According to marketing consultant Gartner, around 50% of businesses trading over the web will beef up their online marketing budgets by an unprecedented 50% this year. Such a large increase will make it harder than ever for small and medium-sized businesses to compete with the big boys, whose marketing budgets already number in the hundreds of thousands.
Luckily, even if you don’t have the collateral needed to assemble a crack team of top-flight marketing professionals, there are still plenty of useful tools available to help you stay in the competition and take your marketing to the next level. Here are a handful of our favourites to get you started.
Buzzsumo
With marketing spends increasing and the competition hotting up, any money small businesses outlay on marketing has to be used wisely. Buzzsumo helps you do just that, employing market research to identify the type of content your audience is most interested in. Simply feed your desired keyword or URL into Buzzsumo and they’ll do the rest, supplying you with a report that shows how well (or not) past content based around that keyword performed.
Mention
Mention lets you reach out to the people talking about your brand. The service uses its unique search algorithm to isolate key phrases and names related to your business in real-time, putting you directly in touch with potential clients.
Ducksboard
If you have a huge mailing list, maintaining it can be nothing short of a nightmare. Keeping track of new additions, unsubscribes, and sales is no easy task, especially without a helping hand. All-purpose dashboard and analytics tool Ducksboard is the answer; this versatile tool will help you untangle your mailing list and give you a much clearer picture of just how many people use your mailing services.
Picreel
With bounce rates soaring, more and more businesses need to develop effective methods of ensuring customers convert after visiting a homepage. With 96% of visitors never returning according to Bounce Exchange, companies need to start optimising their store fronts with services like Picreel, which helps you entice departing visitors back to your store by offering configurable exit discounts, promotions and offers.
