15 Marketing Tools To Check Out in 2017 Brands are facing more competition than ever. They need help, and these tools provide it.
By AJ Agrawal Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Brands working to communicate with consumers are facing more competition than ever: On a daily basis, people are bombarded with marketing messages, only some of which meet their own interests. And, over time, those consumers are learning to tune out much of the noise, making it even harder for brands to break through.
Related: 7 Online Marketing Tools That Are Totally Worth the Investment
But marketers still have plenty of tools that can help them beat the competition. Here are 15 of the top tools every marketer should consider using to make this year's campaigns a success.
1. Guestpost.com
In 2017, guest-posting on blogs will remain one of the best ways to reach new audiences. Guestpost.com can help you find blogs that will help you maximize your posting efforts, track the process of your pitches and follow through on opportunities.
2. IFTTT
Automation can save time, but marketers sometimes have difficulty finding apps to tackle every task. IFFFT, which stands for "If This, Then That," offers applets to help end users program their own automated tasks.
3. Wyng
Wyng is designed as a place for brands and marketers to create and manage digital marketing campaigns. Select from templates using a drag-and-drop builder and integrate your landing pages with existing software.
4. AdWords Performance Grader
If you aren't closely monitoring your Google AdWords performance, you may be losing money. The AdWords Performance Grader is a free tool that offers a grade on your overall campaign performance, and even identifies areas where it projects that you're wasting money.
5. Colibri.io
You can learn quite a bit about your customers by paying attention to what they're saying online. To monitor those conversations, you'll need a tool like Colibri.io, which helps you monitor where your customers are spending time online.
6. Crazy Egg
Your metrics should include data on how customers are interacting with various sections of your website. Crazy Egg offers heat maps that show how far visitors scroll, where they click and when they're abandoning your site.
Related: 7 Online Marketing Tools That Are Totally Worth the Investment
7. AgoraPulse
AgoraPulse is a social media dashboard that includes offers scheduling for posts, multi-site management and built-in analytics. You can also build and manage contests, quizzes and promotions. AgoraPulse integrates with Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
8. Todoist
Once you've received the go-ahead from a few blog hosts, you'll begin the hard work of writing posts while also pitching new sites. Todoist helps you keep up with the many tasks on your to-do list every day.
9. Nuzzel
As you're pitching ideas to blog hosts, you'll likely find it important to keep up with what people are currently talking about. Nuzzel offers top news based on the search terms you enter. You can also sign in with your Twitter account and discover what your friends are sharing and discussing.
10. Social Image Resizer Tool
Each social media site has its own rules relating to sharing images. The Social Image Resizer Tool helps you crop and size your photos to each social media site's specifications.
11. Wistia
If you use YouTube as part of your strategy, you may find the site's analytics limited. Wistia provides insight into the people watching your videos. The solution also helps you create videos that get better results.
12. Keyhole
Brands use hashtags in their marketing with little insight into how to make them work. Keyhole offers detailed analytics on various hashtags, including demographics and impressions. The information will help you better determine which hashtags to use.
13. Bananatag
Monitoring your email marketing efforts is as important as watching your website and social media platforms. Bananatag integrates with your existing email software to provide notifications when your emails have been opened.
14. VWO
A/B testing is an important part of marketing. Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) tests various versions of your site to show you the different ways you can present the same information.
15. OptimizePress
When you need a landing page for your marketing activities, OptimizePress can help. Choose from 30 different templates and customize to meet your needs. The pages integrate with WordPress if you need to connect them to your existing website.
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Marketers already know they need tools to be more effective in the work they do. It's important to consistently evaluate those tools, though, to ensure you have the most up-to-date technology. With new solutions emerging every day, brands and marketing professionals that want to remain competitive should be keeping track of the latest trends.
