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4 Reasons for Committing to Any Marketing Tool in 2019

Monday 24 June 2019

8 minute read

By Sarah Burns

There are so many extras, add-ons, and ‘nice-to-haves’ that you could plough £1000s into when it comes to your marketing expertise.

Ranging from the expensive, but all-singing-all-dancing, HubSpot marketing platform (which does include an option for getting started with free tools), to a variety of impressive, but when-you-add-it-all-up-expensive tools, apps and extras, exploring your social following, finessing company graphics, reporting tools, and so on and so on….

That’s why our digital marketing company has identified the four reasons you should ‘tick off’ before you invest in any marketing tool, platform or ‘nice-to-have’ (clue: it has to be more than simply ‘nice-to-have’).

1. It’s easy to use

Ultimately, it has to be a tool that you, or your in-house marketer, can actually use. If not, why bother? It should be intuitive, likely template-driven or step-by-step oriented for ease and efficiency. Any platforms that include tutorials or helpful videos to ensure the tool is easy to use, such as HubSpot’s Academy videos, should ensure the tool is easy-to-use.

2. It saves you time

The beauty of HubSpot's marketing tools is that they most definitely save you time - they automate the process and include a range of tools in one platform, so you save time - and money - managing multiple tools. Any tool that you choose to implement for marketing purposes should ultimately increase your marketing output and take less time to implement and deliver. Otherwise, why bother? If something is easier, cheaper, but ultimately costs more resource through implementation, is its purchase validated?

3. It’s budget-friendly

Being budget-friendly doesn't always mean 'cheap'. It should provide great value for money and actually save money in terms of the resource needed to ‘make it work’. If your team is stretched and their job is made harder or more complex by the platform (without realistic value for their extra efforts), then it’s actually not budget-friendly.

4. It offers something different

Above all else, it has to offer a real added value to your organisation and marketing processes. If it does ‘more or less’ the same as another platform, it’s not offering unique enough value to be a good purchase. If you have Photoshop and an employee who can effectively use Photoshop there’s no need to look for other, similar design software - it needs to add something of tangible value.  

5 Marketing Tools We’re Loving in 2019

Canva

A fantastic image-editing platform designed to make creating templates for your marketing materials and social media graphics, amongst others, a walk in the park - and the completely free option provides a lot of creative opportunities.  

HubSpot Marketing Free

Although HubSpot can be costly and a major undertaking for pretty much any organisation, one really great thing about HubSpot is you get to test the water with their comprehensive free package, which includes:

  • Pop-up forms
  • Contact database
  • Kickback emails

As a HubSpot Silver Partner Agency we'd be happy to help you with implementation. 

Google Keyword Planner

Find the right keywords for your business with Google's Keyword Planner. The planner allows you to research the ideal audience for your marketing campaign - even if it isn't a SEM-specific (search engine marketing) project.

Mailchimp

If you don't need a wider range of marketing tools, such as HubSpot's extensive platform, you may be better off investing in individual platforms. Mailchimp is one of the best for email marketing, as well as its free version which allows you to: 

  • Create professional emails with free business templates
  • Send emails to up to 2,000 contacts
  • Produce single-step automations, including welcome emails and order notifications etc.

Free Stock Photography Sites

OK, this is a bit of a cheat one, but it can massively improve your marketing efforts, without costing any money whatsoever. Utilise the wide range of free stock photography sites that are ‘out there’ to help your business create a free, professional impression without breaking the bank - why not use Canva to help you produce some smart promotional marketing graphics?

Why not contact our team for support with implementing HubSpot - free or otherwise? Remember we're a HubSpot Silver Partner Agency!

If you're looking to embark on a website build project, whether it's completely from scratch or a site refresh, our ebook will give you the knowledge to make your project as stress-free as possible.

The Website Design Handbook for Businesses

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