The marketing landscape is becoming complicated with every passing day. The need to stay on the top is primary for most B2B marketers. And the easiest way to do so? Staying updated with the latest technological advancements made in the industry.
Well, to further stress on the point, new B2B marketing tools are being introduced every day, and 98% of B2B marketers believe that using these tools play a crucial role in leading their business to success.
With the right B2B marketing tools, the process of crafting marketing campaigns and strategies become efficient. Not only do these reduce the immense work pressure, but these also ensure that you get a proper insight into your customers, identify your target audience, craft the right content, make appropriate designs, measure your performance- in short, nudge your business to become more successful.
There are many B2B marketing tools available for marketing. Each has its own set of features. While we use few to collate data, others improve the website design. The point being, these tools are significant in their own way.
Also Read: Reaching Decision Makers
To talk about these B2B marketing tools, I have segmented these tools based on their primary functions.
Pivotal in the present scenario for a B2B marketer’s success, I have summarized seven such tools essential for 2019.
Keep reading to find out more.
1 For Analytics and Tracking
Google Analytics & Moz
Ask B2B marketers, and they will tell you that at the heart of all B2B marketing campaigns and strategies is data. Reliable data to be specific.
Data here refers to every minute detail of consumers or potential consumers, their behavioral patterns and that highlights what works, what doesn’t work, what caused success, what led to failure, what provides value, what can bring revenue, which areas of the strategy can improve, which to drop and so on.
Hence, you can’t deny that data is inevitable in making your marketing strategies meaningful and practical. And out of the many tools that exist in the market, there are two that stand out-
- Google Analytics
- Moz
When it comes to tracking data, Google Analytics is the undefeated champion. Free and multi-functional, Google Analytics gives you an insight into every small detail you need for your website.
From user behavior to top visited pages, from website traffic to bounce rates, you can gather all sorts of useful data. The easy to understand interface further makes Google Analytics a great place to start– both for novices and experts.
As for Moz, it wins straight up in the current marketing scenario for it’s accessible and straightforward design. There is a vast community that uses Moz; so even if you are stuck, you will get all the help required. From understanding target keywords for your audience to getting an idea about a domain authority, details as such are available on Moz.
It also performs site crawls often, thus giving you an opportunity to improve the meta description and fix other adverse technical problems.
Data is pivotal to level-up your website’s performance and enhance every marketing campaign you design. Collecting data becomes more comfortable, more efficient and effective with Google Analytics and Moz.
2 For Landing Page and Pop-Ups
Unbounce & HelloBar
Okay, so every time you visit a new website, you can see a pop-up box on the landing page. Now, this pop-up box informs you about discounts or offers or anything that the business deems pivotal to convey to their audience. The appeal of a landing page combined with a message in the pop-up box can play a crucial role in conversion and customer retention.
Therefore, when designing a landing page or a pop-up box of a website, you need to make it attractive. Yes, there are professional designers available, who make the task look easy, but not all budgets can afford to have one. This is why you need a landing page and pop-up designing tools.
Again, yes, there are many such applications available, yet only a few deserve mention. These include:
- Unbounce
- HelloBar
An all-in-one design tool that allows B2B marketers to create a wide variety of designs, the facilities on Unbounce include crafting landing pages, pop-ups, sticky bars and much more. The models built on it can differ in their complexity, but the simple interface of this B2B marketing tool makes it a reliable one. You can have something modest or something that showcases a high form of art; everything is possible according to your preference.
With Unbounce, you can turn around the look and feel of a landing page.
Talking of HelloBar, it is one of those free B2B marketing tools that every marketer should be aware of! Not only because it is advantageous, but it is also free. Creating pop-up contents becomes more accessible and functional. The changes can be implemented quickly, and the result is always impressive.
With a properly designed landing page and pop-up content, the performance of your website, and your online business can become better.
3 For Customer Relationship Management
Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot & Salesmate
Customer Relationship Management is a crucial aspect of marketing. B2B marketers and the folks in the sales department know that building a strong relationship with the customers is vital for a business to thrive.
But, it is necessary to understand that the need for CRM B2B marketing tools depends much on the industry and the product/service it provides. For instance, a company that builds heavy machinery for airplanes need not invest in CRM. On the contrary, an organization that is all about manufacturing components for computer hardware and serves a vast number of other industries will need to invest well in CRM B2B marketing tools.
There are various tools that make customer relationship management easier for B2B marketers. The best three tools available are from-
- Zoho
- HubSpot
- Salesforce
- Salesmate
Zoho might be new, but it is one of the fastest growing CRM tools available at this moment. From unifying financial problems to providing email automation solutions, the web-based software offers a wide range of facilities.
Since its inception in 2005, HubSpot has won the trust of B2B marketers as one of the best B2B marketing tools. Not only does it serve as a CRM tool for marketing teams within an organization, but it also provides similar benefits to their sales team as well. The platform is free and simple to use; the HubSpot CRM tool is your one-stop destination to enhance customer relationships.
As for Salesforce, it is one of the oldest B2B marketing tools for CRM available to marketers. It incorporates a wide range of CRM solutions, some of which are out-of-the-box. The facilities available range from small businesses to large enterprises. Often, some complicated programs need the supervision of the Salesforce CRM administrators.
Organize your sales and increase your conversions with Salesmate CRM. It is a highly advanced sales CRM smartly designed to tackle the new age businesses and sales challenges. Salesmate gives you more control over your sales and helps you in building a long-term customer relationship. Salesmate is the perfect small business CRM to improve your sales process.
All in all, CRM tools are essential for building long-lasting relationships with customers. And with these Four tools, all of it becomes easier.
4 For Email Marketing
MailChimp
Email marketing is critical for B2B marketing. Emails are one of the most personalized methods of communication. Everyone checks their emails every day, thus, increasing the probability of noticing your message.
Email marketing is one of the most cost-effective marketing tactics that is said to achieve the most conversions and has the highest ROI (Return on Investment).
When thinking of automating email marketing, marketers can rely on one such B2B marketing tool, namely:
- MailChimp
Look into some valid stats, and you will see that MailChimp is one of the largest email marketing automation platforms, with 14 million customers. Almost 1 billion emails are sent regularly through MailChimp, thus validating its popularity.
Easy to navigate with a clean interface, MailChimp allows marketers to send emails, design sign-up forms, create landing pages, ads and print postcards.
With so much to offer, you can either subscribe to MailChimp for free (up to 2000 subscribers) or get one of the premium packages and enjoy extensive facilities.
B2B marketers also use tools such as HubSpot and Constant Contact. While HubSpot integrates a wide range of services, Constant Contact is quite limited in its features.
Also Read: Email Styles for Industrial Marketing Strategy
5 For Social Sharing Scheduling
Hootsuite, Feedly & Buffer
With the world running on social media, it is only apparent that businesses need to make their presence felt on various social media channels. Hence, having access to tools that make social sharing easier is a must.
There are many tools available that allow scheduling and sharing content on social media more integrated; however, three tools stand out due to their easy accessibility and simple facilities. These are-
- Hootsuite
- Feedly
- Buffer
Hootsuite is a blessing for all who share their content on social media, regularly. It is reliable and helps you to collaborate on various social media channels. You can keep an eye on the social activities, post content, schedule a time to post the same and manage multiple accounts with ease. With Hootsuite, you can also get an extensive report on the performance of various social media content.
As for Buffer, it enables you to publish content on various social media channels. Buffer and Hootsuite are at par with their services offered. Extra facilities on Buffer include analyzing and replying to comments. Both these B2B marketing tools have free and premium services, which vary from individual use to enterprises accessing them.
For both Hootsuite and Buffer, you can schedule the content for posting.
When it comes to Feedly, it is one of the most preferred B2B marketing tools available in the market. Whether you need to find, organize, read or share content , Feedly packs all of it in one application. Feedly works as a news aggregator that pulls the RSS feeds from publications, which can be further used to search for news or topics. This app offers excellent integration plans for B2B marketers.
Social media sharing is necessary for all marketers. Not just to stay on the top of the game but to also ensure that you can reach your target audience at an appropriate time.
6 For Editing
Grammarly & Hemingway App
There has been much discussion about content being the king! However, what we all miss is that the content will be considered to be a king only if it is credible enough. In short, the content is reliable as long as it is of proper quality.
Proofreading and editing content to make it flawless is necessary. It’s true that no one wants to read an incredibly complex piece of article, but a version that is filled with grammatical errors is not acceptable either — neither for your readers nor the search engines. Presenting a polished article is a must to maintain a professional persona.
Also Read: Content Marketing in B2B Market
Therefore, editing and proofreading is necessary.
And all B2B marketers should have access to editing tools. And nothing gets better than
- Grammarly
- Hemingway App
Grammarly is not just a tool; it is something more. And it is used not only by the B2B marketers but by writers at large. Be it an article or an email, an infographic or a presentation; you can check every piece of content on Grammarly. From correcting the tense to the case, from fixing style issue to repetitive words, this tool proofreads it all, producing a flawless content.
Grammarly also has provisions to check plagiarism; thus, ensuring that the content is just impeccable.
Hemingway App is used to check the readability of an article. Though it comes with other cool features where you can add headings, bold texts and add bullet points, Hemingway is primarily used to check how appealing the content is. Using too many compound sentences or adverbs in excess can ruin the appeal of the article produced.
Hemingway points out these issues and fixes them.
An immaculate content has immense value. Use these editing applications and ensure that content is indeed the king.
7 For Design
Canva
No website is complete till you insert some fantastic graphic designs in it. Even if you have the best of content and other resources to optimize your website, without graphic designs, it will always look incomplete.
According to a study conducted by Stanford University, 46.1% of over 2500 people have agreed that a website with top designs is considered to be more credible. Hubspot revealed that 65% of the people like emails with images and videos, whereas only 35% of the people like text-heavy emails. Also, Pew Research found out that 35% of the social media users are willing to share content that contains images.
Thus, it leaves us with no doubts that well-designed images are required for B2B marketing. The need to have an excellent B2B marketing tool that allows you to get creative without much hassle is a mandate.
Out of the many design tools available, there is one that has got all the attention it deserves. And it is Canva-
A multi-purpose tool that allows B2B marketers to design at their wish, Canva includes a wide range of themes to choose from. You can create these according to your preference. Be it a Facebook or an Instagram post, banners or templates, a plethora of layouts are available for you to edit your images.
You can not only edit images but also add texts to them. Canva requires a little to no budget at all, thus, saving a lot of money. You can craft the best digital designs for your marketing campaigns, without having to go overboard with your budget.
Excellent digital design can make your website appealing. As studies prove, a good design increases the credibility of your marketing campaign, be it through emails, social media or content.
To Sum Up
So, that concludes the list of B2B marketing tools that marketers need to consider while strategizing.
These tools are designed to make working easier for B2B marketers. With a proper understanding of the tools mentioned above, crafting effective marketing campaigns is easier. The effectiveness of these tools renders them significant in the B2B marketing landscape. Be it collecting data from Google Analytics or for editing content using Grammarly; these tools make marketing more productive.
Have more such useful B2B marketing tools in mind? Comment below.
Want more help with the tools? Or want to design a website that allows your business to reach the pinnacle of success? You can also seek affordable marketing services from CampaignLake today!
