution across channels through segmentation and personalisation capabilities without relying on static firmographic data and pricing undisclosed.

Demandbase

Demandbase offers robust software for identifying critical accounts based on firmographic and behavioural signals and activating personalised campaigns across the buyer journey. Plans range from $5K to $15K/month plus additional fees for add-on capabilities.

• Identify ideal customer profiles.
• Deliver targeted paid media.
• Monitor engagement within accounts.

Event Marketing: Cultivate In-Person Experiences

Experiential events are the IRL equivalent of targeted digital ads — opportunities to connect with potential customers face-to-face and nurture relationships. These platforms manage logistics seamlessly.

Splash

Splash enables the creation of branded event websites, registrations, email marketing and more to promote conferences, seminars, summits and experiences. Tools for building agendas, custom designs, messaging and tracking engagement at scale—plans customised for each event.

Aventri

An end-to-end event management solution, Aventri handles logistics like venue sourcing, agenda scheduling, attendee management and on-site check-in. Staff events efficiently while gathering data to optimise future functions. Pricing scales based on organisation size.

• Promote gatherings across channels.
• Manage invites, RSVPs and waitlists.
• Check-in attendees on-site

Conversion Optimisation: Remove Friction, Boost Conversions

Like garden tools effortlessly performing routine tasks, conversion optimisation tools take the pain out of website personalisation. Run site-wide experiments and encourage visitors towards desired actions.

Instapage

Create landing pages with enhanced targeting and conversions in mind. Variation workflows make A/B testing easy, while built-in personalisation displays customised messages to segments visiting your pages and sites. Plans from $199-$499/month.

Optimizely

Trusted by enterprises for full-stack experimentation, Optimizely enables changes to sites and campaigns through visual editors and templates. Use AI decision-making to determine optimal experiences or test ideas manually. Platform fee plus $50K minimum annual spend.

• Build landing pages for campaigns.
• Deliver personalised experiences
• Experiment to boost conversions

Loyalty and Referrals: Make Fans Advocate for You

Like garden club members eagerly sharing the best-growing tips, customer advocates are your best salespeople. Encourage referrals, spotlight critical fans, and more with these special programs.

Smile.io

Reward repeat customers for signing up, making referrals, leaving reviews, completing profiles and more. Create memorable experiences and valuable brand associations. Plans from $65/month up to enterprise.

Ambassador

Ambassador facilitates referral marketing through an advanced API-based platform. Offer incentives for generating shares and reviews, then track downstream revenue and program ROI. Great for ecommerce brands looking to grow. Custom pricing applies.

• Incentivise social shares and reviews.
• Attribute downstream sales
• Automate rewards redemption

Affiliate Marketing: Recruit Partner Support

Like intercropping arrangements where different crops are cultivated together, affiliate programs recruit external partners to help cross-promote your products to new audiences.

Refersion

Offer generous commissions, deals and contests to grow an engaged affiliate channel, sharing your ecommerce catalogue everywhere. Refersion handles program tracking, reporting and fraud protection so you can monitor performance and scale strategically. Plans from $49-$249/month.

Partnerize

With Partnerize, you gain access to an established network of vetted affiliates, publishers and influencers ready to drive high-converting traffic—a robust platform for launching and managing partnerships at scale. Custom enterprise pricing applies.

• Recruit affiliates to showcase products.
• Drive new customer acquisition.
• Pay partners when goals are achieved.

Testing and Personalisation: Optimise Experiences

Like gardeners planting a variety in small batches to determine ideal growing conditions, marketing tests and personalisation reveal the precise messaging and offers to compel customer action.

Segment

The customer data infrastructure powers thousands of leading brands. Segment ingests first-party data and then activates audiences across channels. Send tailored messages when visitors visit your site, browse products, and abandon carts—scale delivery through existing tools like email providers and adjusted platforms. Premium plans start at $50K.

Evergage

is explicitly focused on optimising digital experiences through personalisation and experimentation. Evergage offers robust segmentation to engage visitors with targeted content proactively. Easily make data-driven decisions to boost conversions across sites and apps. Plans scale up to enterprise level.

Grow Your Business with These Marketing Tools

Like versatile gardening instruments, specialised marketing technology empowers your team to nurture customer relationships across the entire lifecycle. Whether launching targeted campaigns, optimising experiences, or scaling adoption initiatives, these 21 marketing tools deliver the capabilities needed to expand your reach and maximise your impact.

Choose solutions aligned to your biggest business priorities and growth goals—plant seeds in fertile ground through strategic campaigns. Then, watch your marketing blossom into revenue!

Conclusion

From analytics to measure efforts to loyalty programs that make fans advocate for you, the 21 marketing tools highlighted in this guide represent an all-star ensemble cast for your stack. Each brings specialised capabilities for nurturing customers from initial discovery across an evolving journey to brand loyalty and referrals.

Review where your most significant business opportunities lie, then select tools to support laser-focused game plans leveraging automation and personalisation. With these digital helpers tackling routine tasks, you can concentrate on strategy while they handle effective execution at scale.

Set your growth initiatives up for success by implementing platforms purpose-built to activate audiences, optimise user experiences, and measure performance. Then get ready to achieve maximum impact as your marketing grows new business!

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