Want to know the best digital marketing tools for attracting new clients?
I don’t claim to have all the answers. But I have been fairly successful with digital marketing for the past 20 years … and I’m happy to show you the tools I use.
The 2 reason reasons I’m sharing my list of tools with you are:
- To introduce you to one or more tools you didn’t know existed so you can improve your digital marketing efforts and get more (or better) clients.
- To demonstrate that you don’t need ultra complex or expensive tools to get great results.
So let’s dive in …
I’ve organized my list of digital marketing tools into 7 categories:
NOTE: None of the links below are affiliate links. They’re just quick reference links to the respective tools.
Website Design Tools
1. WordPress. WordPress is the platform we use for all sites we develop. Think of WordPress as the operating system of your website — kind of like Windows is the operating system for a laptop/PC, macOS for a MacBook Pro or iOS for iPhones.
2. StudioPress. To make WordPress look and function like a website you need a WordPress theme. There are thousands of themes available … and we’ve experimented with lots of them. StudioPress produces high-quality, well-built, premium themes and they’re who we use exclusively for all sites we build.
3. Thrive Architect. Thrive Architect is a visual page builder we started using a few years ago that allows us to build great-looking web pages much faster and easier than coding everything by hand. It’s a major advancement in website design & development.
4. Thrive Leads. Thrive Leads comes from the same company as Thrive Architect. It’s designed primarily as a tool to help build your email list using popups, ribbons, slide-ins, etc. But with a little creativity Thrive Leads can be used for alerts, announcements and multiple choice forms to guide people around your website. It’s a very handy tool we use all the time.
WordPress Plugins
WordPress plugins are like apps for your phone. They give your website functionality without having to custom code everything by hand. There are tens of thousands of WordPress plugins to choose from, but 2 excellent plugins we routinely use on sites we build are …
5. Gravity Forms. As the name suggests, Gravity Forms helps you build website forms — everything from simple contact forms to sophisticated conditional logic forms. It’s relatively easy to use and it integrates with many 3rd-party applications such as email service providers and payment processors.
6. Envira Gallery. Envira Gallery is a premium plugin that helps you create beautiful, mobile-responsive image and video galleries on your website. Like Gravity Forms, it’s stable and relatively easy to use. We’ve tried other image and video gallery plugins and Envira Gallery is the best we’ve found to date.
Domain Registration
7. Namecheap.com. Just like you need to register your vehicle with the Secretary Of State, you need to register your website domain name with an authorized domain registrar. There are many domain registrars online. We’ve used Namecheap.com since 2011 and recommend them to our clients.
Website Hosting
8. HostGator. To have a website on the internet, it needs to be hosted on a web server — kind of like to build a house, you need a piece of land to build your house on. We’ve hosted our website with HostGator for over 10 years and have been very pleased. They’re reliable, affordable and pages on our site load fast. HostGator is more than adequate for the hosting needs of typical small-to-medium sized business websites.
Graphic Design
Presentation matters and things need to look good. These are the graphic design tools I use:
9. Canva. Canva is an online graphic design tool that allows you to create professional, high-quality graphics very quickly. Even though I’m tech-savvy, I always found Adobe Photoshop difficult to use with all its bells and whistles. For me, Canva is so much quicker and simpler. It has tons of beautiful pre-made templates you can customize or you can create original, high-quality graphics totally from scratch.
10. Paint Shop Pro. I bought Paint Shop Pro back in 1999 and I still use it to this day. It’s my go-to tool for quickly cropping and resizing images with precision.
11. BigStockPhoto. BigStockPhoto isn’t actually a tool, but rather it’s a marketplace for affordable, high-quality, royalty-free images. If you’re doing any type of digital marketing, you’ll need stock imagery from time to time.
Ad Copy
Although looks matter, pretty websites and landing pages only get you so far. The thing that moves the needle is ad copy. Good copy beats good design every time. Getting good at writing effective copy takes tons of practice, but here are some tools that have helped me:
12. On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft by Stephen King. I’m not a big fiction reader and I’ve only read one Stephen King book eons ago. However, I stumbled across On Writing: A Memoir Of The Craft a few years back and it is pure gold. He shares excellent how-to advice, as well as his philosophy about writing. What surprised me most is just how funny Stephen King is.
13. On Writing Well by William Zinsser. Like Stephen King’s book, On Writing Well is loaded with useful nuggets (and lots of examples) to make you a better writer. One of my biggest takeaways from this book is eliminating as much clutter as possible from your writing and be as precise as you can. Always strive for simplicity and brevity.
14. The Elements Of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White. The Elements Of Style is a fantastic, little gem of a book. If you do any writing, this book should be on your bookshelf. One tip (on page 18) that’s made me a better writer >> write in the active voice rather than the passive voice.
15. Thesaurus.com. I can’t believe I didn’t use this amazing free tool until just a few years ago. When the perfect word is on the tip of your tongue — but you just can’t think of it — go to thesaurus.com and start typing synonyms. Nine times out of ten it’ll spit out the exact word you were looking for.
Website Statistics Tools
Ignorance is not bliss. You need data to see what’s working and to fix the things that aren’t.
16. Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free service from Google we install on every site we build. It tells you the most-visited (and least-visited) pages on your site, how long people spend on each page, which pages convert visitors into leads or sales, etc. This is invaluable data if you want to maximize your site’s performance.
17. Clicky. Clicky is an alternative to Google Analytics that provides website data in a more user-friendly format. We use both Clicky and Google Analytics on www.markbrinker.com. Never hurts to have multiple, independent data sources to validate the accuracy of the numbers.
SEO Tools
Nearly 100% of the traffic to my site (markbrinker.com) comes from search engines, namely Google. SEO means different things to different people. For me, SEO is publishing exceptional content people find valuable, then formatting it appropriately to give it the best chance of getting listed on page 1 of Google so it drives traffic to your site. Here are 2 tools I use to help me with SEO:
18. SEMrush. If I had pick the one thing most responsible for my SEO success the past few years, it would be research. Before investing 15-20 hours (or more) developing a high-quality piece of content, you need to do in-depth research to confirm that people are actually searching for info on that topic. Otherwise you waste an enormous amount of time producing content no one cares about. SEMrush helps me identify content topics likely to do well, and avoid topics with zero chance of success.
19. Feedly. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Get content ideas by monitoring what others in your market are publishing. Feedly is a feed aggregator allowing you to quickly see trending topics and headlines people appear to be interested in.
Email Marketing Tools
20. AWeber. There are many fancy digital marketing tools available, but email still produces one of the best ROI. Not everyone checks social media every day, but everyone checks their email every day. To manage your email list and broadcast messages to hundreds or thousands of subscribers, you need an email service provider. I’ve been using Aweber for my email marketing since 2008 and it still produces great results.
Digital Advertising Platforms
If you don’t have the time/patience for SEO and you need website traffic now, paid traffic is the way to go. The only 2 digital advertising platforms I focus on are Google and Facebook because that’s where the majority of people are.
21. Google Ads. Google Ads (formerly known as Google Adwords) allows you to place ads on Google that get triggered when someone searches a phrase related to your product, service or company. People using Google are actively searching for answers. They’re like heat-seeking missiles. Running ads on Google gets you in front of people with a high probability of being interested in what you offer.
22. Facebook Ads. Facebook Ads differ from Google Ads in 3 ways. With Facebook ads, (1) your ads can contain pictures or videos, (2) you can use more ad copy than you can with Google ads, and (3) you can target different audiences such as people that have visited your website or people that like baseball.
Google Ads aren’t necessarily superior to Facebook Ads, and vice versa. It just depends on the product or service you’re trying to promote and where prospective clients/customers are most likely to be found.
Sometimes Google Ads produce better results, other times its Facebook Ads. You just have to test.
Video Creation Tools
I use video a lot … in pre-sales on landing pages and sales pages, during the sale to close deals, and post-sales to communicate with clients. Here are the video creation tools I use …
23. Snag-It. Snag-It by Techsmith is the screen capture and video recording software I use pretty much every day. Select an area on your screen, press record and start talking. Snag-It is perfect for making quick “explainer” videos when you need something better than a long, boring email. Dollar for dollar, Snag-It is one of the most valuable digital marketing tools in my toolbox.
24. Camtasia. Camtasia also by Techsmith is a more traditional video editor where you can add in special effects, transitions, audio soundtracks, etc. Snag-It is my day-to-day video workhorse. Camtasia is what I use when I need a more polished video with higher production value.
25. Microsoft PowerPoint. I use PowerPoint all the time to create slides for my videos. It’s easy to use and works great. The Mac equivalent to PowerPoint is Keynote. Google Slides is a free, online alternative to PowerPoint that I’ve heard good things about and I might check out in the near future.
26. Microphone. The # 1 tool for creating awesome videos is a high-quality microphone. I’ve used the Samson C01U Pro USB Studio Condenser Microphone for over 10 years and it still produces crystal clear recordings. Nothing ruins a video like bad audio. So make sure to invest in a good microphone.
Video Hosting Platforms
Video files are usually quite large and consume lots of bandwidth when played. Standard web servers aren’t designed to process video files. Therefore, you’ll need to upload your videos to a video hosting platform.
27. Screencast. Screencast is a video hosting platform from Techsmith specifically designed for Snag-It and Camtasia. Once you create your video, it can be uploaded to Screencast with just a couple mouse clicks. You can then share your video with the unique link automatically created by Screencast.
28. YouTube. If you want to play videos on your website, upload them to YouTube then stream those videos onto your website. YouTube is free and you get to leverage Google’s powerful video hosting technology. One downside to using YouTube for your video hosting are those “recommended video” overlays and thumbnails when your video is paused or finished. Some people find them annoying, but that’s the price you pay for free video hosting. If you don’t want your videos cluttered with all the extra stuff from YouTube, you’ll need to move your videos to a paid video hosting platform such as …
29. Vimeo. Vimeo is a subscription-based video hosting platform that functions like YouTube, but without all the overlays, thumbnails or ads on your videos. Their Pro plan is very affordable at only $20/month.
Personal Productivity Tools
The following list of tools aren’t directly used for generating leads, clients and profits. But they are the time-saving, essential tools I use to run my digital marketing agency every day.
30. Nozbe. Nozbe is the task management system I’ve used since 2013 to manage all projects. It’s simple to use but has many advanced features. It’s cloud-based so you can use it on all your devices anytime, anywhere.
31. Breevy. Breevy is a Windows-based text expander that helps you type faster and more accurately. We all have phrases, unusual emails or long pieces of text we type over and over. With Breevy, you define an abbreviation for that long piece of text. Then the next time you need to type that long piece of text, just type the abbreviation and Breevy automatically inserts that long piece of text for you. I use this handy tool all the time.
32. Evernote. Evernote is my digital brain. Instead of having a zillion Post-It notes or random files scattered around my hard drive, I just dump everything into Evernote for quick retrieval at a later date. I also create tons of cheatsheets in Evernote. This helps accomplish a particular task in only 5-10 minutes instead of 1-2 hours. You can also copy/paste images and screenshots into Evernote when you need more than just text. Evernote is cloud-based so my data is always available, but you can also create a copy of your Evernote data on your local hard drive just in case you need to work offline.
33. Dropbox. Dropbox is my hard drive in the cloud, and that allows me to work at my office or remotely. Dropbox also gives me peace of mind in case of computer software/hardware failure or natural disaster, since all my business files are backed up in the cloud. If you need to share files (especially large files) with a client, I use a private, shared Dropbox folder … which is a much more elegant solution than emailing stuff back and forth.
34. Pipedrive. I originally started using Pipedrive as a sales CRM (customer relationship manager) for generating leads and following up with prospects. But I don’t use it for that purpose anymore. Today I use Pipedrive solely for logging detailed case notes with clients, colleagues, vendors, etc. so I know who said what and when. Works great. Pipedrive is cloud-based so I have access to my notes 24/7.
35. Google Sheets. I’ve been a spreadsheet fan forever, and I’ve used Microsoft Excel forever. But over the past couple years I’m finding myself using Google Sheets more and more instead of Excel because (1) Google Sheets is cloud-based so my data is available on all my devices, and (2) Google Sheets doesn’t require you to click “save” — it saves your data continuously so you never risk losing your work. I still like Excel and don’t plan on abandoning it any time soon. But in certain situations, I prefer Google Sheets.
36. TimeTrade. TimeTrade allows clients and prospective clients to book appointments on my online calendar if they want to talk with me by phone. I’ve discovered it’s way more efficient to schedule a specific time to talk, rather than just calling each other randomly. With an appointment, both parties can block out time on their respective calendars, eliminate distractions and write down a few notes of what they’d like to talk about. A much better solution than just winging it.
37. MailWasher Pro. I’ve used MailWasher Pro since 2007. It’s an email pre-processor allowing you inspect and block spam from your computer or mobile device. A really useful tool for stopping email garbage from infiltrating your Inbox.
38. RoboForm. Roboform is the tool I’ve used for years to remember my passwords. It’s cloud-based so I have access to all my passwords wherever I’m at. It also has a random password generator that’s helpful when you need to create a strong, unique password.
Conclusion
Now you know the digital tools I use.
The list above will change if I discover any better tools.
Also, if and when a tool comes out combining the functions of one or more tools listed above, I’ll let you know that, too.
Did I miss anything? If so, let me know in the comments below.
