The 13 Best Marketing Tools For Startups

If you want to create landing pages that bring in leads and convert them into paying customers, consider using Leadpages.

This marketing tool provides you with thousands of landing page templates backed by ten years of conversion data that capture people's attention and encourage them to take action.

All you need to do is add your text and images, and you'll be good to go.

You can also receive advice from marketing experts, share lead magnets, track analytics, and manage leads on this platform.

Other than that,

• You can customise these templates without any coding, making it easy to match your business’s look and feel.
• You can build and submit your landing page for feedback from marketing experts.
• You can also manage and track your leads, sort them, and even export them for more analysis.
• You also get AI assistance, which can help you launch your landing pages faster by generating copy and creating the perfect image in seconds.

Leadpages is a great marketing tool but it does have some limitations you should know about. The customisation options are limited, and pricing might be a bit high if you’re on a tight budget. You’ll also need technical skills to use advanced page designs.

Hubspot is a valuable tool for businesses that want to improve customer relationships and service. It provides customer data and reports to help you understand your audience better. You can easily track sales, monitor customer interactions, and manage customer information to provide more personalised service.

With this marketing tool,

• You can collect information about your leads and existing customers like their names, email addresses, etc, by using online forms.
• You can also track user activities on your website and automatically send personalised messages to potential buyers based on what they're interested in and how far along they are in the buying process.
• With all the customer data, you can create targeted marketing campaigns and track how well they work within the CRM software.
• You can also handle customer service requests and track satisfaction, making sure that every customer gets personalized responses on time to increase loyalty.
• Throughout the platform, there are many AI tools that can enhance your marketing efforts and increase team productivity.

HubSpot is a good marketing and CRM tool, but there are a few limitations. The free version doesn’t let you access advanced tools and features you might need. It also limits how many emails you can send, requires you to use the HubSpot logo, and provides slower help compared to people who pay.

If you want to easily manage multiple social media accounts while growing your online presence and engagement, SocialBee is the right tool for you. It's a social media management platform that can help you create, schedule, publish and analyse your social media posts and their performance.

With this marketing tool you can easily design visually appealing content, collaborate with your team and get insights into audience engagement.

There are many other features available like:

• SocialBee's AI Post Generator can create unique social media posts and images that resonate with your target audience.
• It provides over 1,000 prompts for creative post ideas across various social media platforms, like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and more.
• You also get detailed analytics for each social media channel, so you can track engagement, audience demographics, and post performance.
• It helps you create better social media marketing strategies as well by giving you personalised posting time recommendations based on top-performing posts.
• You can easily monitor and manage your social interactions, including comments, mentions, and direct messages, all from a single dashboard.

SocialBee is a good social media marketing and management tool with a of useful features. But it does have a few limitations that you should be aware of.

While it offers scheduling and management for multiple social media platforms, the analytics support is limited and may not provide detailed insights. Also, managing multiple profiles in the calendar view can be quite difficult, as you can only view one profile at a time.

Clearscope is for content creators, marketers, SEO specialists, or just anyone who wants to improve their search engine rankings. It’s an AI-powered content optimisation tool that can help you write SEO-optimised content by suggesting keywords and phrases that are most likely to drive organic traffic.

With Clearscope,  you can create content that your audience actually wants to read, and that also ranks higher in search engine results.

• Clearscope uses AI to analyse the top search results for a specific topic or keyword.
• It provides insights on which keywords to include in your content and the ideal content length to improve search engine performance.
• You can find keywords and topics related to your target keyword so you can create content that answers all your audience's questions.
• You can also use Clearscope to analyze your competitors' keyword usage and examine their content structure to improve your own content.

Clearscope is a helpful tool for optimising content for search engines, but it has some limitations. While it provides the information needed to create better content, it doesn't help with the actual writing process. You have to manually go through the report and choose what to include in the content and what not to.

Carrd is a one-page website builder ideal for those who want to quickly create a responsive, professional-looking website without having to deal with any technical stuff. It offers several customisable templates, allowing you to quickly build a landing page, a website, or an online portfolio—anything you want.

• You can also add email signup forms and contact forms to your Carrd site to collect leads and inquiries from visitors. This will help you grow your email list and stay in touch with potential customers.
• You can connect your Carrd site to Google Analytics or other tracking tools,and gain insights into how visitors are interacting with your pages.
• Carrd also offers plugins to add features like maps, countdown timers, and pricing tables to your site. These help capture attention and encourage visitors to take action.

Carrd is a good and affordable tool for marketers and businesses to make quick no-code websites easily, but it has some limitations. It lacks design flexibility, with limitations on containers, column arrangements, and mobile menus. It also doesn't support filtering content, expanding elements, or multiple pages, which can impact SEO.

Mailchimp could be your go-to tool if you want to easily create, send, and manage your email marketing campaigns and generate more revenue through emails. It’s an email marketing platform that offers customisable templates, email builders, and analytics to track your email’s performance.

With this tool,

• You can easily build targeted email lists and send newsletters, promotional offers, and product updates.
• You can design eye-catching emails using pre-made templates or create your own from scratch.
• You can also segment your audience based on their behaviour or preferences, making sure your emails reach the right people at the right time.
• Mailchimp also provides detailed analytics, helping you understand what works and what doesn't in your email campaigns.

MailChimp is a good choice for email marketing, but there are a few limitations to keep in mind. One of the main limitations is the cost. If you have a large email list, using MailChimp can get quite expensive, and the free plan doesn't include all the features you might need.

Calendly simplifies scheduling meetings for busy professionals, especially those in sales and marketing. It syncs with your calendar to avoid double booking and lets others pick a time that works for them so you don’t have to deal with constant back-and-forth emailing to organise meetings.

With Calendly,

• You can turn your marketing leads into booked meetings faster.
• It reduces any friction in the sales funnel, so you can close deals efficiently.
• You can focus more on preparing for the meetings than worrying about scheduling conflicts.
• Calendly's feature of sending automated confirmations and reminders helps increase the productivity of marketing efforts such as product demos, webinars, and sales calls.

Calendly sure is a helpful tool, but remember that it’s just for scheduling meetings and doesn’t really have any other extra features for your marketing-related tasks.

Asana is a work management platform ideal for marketing teams looking to organise tasks, manage projects, and improve their overall productivity. It allows you to centralise your workflows, set clear goals, launch your campaigns faster, and track campaign performance effectively.

With this marketing tool,

• You can use lists, boards, timelines and calendars to create and assign tasks, set deadlines, and track progress all in one place.
• You can use Asana’s intelligence AI to improve your marketing strategies by asking questions like, “What challenge can prevent us from hitting this goal?”
• You can also share files and collaborate with your team, making it easier to keep everyone on the same page.
• You can automate repetitive tasks and workflows, saving time and reducing manual errors.

Asana is a useful tool for marketing teams, but it’s important to note that it may not be the best fit for every organisation. The pricing can be costly for small businesses or startups with limited budgets, as the advanced features and integrations are only available in the higher-tier plans.

If you want to understand your audience's behaviour on your website and know which strategies are working, Google Analytics is your tool. By showing you where your visitors come from and what they do on your site, Google Analytics helps you understand your audience better and make data-driven improvements to your website.

This marketing tool can

• Give you information about your website visitors, like how many people visit your site, what they do there, and whether they take action (like buying something). This can help you make better decisions to improve your marketing and get better results.
• You can also group your visitors based on age, location, interests, and how they use your site. This helps you create marketing campaigns that are relevant to each group so you can provide a more personalised experience.
• If you have an e-commerce business, Google Analytics provides detailed information about product sales, customer behaviour, and revenue. This data helps you improve your product offerings and the shopping experience.
• Google Analytics can also tell you how fast your website loads and performs. A faster website can improve user satisfaction, reduce bounce rates (people leaving without taking action), and even help your website rank better in search engine results.
• Google Analytics is a valuable tool for marketers to understand website traffic and user behaviour. But, it has some limitations.

It sometimes uses sampled data instead of all the data, so the reports aren’t always accurate. Google Analytics doesn't track personal information about your website visitors. This means you can't see exactly what each person does on your site, making it harder to understand individual behaviour.

The free version has limits on custom metrics, how many conversions you can track, and how long it keeps data. You might need to pay for the GA360 version if you want more advanced features.

Zapier is ideal for those who struggle with repetitive, tedious tasks and want to focus more on what’s important. It’s an automation tool that can connect your favourite apps and automate tasks between them. You can set up triggers and actions, creating a workflow that works for you.

For example, you can create a 'Zap' that saves email attachments from Gmail directly to Dropbox and then alerts you in Slack about the new Dropbox file.

Zapier is a helpful tool for marketing because,

• You can connect your marketing tools like CRM, email, social media, and advertising apps. This makes tracking leads, managing subscriber lists, and keeping up with virtual events easier.
• You can create automated workflows to send emails, update CRM contacts, and create new leads, saving you time and manual effort.
• You can also customise these workflows to fit your specific marketing needs.
• By automating tasks, you can focus more on engaging with customers and getting their feedback.
• You can also automate entire marketing campaigns, including event management, follow-ups, and updates to stakeholders. This helps you manage complex campaigns more efficiently.

While Zapier is a fantastic marketing & automation tool, there are a few things to keep in mind. Sometimes, there might be delays in triggering automated tasks or "Zaps." These delays can affect your workflow's reliability, which is not ideal if you rely on things happening instantly.

Also, Zapier might not be the best fit for complex, multi-step workflows. You might see that it can't quite handle everything you need. The free plan on Zapier only allows a limited number of Zaps (currently, you can only create 5). This might not be enough if you need to automate a lot of different workflows.

SEMrush is for those who want to get real, measurable results from their online marketing efforts. It's an all-in-one platform that allows you to do SEO, content marketing, competitor research, pay-per-click advertising, and social media marketing all from one convenient place.

With Semrush,

• You can track your website's traffic and rankings for specific keywords. This insight helps you optimise your campaigns for better performance.
• You can also do keyword research to find valuable keywords for your campaigns, including long-tail keywords that drive more relevant leads.
• You can analyse your competitors' advertising campaigns, keywords, and strategies to improve your own marketing efforts.
• Use the content marketing toolkit to find high-performing content ideas, generate SEO-friendly briefs, use AI to write better copy, and optimise content for users and search engines.
• The Data and Insights page also provides access to the latest marketing insights and original research, helping you plan and execute better content marketing campaigns.

SEMrush is an excellent tool for digital marketing, but it can be a bit overwhelming, especially for beginners. There are so many features and data points that learning how to use it might take some time.

The accuracy of its keyword data is somewhat questionable. This is important to note if you rely heavily on keyword research for your marketing decisions. Also, Semrush is pricier than other similar tools, which might be a problem for small startups or those on a tight budget.

For those who want to optimise their websites to rank higher and get more traffic, Ahrefs is a tool you should consider. It’s a comprehensive SEO tool that helps you improve your website's visibility in search engines by analysing your backlink profiles and helping you with keyword research and site audits.

It helps you improve your SEO strategy, making sure you attract the right audience to your website.

With Ahrefs, you can:

• Analyse any website or URL's backlink profile and SEO metrics with Site Explorer.
• Conduct keyword research and get insights like search volume, keyword difficulty, click metrics, and related keyword ideas using Keywords Explorer.
• Identify technical SEO issues and on-page optimisation opportunities through the Site Audit feature.
• Monitor your website's search engine rankings for your target keywords with Rank Tracker.
• Discover trending and popular content in your industry or niche using Content Explorer.

Ahrefs is a good tool for marketing and SEO, but it has some limitations that should be considered. While it provides a wide range of features and insights to help optimise your website and improve search engine rankings, it may not be suitable for all users due to its lack of integration with Google Analytics or Search Console, occasional downtime of the Domain Health tool, and limited keyword suggestions with no relevancy score.