5 apps you should know about to help your marketing
When it comes to marketing, teams rely on tools and experience to create and monitor successful campaigns.
The TBH Creative team works with a variety of tools each week to strategize, create, distribute, and analyze marketing efforts for ourselves and our clients. Here is a rundown of the five tools that we use regularly to create successful campaigns.
The TBH Creative team works with a variety of tools each week to strategize, create, distribute, and analyze marketing efforts for ourselves and our clients. Here is a rundown of the five tools that we use regularly to create successful campaigns.
1. Email marketing: MailChimp
MailChimp is an email marketing tool with many free features. List segmentation settings can be advanced within this platform. Pre-designed email templates have responsive designs and include a drag-and-drop editor to customize messaging. Reporting within the tool is robust, including click maps for links within email messages and unsubscribe reports for each email campaign deployment.We use MailChimp with clients as well as to distribute our weekly email communications. Subscribe here to check it out for yourself.
Learn more about MailChimp.
2. Social media management: Hootsuite
Hootsuite is a widely used social media scheduling platform. With the ability to manage all of your social networks posting and monitoring in one place, Hootsuite is an invaluable tool for social media marketing. The publishing tools are user-friendly and intuitive, and the list function allows you to set up social listening by following posts that meet certain criteria.We have lists that monitor when our company name is used on different social platforms as well as industry-specific keyword lists to stay up-to-date on how thought leaders and competitors who are talking about digital marketing.
Learn more about HootSuite.
3. Graphics editing and visual content generation: Canva
Canva is particularly useful for PhotoShop amatuers or for pulling together graphic design layout ideas in a pinch. With hundreds of templates pre-sized based on platform and use (i.e. Twitter banner image or Pinterest layout and size), Canva also includes free design elements, like photos, icons, and fonts to create shareable graphics for free online. Graphics files can be saved in PNG or JPG format (or, as PDFs for printing or sharing documents). Unlimited storage for external images is a nice touch, as well as the hundreds of stock photos available for free (or for $1 within the platform).Learn more about Canva.
4. Data analysis: Google Analytics
Google Analytics can be used to track any website with a short snippet of code. The out-of-the-box data collection with Google Analytics is impressive. Referrals and social media traffic, as well as user location and type of user (returning vs. new), are all set up and ready to report within a few hours of installing the tracking code to your site. Advanced data collection, such as setting goals and establishing conversion actions, are also available within the free account.We use Google Analytics to report monthly to track social media traffic, site entries via landing pages, most popular site pages, and any anomalies or goal-specific data points based on marketing goals.
Learn more about Google Analytics.
5. Collaboration: Trello
Trello has been adopted more recently by our team. We were in need of a tool that allowed multiple users—including those on our team as well as contractors, partners, and even clients—to communicate about projects in real-time. With the ability to create team boards, Trello allows users to create and assign tasks, including due dates and labels. Conversations that take place through Trello cards are archived along with those tasks so information is never lost and can be easily referenced again as needed.
Free accounts include one add-on feature that you can select from the various apps and tools merging with Trello for customization.
Free accounts include one add-on feature that you can select from the various apps and tools merging with Trello for customization.
Learn more about Trello.
Working together every step of the way
A tool is only as valuable as the information you put into it. Marketing tools ultimately help all of us be more productive on a project, meet deadlines and collaborate. These are just a few of the tools in the TBH Creative tool box that help us work with our clients efficiently.Related articles:
- How to start an effective blog: your first 24 posts
- 6 strategies for writing a successful email newsletter
- Quick tip: How to use analytic data to improve your marketing strategy
This post was written January 3, 2017.
About the author TBH Creative
TBH Creative is an award-winning marketing company specializing in web design/development, digital strategy, inbound marketing, and reporting. Since 2004, we’ve built multi-dimensional digital marketing campaigns and complex, enterprise-level websites for clients in a wide range of industries.
We believe in communicating clearly, delivering excellence, and beating deadlines. But beyond those ideals, what really drives the heart of our business is your business—helping our clients achieve more with comprehensive digital marketing and web design.
Our Indianapolis web design company is WBE-certified in the state of Indiana and the city of Indianapolis, and we’re also a Hubspot-certified inbound marketing agency.
