Inbound marketing requires heavy time and cash inputs. Thankfully, there are a number of superb tools that help any organization pursuing inbound manage resource allocation and optimize the process.
Here are 6 tools every inbound marketer should use:
1) Hubspot: We’re a Hubspot partner and I can’t say enough about them. Their software allows you to run all aspects of your inbound program. It is super intuitive, easy to learn and allows you to do everything from social media, to email marketing, to creating calls to action and landing pages without any coding. It costs money, but the investment is worth it for firms serious about generating leads and turning them into customers. The back end analytics are amazing and they also provide support.
2) DivvyHQ: Divvy is our favourite tool for social media planning. They’ve got a superb editorial calendar function that will keep your whole team on track. Great functionality and solid training and support.
3) Intervals: Intervals is, ostensibly, a time tracking and project management program (it does much more if you need it to). Inbound marketing often involves disparate groups producing content, and for this Intervals is great. It will show you who is doing what and how long it is taking them. Because time is tracked by the second you get good data about exactly what is required to create something and how much it costs in terms of internal resources. This means, the next time your boss asks “How much did it cost to produce that webinar” you’ll know.
4) Google Drive: I know that everyone and their grandmother uses Drive (formerly ‘Docs’), however, Google’s collaboration tool is essential to daily life in our biz, so I mention it. Inbound is about content – and Drive allows you to avoid 6000 emails with different versions of content.
5) WordPress: Again, a well known tool that seemingly everyone uses. WordPress has its critics, but as a publishing platform it is, on balance, pretty damn good. Tonnes of courses out there on WordPress so it’s easy to learn.
6) Fuzebox: We just started playing around with this service. Because webinars and demos are such an important part of bottom of the funnel inbound marketing, you need a good provider. Fuzebox offers a great free program and more robust paid options. Worth a look!
That’s it for me. You have any tools that your inbound marketing program absolutely couldn’t do without?
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