Make Marketing Simpler With These 5 Tech-Savvy Tools
Identify which parts of the company's work flow can be automated with cost-effective tools.
By Brian Honigman •
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Simplifying and automating some of everyday processes allows a business to effectively scale the productivity of its marketing, while retaining the quality of its work.
To facilitate productivity as a marketer, identify which parts of the company's workflow can be automated with cost-effective tools. These tools must suit the size and needs of the marketing team and improve upon the quality of work delivered across marketing channels.
Here are five tools to help foster productivity across the marketing functions of a business:
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1. Social flow. Scheduling social media posts is critical for keeping up with the amount of relevant content that an organization ideally would generate in a timely manner. Social Flow helps businesses manage the distribution of their social content by alerting a team when the company's audience is discussing related topics to its core offerings and brand graph. The tool lets organizations know when to chime into relevant conversations their audience is already having.
The tool's algorithm analyzes real-time conversations on the largest social networks to help businesses identify trends in these conversations, to inform future efforts in creating relevant content. The tool also assists with advertising on Twitter and Facebook, based on the success of existing organic content.
2. Circulate.it. Automating aspects of employees' participation on social media is another way to increase efficiency while saving staff time. Circulate.it lets members of a marketing team create a simple newsletter that can be delivered to other employees in an easy-to-share format with either an individual post or a list of a few post suggestions, optimized and ready for sharing on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. This helps organizations tap into the collective reach of employees on social media by automating some parts of the sharing process.
This way an organization can tap into its employees' vast networks without overcomplicating things. Such activity can drive more conversations and awareness for the business in the long term. The cost for the tool starts at $9 a month for 1,000 shares, a price point ideal for a small business.
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3. Nimble. Seamless relationship management is a challengetoday since professionals interact with one another across many different platforms, including email, LinkedIn or Facebook. Nimble is a tool for small businesses, entrepreneurs and other professionals seeking to more effectively manage their relationships with one dashboard.
The tool aggregates content from email, social networks, existing contacts and elsewhere to provide the insights necessary to build relationships with clients and connections. The tool cost $15 a month a user and offers unlimited messages and full access to all its third-party integrations.
4. vCita. Streamlined invoicing, calendar management, call-to-action options and client management can save a marketing team valuable time. vCita is a platform offering all these features to users for integration with their existing tools like Gmail, WordPress, PayPal, Constant Contact and more.
Calendar management with vCita enables users to schedule an appointment right on a company's website without their having to send messages back and forth via email. The call-to-action functionality adds a widget to a website so that visitors to a site can be converted into potential customers, by alerting them to services, letting them to pay for an offering and schedule appointments through the automated system.
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5. Hemingway. Creating content on a regular basis is important for a business so it can grow its customer audience, increase interactions, builde trust and drive sales. The Hemingway app can help improve this editorial content without taking up too much of a staffer's time or requiring the help of another editor.
The free app reviews written content and identifies sentences that are hard to read, too lengthy, excessively using adverbs or similar words or phrases or passive construction. Paste text into the app and it highlights any issues.
Which tools does your organization use to be productive in marketing? Note them in the comments below.
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