My favourite Martech tools (so far)
My name is Erik, and I love SaaS marketing tools. Especially if they make my job easier and more effective. I’m going to dive in, in no particular order, on some of the tools I’ve used in the past and I little bit why I think these are worth checking out.
P.S. A quick word regarding all-in-one platforms, like Hubspot. Though these platforms have value, and perhaps most especially for enterprise level decisions, I prefer to stay away from them for most small and mid-size companies. When it comes down to it, these platforms are the sum of their parts, and none of those parts are best-in-class. I much prefer to choose ‘the best’ tool for each part of the marketing stack, and make sure each ties into one another. It takes a bit more research and planning, but with services like Zapier making it possible to connect them all together, the end results are worth it.
autopilot.io - a marketing automation platform. Newish to the scene, this one is listed on top for a few reasons. Most important of all, its easy to use, to the point they’ve developed a visual workflow (with templates and examples) to set up all your marketing automations. I don’t think I’ve seen an easier tool to jump in and get set up. Plus, they use one of my favorite email building tools: Beefree.io (below), and have some really friendly pricing.
instapage - a landing page platform. Depending on your needs, you might have lots of options when it comes to building out landing pages. If you’re running ads, I definitely recommend using something like instapage, so you can better try out different combinations of assets and targeting to make the most of your budget. Instapage makes it really simple to build, test, and optimize those pages.
pipedrive - a sales CRM. There is this long standing notion sales and marketing don’t get along very well. A while, each looks at the business in different frames of time, they need a symbiotic relationship to succeed. I came across pipedrive as I was looking for an easy-to-use CRM that would work well with autopilot, and my sales team. Every sales team has their own way of working and getting things done; pipedrive is a sales CRM worth checking out to see if it fits yours..
Basecamp - project management. If there is one thing every marketing department needs, its organize project management. It’s a huge red-flag if you’re managing projects or teams from your inbox or a spreadsheet. Basecamp does a great job proving the tools and structure needed to stay organized and to keep all of the stakeholders up-to-date with the latest without the need for meetings. Other tools like Asana or Todoist work great too, but Basecamp takes the cake!
Zoom.us - it almost feels silly to include them on this list now, but it wasn’t that long ago they were still up and coming. Word of advice: go through all of the settings and check out whats possible.
Zapier - the holy grail of app connectors. The list of tools a marketer has to choose from is getting bigger and bigger every year; its impossible for every tool on your list to automatically work with every other tool. That’s where Zapier comes in, making it possible to integrate your tools and really make the magic happen.
Moz - an SEO tool. This is a great tool to help you monitor and improve your organic keyword rankings. Know the keywords you rank well for and which need some work. It’s better to own your traffic than rent it.
Calend.ly - scheduling tool. By now we’ve all used a service like this to book appointments; its especially great for marketing to set up introduction calls for the sales team.
Buffer - probably my favorite social media management platform. I find it to be incredibly intuitive and convenient to use, especially when compared to Hootsuite. Works pretty much with all of the major social media platforms, Buffer is a great way to jump in to your social media marketing while staying organized.
Elementor - site builder for Wordpress. Chances are most marketers have managed and/or built the company website on Wordpress. The challenge, at least for me, was working around the limitations and complexities of site templates without getting a developer involved. Generally my rule of thumb: if a developer is required to make something work, its already not working for you. Elementor is basically a WYSIWYG layer on top of Wordpress allowing you to layout your pages akin to laying out a brochure. It has a bit of a learning curve, but once you have the hang of it, you can publish some great looking websites.
Adspresso - an ad automation platform. When I ran social media advertising at Fujifilm Canada, this was my secret weapon. Input a variety of content and headlines, plus some tracking inputs, and Adspresso will put together every conceivable combination and split up your budget accordingly. Then its a simple matter of optimizing whats working and what isn’t. And now they’ve added Google Ads to the platform!
Jotform - a form/survey tool. At some point you’re going to be collecting data from someone, but don’t just collect that data in your inbox. It just creates work and eliminates any chance at some pretty valuable automations. I had a lot of “fun” using Jotform for all sorts of data collection points, and connecting the data collected into other systems; automating a lot of work along the way. It works with Zapier and has several of its own integrations.
Later - social media management tool. I’ve used Later specifically for managing Instagram post scheduling and keeping a close watch on my content calendar. Plus it has useful tools for getting user generated content on your feed as well. I know other platforms have started adding support for Instagram, but Later is definitely worth a look.
Dasheroo - a marketing analytics tool. Data data data. It can be a challenge pulling in all your data sources and keeping an eye on any trends; which is especially tough for smaller businesses. I stumbled upon Dasheroo as I was looking for a cheap and easy to use tool to pool and visualize metrics for a company. Easy and simple.
Hubspot - an all-in-one marketing automation platform. Remember how I said I don’t care for all-in-one platforms? Well that’s still true, but Hubspot was also the “first on the scene” of inbound marketing; and they’re still bring tremendous value to the table. Especially with their own marketplace and support for third-party integrations; its easy to integrate Hubspot into your marketing tech stack where it makes sense and other tools where it doesn’t.
BeeFreeIO - and email design tool. I’ve design and coded a lot of emails over the years, and BeeFree is BY FAR the best tool I’ve come across. In the case of autopilot, they’ve built in BeeFree as their email editor; but you can also export your final email from BeeFree and import the file into your email marketing platform.
Feedly - and RSS reader. It’s so important to be staying current with the news pertaining to your industry; not only is a great source of inspiration and new ideas, but it can be a great source of content for your own purposes. Feedly is my choice of news aggregators, which I can then integrate into Buffer for example. So when I’m catching up on the day’s headlines in the evening, its easy to follow up on interesting articles for my social feeds the next day right in Buffer.
Mailchimp - an email & SMB marketing platform. For me, Mailchimp made email marketing accessible for thousands of small businesses without needing a technical background. Though BeeFree has taken over as my preferred email building, Mailchimp is still on of my favorites for managing email lists and sending out content. Plus they’ve been adding a ton of great tools especially for e-commerce sites.
These are just some of the tools I’ve worked with over the last 15 years or so. Next, I’m going to dig through my bookmarks for marketing tools I have yet to try out, but boy am I excited to put them to work.
https://chiefmartec.com/2020/04/marketing-technology-landscape-2020-martech-5000/