11 Feb 10 Essential Marketing Tools for Your Business
Running a business effectively and efficiently takes the right tools, systems & shortcuts. What isn’t always effective and efficient is finding what works best for your business (and employees). Skip the trial and error and learn about the essential marketing tools (including the best ones for a remote team) we rely on at Path & Compass and how they could benefit your business*.
*This post contains affiliate links to our favorite tried-and-true marketing tools. We may receive a commission for purchases made through these links.
Want all our 21 digital tools for productivity, marketing, project management, remote meetings, hosting live events, and eCommerce? Head over to our shop to grab your copy of our Small Business Digital Tools Guide.
Asana
A web and mobile application, Asana is designed to help teams organize, track, and manage their work. And that it does! At Path & Compass, Asana is our central hub, where our team can easily collaborate to complete daily tasks and projects. We manage all our client work, projects and to-dos through Asana. One of our favorite hacks is creating ‘template’ tasks or projects. Here you can duplicate the “template” and all the steps that are part of that task. This makes for super-efficient systems that can be duplicated, ensuring your processes are repeated. Recurring tasks (set to repeat on the schedule of your choosing) is also a big help for monthly or quarterly tasks. As a team of remote workers, this platform reduces the hassle of back and forth emails too – increasing productivity and helping everyone know the status of tasks & projects.
LastPass
Regardless of the size of your business, login information piles up quickly. And considering how essential it is to the security of your business, keeping it under lock and key is of the utmost importance. Enter LastPass, a freemium (aka free or paid options) password manager that stores encrypted passwords online. With LastPass, you have one main login under which all your other logins are stored. You can organize passwords into folders making them easy to find and update. With their browser extension or mobile app, it auto-fills all your logins, saving a ton of time. It also prompts you to generate unique & hard to remember passwords so you are not defaulting to the same pa$$word123 over and over.
SmarterQueue
Similar to other social media management platforms, SmarterQueue assists with scheduling, curation, and analytics. So what sets it apart? SmarterQueue allows you to recycle content, so that you make the most of each and every post. Posts can also be sorted into content categories and profiles, making specific content simple to find and share at the best point in time. At Path & Compass, we use it mostly to post to clients’ Facebook & LinkedIn accounts where organic reach can be minimal. Small businesses still need to show active feeds so this tool is a good way to maximize the content you’ve created and streamline your time.
Active Campaign
Active Campaign is our new go-to for email marketing and automated sales funnels (drip email series). While we have used (many) other email marketing platforms in the past, Active Campaign has come out on top. The platform makes it easy to segregate audiences by specific characteristics, how they come into your business and the actions they take – a goldmine for creating custom campaigns and emails that targeted users specifically. You can also build automated email funnels and embed custom sign-up forms (like the one you see at the bottom of this blog post).
OnlyPult
OnlyPult is our favorite scheduler for Instagram, though it can manage many other platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tik Tok, etc). It allows you to upload photos and videos directly from your desktop, edit images, manage several profiles simultaneously, visually plan out your feeds, and auto-post to the feed & stories without push notifications assign. Plus, you can add managers who can schedule posts without giving him/her direct access to a social media account. They also have other tools to monitor mentions and create links from your feed.
Nitreo
Nitreo is a newer tool in our shed – we use it for automated Instagram growth. The platform will help you grow your account, expand your reach, and build your brand faster. And it’s not a bot just scooping up random people to connect with and follow. It targets people based on hashtags & aspirational profiles (that you determine) for genuine connections. We find it’s a cost-effective way for small businesses to super-charge their engagement and get over the hump of a low follower count. To get the most out of this tool, you still need to post consistently and do some engagement as well as adjusting your targeted hashtags & profiles as needed.
Canva
Canva is a DIYer’s dream when it comes to creating graphics. Use it to create social media graphics, presentations, posters, flyers, documents and nearly any other visual content with their drop & drag designer and free stock images & graphics. And before you tap out at the words “graphic design,” this platform makes things easy and fun with templates where you can make simple swaps and have a graphic ready to go before you know it.
Zapier
Another time-saving tool, Zapier integrates and automates actions between all of the different web applications they use – over 2,000 to be specific. With zero programming experience, you can easily build automations that will work quietly in the background of your business (like a magic assistant!). It minimizes repetitive tasks and data entry, streamlines sales communications, even reposts content for you – all automatically. It’s a super time saver for you and your team.
Dropbox
You’ve probably heard of the “cloud” and likely use it. Dropbox is our preferred “cloud” that we use to organize, store and share content (largely images) for clients. The platform is simple and clean, making it an easy space to navigate and collaborate with clients. We also use Google Drive for living documents shared by the team but prefer Dropbox for large media storage.
Grammarly
Saved the best for last! Grammarly is our go-to marketing tool for sending error-free emails, posts, and documents. It not only checks your spelling but also your grammar & writing style so your copy is more concise and correct. Installed as a browser & desktop extension, it follows you everywhere, checking your work in emails, Google docs, social media posts, and blog content. There are both free and paid options depending on your needs, and it also has a digital writing assistance tool that helps make your content stand out.
Want all our 21 digital tools for productivity, marketing, project management, remote meetings, hosting live events, and eCommerce? Head over to our shop to grab your copy of our Small Business Digital Tools Guide.