15 Marketing Tools Every Start-Up Should Know About

In this highly competitive arena of modern businesses, building a brand and standing out is certainly not the easiest thing to do. But you can manage to do both if you get the marketing part right. Now, the good news is that there are a lot of marketing tools available at present to make the job easier for startup owners. Most of the traditionally lengthy marketing work is automated, which also ends up making your efforts directed and effective.

But it all comes down to finding the right tools, isn’t it? So, here’s offering you the much-needed help in this regard.

Importance of Marketing Tools for Startups

In a world where only 22 percent of businesses are happy with the conversion rates, the importance of marketing tools cannot be negated, especially by the startups. As a startup owner, you have too much on your plate already. On top of that, a huge marketing department is probably not something you can afford right away. This is where marketing tools come into the picture because they make most of the tasks more impactful and a lot easier.

With the right tools, you get all the insights and data you need to form a suitable marketing strategy, without spending a bomb. This is simply about using advanced marketing technology that lets you focus on the things that matter the most.

15 Marketing Tools for Every Startup Out There

If you are the owner of a startup looking for the right tools, start with these fifteen options.

1. SE Ranking

Let’s start the list with a few SEO marketing tools that can be of immense help to the startups. And the first name in that regard is SE Ranking – an SEO tool that marketers and startup founders rely on. Though this one has a number of necessary features, the most useful one is the competitor research. It lets you monitor the content and keywords that your competitor is going for.

Additionally, there is social media functionality, which is great for the startups looking to make the most of social media platforms without enough resources or time to do so.

2. Serpstat

Serpstat is a comprehensive SEO platform that focuses on prime areas like PPC, domain and content marketing, along with SEO. The user interface is pretty navigable and easy to understand, which means you don’t need to engage all your resources in figuring out and using this tool.

On top of that, you will get a periodic site audit report that is quite thorough and accurate. In terms of its features, there is a good keyword research tool in this one to let you find strong keywords for your content to expand your reach. After that, you can use the rank tracking tool and site reports to assess your site performance.

3. ahrefs

Now, ahrefs might be a bit costlier than other SEO tools, but it has the features to make up for it. First off, it is a great tool for analytics and lets you carry out competitor research and find the right keywords for your SEO campaigns.

In fact, it is one of the most all-in-one tools you will find for keyword research because there are difficulty scores, suggestions, click metrics, and so on. Then, you will also get a complete report of broken backlinks and healthy outbound links presented to you, so that you can fix what’s needed.

4. Yoast

If you are looking for an easy-to-use WordPress SEO tool, Yoast SEO would be a good choice. It’s not too technical in its features and usage, which means anyone can start using it. Moreover, it supports schema.org markup – a popular tech stack tool for startups. The fact that it’s affordable is also something that the startup owners would appreciate.

When you have the Yoast plugin for WordPress, there is no need for any other plugin for XML Sitemaps. The XML sitemaps are automatically generated and submitted to Bing and Google.

5. Leadfeeder

After the SEO tools, let’s move on to a lead generation tool that’s really going to help startups. Leadfeeder shows you all about the companies that come to your site, even when they do not contact you or fill out any forms.

Also, it has the contact details for the employees of the company. So, it gets easier to follow-up with those visitors who reached your website but left without asking about your product. Also, it lets you time the outreach to the potential leads in the sales pipeline. You can try the trial plan for two weeks before buying the actual product.

6. Product Hunt

Product Hunt is one of the most popular launch platforms for startups trying to bring new products to market. It offers a pre-existing group of early adopters and testers who are eager to give new products a try.

You can add a product for free, though the tool also lets you use the ‘Ship’ product. It has a complete package that includes tools for email messaging, email subscription, A/B testing, and landing page. Similar to the previous tool, you can go for the free version if the Ship is not immediately needed for your business.

7. MailChimp

The fact that email marketing has a 4,200% ROI makes it an important avenue to consider for any startup. MailChimp can be a great help in this matter. Think of it as the one-stop destination to manage your mailing list, customize your email templates, and nurture and automate the complete marketing campaign. If you don’t plan to send over 12,000 emails every month, you can even go for the free plan.

MailChimp has been around since 2001 – way before email marketing started gaining ground. Needless to say, it has shown remarkable improvement in all these years of operation.

8. EmailOctopus

When searching for a simple and effective email marketing tool, EmailOctopus will not disappoint you. It offers easy drag-and-drop email editors, along with 34 high-quality and relevant email templates. It has some basic automation features, such as automating a drip email campaign and welcome campaign. It integrates with at least 47 apps, so app integration will not be a problem.

If you have 2,500 subscribers and need to send 10,000 emails every month for now, you can start with the free plan. The best part of this tool is that it’s hassle-free and simple, with no technical complexities involved.

9. ActiveCampaign

As one of the finest value email marketing platforms, Active Campaign impresses with its analytics and automation features. If you can spend a bit of time learning more about using the dashboard and create campaigns from scratch, this platform is good enough for you. There is no coding involved in this drag-and-drop email builder.

The combination of an affordable starter plan and a feature-laden backend ensure that you get complete value for money. On top of that, there are analytics and automation to let you tailor and test the email campaigns to prepare them for success.

10. Dialpad

Formerly called Uberconference, Dialpad is a web-conferencing platform that has document management capacity to integrate with third-party apps like Dropbox, Evernote, LinkedIn, and Google Drive.

Apart from the usual necessary features like call recording, call controls, and screen sharing, Dialpad has an innotiave feature called customized hold music. You can upload an .mp3 file in your app setting to let the participants listen as they wait for the meeting to resume. It also offers analytics on conference calls and meetings, which helps you improve the business communications.

11. Unbounce

Unbounce is a great tool for startups focussing on landing page optimization. It offers an easy and simple way to create high-conversion landing pages for events and campaigns. You just need to use this simple drag-and-drop editor to build the kind of landing pages that are optimized for lead generation and data capture.

Also, you can run the AB tests for testing out the landing page layout and copy to make sure that your pages remain optimized and positioned for lead capture at all times. Start with the free trial of one month before taking the subscription.

12. HubSpot Marketing Hub

The fact that HubSpot Marketing Hub works is evident in the fact that it has more than 50,000 users in across 100 nations. As a startup trying to build web presence, this marketing software is a crucial tool you need, regardless of whether your focus is on retail, real estate, construction, technology, or accounting.

It has the kind of features – from A/B testing to SEO optimization – that make it effective in attracting more visitors, closing more sales, and converting more leads. Though it needs a bit of effort to collaborate with a few other tools, it is a minor aspect to pay attention to, considering all its features.

13. Omnisend

Though Omnisend can be useful to startups from different verticals, it is the most helpful for e-commerce businesses. It’s a multichannel marketing automation software to support pop-ups, SMS, WhatsApp, and more, along with Facebook and Google advert connectors.

As you can guess by now, it is truly a complete marketing automation platform that has been made keeping the needs of the startups in mind. In terms of its best features, one has to mention the aspect of audience segmentation and good reporting. Also, the follow-ups are pretty effective and creating templates is rather easy.

14. Brand24

Brand24 has been made keeping the needs of small and mid-sized companies in mind, though it can help even the bigger enterprises, freelancers, and NGOs. What makes it unique is that it gets you social and online insights in real-time. You get to know about every mention of your brand on the web – be it in a blog or on an influencer’s page – from one place.

Thus, Brand24 makes it easier for you to know your position in the eyes of the people who matter – your customers. You can further categorize between positive and negative mentions to decide on your next step forward.

15. Olark

The final name on the list is Olark, a live chat tool that a number of startups have been turning to lately. What works for Olark is its fuss-free approach to and outlook for live chat software.

The fact that it has considerably improved its offering and design in the past few years is also commendable. You will also like its extension integration portfolio that ensures all the chat leads on your website are sent to proper tools in the marketing stack.

The Endnote

Hopefully, this list has given you enough ideas regarding the tools that you can use to make your business grow. So, check out all the options mentioned above and select the suitable ones for your startup. Leverage the tools right and you’ll definitely have a successful marketing campaign.

You can also check our list of 21 free tools for entrepreneurs and freelancers.