The Challenges of a Good Digital Marketing Strategy

One of the main challenges faced by marketers is staying organized and keeping track of all the different moving parts.

Statista estimates there will be over 295 million mobile internet users by 2023. More and more, businesses are still being shifted online. As such, digital marketing is more important than ever before.

With so many distinct channels and strategies available in the digital marketing space, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lost in the shuffle. It’s also difficult to track results. With digital marketing, there are many more variables at play beyond simply tracking leads, sales, and a few key metrics, making it difficult to know what’s working and what isn’t.

How can you be expected to stay on top of social media posts, website copy, and tracking leads as well as meetings and messages within your company all while maintaining consistent branding without letting something slip by?

Thankfully, there are many software solutions available to make the task of marketing easier. These resources can add to your toolkit to help you overcome these challenges, increase productivity and get the most out of your digital marketing campaigns.

6 Tools to Increase Digital Marketing Productivity

Trello

Trello is a project management application fit for teams of all sizes.

Pros:

• The user interface is easy-to-use and beginner friendly
• Very affordable at $5-$10/month, depending on your plan.

Cons:

• No built-in connection to Google Calendar
• When multiple people are working on a single task, it can be difficult to keep up with updates

Grammarly

Helps spell check, proofread for grammar, and scan for plagiarism across documents, emails, and other text.

Pros:

• Saves time and can help marketing copy appear more professional, especially if English isn’t your first language or your writing is prone to errors.
• Free version does a lot!

Cons:

• It’s not perfect – occasional false positives and poor recognition make it a product that should not be relied upon.
• The paid version clutters up your screen with useless info.

Google Analytics

This free tool from Google collects website data and aggregates it into valuable reports that let you know how your website is performing, who your visitors are, how they engage with your site, and how they got there.

Pros:

• All the business data you want in one place. Simple for novices with the potential for more advanced analytics for those who want to dive deeper.
• Real-time report shows real time traffic data.
• It’s free!

Cons:

• Pretty steep learning curve if you are inexperienced.
• Free version is limited to 10 million hits per month, which is plenty when you’re starting out, but once you start to scale you’ll need to upgrade.
• Also, the free version has no customer support.
• Not compliant with E.U. data protection laws.

Slack

Especially post-COVID where many jobs have shifted indefinitely to fully remote or hybrid positions, instant messaging software for employees is a necessity. Slack is the market leader.

Pros:

• Channels are a great functionality to cordon off convos to only the people involved so as to not burden other employees with unnecessary notifications.
• Easy built-in file sharing and video chatting make real-time collaboration a breeze.
• Great mobile app.

Cons:

• It’s easy to get inundated with notifications, reminders, and messages if you’re not careful with your settings. This can tank productivity.
• Convos are deleted after 14 days and files are slowly deleted over time due to minimum file storage requirement, so important info needs to be recorded elsewhere.
• Like many Software-as-Service companies nowadays, Slack charges a subscription instead of a one-and-done price. At $12.50 a month for the Business+ plan, it won’t make you go broke, but it can be hard to justify when there are other comparable free services out there like Google Chat and Microsoft Teams

QikChat

QikChat offers a wide variety of tools for inbound marketing by accelerating the sales engagement process through distributing leads and setting up meetings automatically.

Pros:

• One-click scheduling makes it easy to meet with and manage leads.
• Easy-to-use integrations with video conferencing software are free.
• Automated distribution of leads from all channels.

Cons:

• Competitors have more integrations.

Text Optimizer

This service edits your website text to better match search engine expectations and provides suggestions for subsequent articles based on popular search terms.

Pros:

• We like Text Optimizer as a sort of ‘SEO Sherpa,’ guiding businesses on their ascent up the search engine results pages.
• Allows for optimization for Google or Bing
• It also shows subtopics and related questions
• The score system and layout makes it easy to use and rewarding to make adjustments to improve SEO

Cons:

• They say they have a free plan, but this is misleading. There is only a 7 day free trial accessible after you purchase the Pro Plan.
• The price, at $45 a month, is a bit steep

Conclusion

In the new frontier of marketing where there are endless channels through which leads can find you, it can be a nightmare keeping track of it all. You don’t have to do it by yourself – use digital tools to stay organized, track leads, and maintain consistency throughout all branded communication. With a little research and experimentation, you’ll find what works for your business.