Everyone knows that the online marketing world is a competitive one, but you don’t need to walk into the fire alone. There are tools to help you organize your assets and build your business from the ground up.
Two of the most notable are Google Apps Suite and Hubspot.
Google Apps Suite
This one’s been around for awhile, but it’s one of the most useful set of apps that you can use to run your business from. While the Google Apps Suite does not afford users the option of launching an entire campaign, it does afford users the option of preparing advertising campaigns to launch from other platforms, and serves as a hub for operations.
Google E-mail enables to users to automatically add recipients to their contacts. Not only that, but with Google Email, you can easily determine whether or not those contacts are online so that you can send them instant messages with Google Instant Messaging and communicate with them remotely or at the office. The need to communicate by having a small business phone service is long gone now that the internet allows communications via instant messaging. Add your contacts to different circles to keep them organized or to streamline important information to them when the time is right. This way, everyone is kept up to speed, and those who don’t need to know what you’ve posted can stay out of the loop.
Using Google Apps, you can open up a spreadsheet to others in your contacts. Use the preferences to determine who can view your spreadsheet on this cloud-based platform, and who can edit it. This is a great app if you work remotely. Documents, presentations (which you can prepare using the corresponding app), and spreadsheets can all be manipulated so that you have total control over who sees what. Again, the information that you open up is for their eyes only, and even they can be on a need-to-know basis. Use your Google Drive to keep your own files and presentations organized.
Hubspot
By now you’ve likely heard quite a bit about Hubspot. Have you ever wondered why that may be? Well, Hubspot is like your personal “what should I do next?” guy . . . only virtual.
The first thing that Hubspot will show users is where they are liable to receive the most foot traffic in their area, so they know where to set up shop before they put anything together. This valuable tool will save you thousands of hours of time in the end. All it needs to know is your target market.
There are a number of things which make this possible, not the least of which is social media. Hubspot monitors social media platforms, like Facebook and Twitter, to see which customers are shopping where. It also figures out what customers respond to from an advertising perspective and uses the data collected to generate models based on the keywords that you choose.
One of the reasons Hubspot is such a useful business tool is that your entire advertising campaign, from start to finish, is completely transparent.
Everything that happens on the site, including your conversion, is recorded. Nothing gets missed. Are customers responding to some keywords better than others? You’ll receive real-time updates on how well your keywords are performing. You’ll also get weekly and monthly reports on what works, and what doesn’t. This ability to benchmark allows you to go back and change the tactics that just aren’t working, and to implement the ones that are.
One of the best parts of Hubspot is that it enables users to set up automated email campaigns. This means users can tailor email messages to consumers in various stages of the selling cycle and automatically log the activity on your website to move leads from one stage of the selling cycle to the next.
For example, if a lead clicks on your second call to action, they are automatically logged as prospects and sent the corresponding e-mail. All you need to do is make sure your lead can find your call to action before they get bored and go somewhere else. Your email does the rest.
