As a professional in a marketing role, you are often asked to be the jack-of-all-marketing-trades. From writing content to executing design and delivering the finished product to the right target market, it’s your job to make your CEO’s marketing dreams come true. Oh, and can you please do that quickly, beautifully, and on budget, too? Of course, you can! But only if you change your mindset.
No marketing professional should aim to be a jack-of-all-trades. Instead, you should become a jack-of-all-resources. That’s because if you know how to allocate resources efficiently and effectively, the work that needs to be done (and that would otherwise fall solely on your plate) gets lighter, moves faster, and is executed more professionally. The challenge is, it’s only when you’re equipped with the right tools and team that you can make real, measurable progress toward your marketing goals.
To help you master the breadth of your marketing responsibilities, we’ve created a list of what we like to call the “marketing starter pack.” These are the resources that we think absolutely every marketer should have in their toolbox from the get-go. We’ve also included our favorite software platforms in each category to guide you toward the tried and true tools that give the best bang for their bucks.
The 3 essential marketing tools you need now:
1. A marketing-friendly CRM
- Our favorite marketing CRM: HubSpotCRM
- Runner up: Salesforce
It is likely that you have some form of customer relationship management software already. Unfortunately, that means you may have already recognized that some CRM systems operate simply as a digital rolodex.
What you need is a CRM that enables creative teams to take advantage of the wealth of customer data they hold. A marketing-friendly CRM should allow you to view your sales pipeline. It should also integrate with email clients, track email communications and allow you to segment customers by a wide variety of characteristics. Bonus points if it includes ad management tools, live chatbot functionality, real-time email metrics, and email automation and tracking.
2. Email marketing software
“Why can’t I just send this email blast to my massive contact list in Outlook!?” asks the confused sales manager. You know why. Because: laws and spam filters and opt-outs and bad business practices and blacklists!
Email marketing is essential for connecting with your current customers and drumming up new ones. You need an email marketing software that will help you maintain compliance with laws and regulations while offering easy tools to design and send attractive, branded communications.
We recommend a platform that integrates directly with your CRM to save you time and the struggles that come with tracking opt-outs and exporting and importing lists. It should also help you automatically segment audiences for better engagement. Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
3. Social media management tool
- Our favorite social media management tool: HubSpot
- Runner up: Sprout Social
Building a social following is not easy nor quick, but for most companies, it’s very necessary to have a social media presence and regularly interact with followers. Tackling this beast requires planning, automation, and a whole lot of content.
The good news is, 82% of marketers repurpose content across various social media channels. It’s a commonly accepted practice and you can save some time and budget by learning how to do it well. A social media management tool will make the process of posting across channels and repurposing content go smoothly.
What about ads? In a recent poll, 79% of marketers reported buying paid advertising on social media. Make sure your social tool has ad management capabilities as well as a streamlined process for posting organic content.
It’s important to choose the right marketing software from the start
As you can see, we are big fans of HubSpot because it truly does it all — and, it keeps it all in one place. We understand that certain legacy software constraints, budgets, or other factors can inhibit your ability to choose a specific software right now (although HubSpot does range from free to very affordable!). That’s why we’ve given a Runner Up option for a standalone software that can accomplish each of the tasks adequately. The argument for a single tool that does it all is strong, but sometimes getting there is a process. We understand!
Consider where you will be in one, five, or ten years. Think about the amount of training and time you will spend on the software and what you might need from it in the future. As your marketing department grows, it will become more complex to manage multiple users, logins and training. When you look at it that way, the case for starting with an all-in-one scalable software will become clear.
Need help getting started?
We’ve partnered with HubSpot to help our clients access enterprise-level sales and marketing tools at affordable prices. Our team successfully uses HubSpot to help clients generate leads, accelerate sales, improve customer service, and create websites that convert. If you’d like to learn more about all the ways we can support your marketing team through our HubSpot partnership you can get in touch with us here.