Whether you’re a business owner who is dipping their feet into the world of marketing or a beginner marketer who has no clue where to start, you need some tools that will make marketing 100x easier. Marketing tools are designed to undertake most of the admin work and automate a lot of your marketing processes. Your marketing can’t function without these tools and with hundreds of them in the market, it can be hard to figure out which are the best tools for your business. This is why I’ve compiled some of my favourite tools to help your business get that competitive edge it’s been lacking. I will also be telling you the price and my personal recommendation level so you won’t feel like you need to go on a shopping spree of marketing tools!

Buffer

As our world has become more digitalised, social media has pretty much taken over our lives. Social media platforms are the way we communicate and interact with others. It is also a way brands can interact and connect with their customers. However, putting out posts on multiple channels is often time-consuming and tedious. This is why you need a social media management tool to help you schedule all your posts at once as well as keep track of key metrics such as impressions and engagement. 

There are many tools like this out there such as Hootsuite and Sprout Social which are jam-packed with many features to drive your business to new heights. But for a beginner, these tools can often be daunting with their hard-to-navigate interface and different pricing plans. Buffer is a great alternative for beginners. The tool has a free version allowing you to link up to the 3 accounts to get you warmed up to marketing through social media. The clean and sleek dashboard combined with the easy-to-use publishing tools makes it a great option for beginners. As your business grows and you start using social media a lot more, you can then upgrade to other pricing plans, based on the features you’re looking for.

£££: FREE! While they do have other pricing plans, when starting out as a marketer the free plan has you covered.

Recommendation level: 7/10 

You can just manually post all your social posts to each social media channel, however for the sake of saving time and money, who wouldn’t want to use this tool?

Canva

In the world of social media, and brands trying to gain their audience’s attention, it is important to create content which represents your brand in a positive light. Creating graphics that aren’t professional-looking will sabotage the reputation of your brand and reflect poorly on your business. Canva is an easy to use drag and drop tool which you can use to make quality graphics. With hundreds of templates to choose from, the possibilities with Canva are endless. 

With Canva you can create social media posts, banners, flyers, brochures, and pretty much anything else your creative mind can think of. In the past, I’ve used it to create banners, proposals, newsletters, and much more that have captured the eyes of hundreds of people. The many themes Canva have to offer can help cement your brand in the digitalised world as well as boost productivity by cutting time on learning how to use complex graphic design software.

£££: FREE! 

If you find yourself using Canva more and more, I heavily recommend upgrading to Canva Pro for £99.99/year for one person. The features you get from Canva Pro will give you that added boost in professionalism.

Recommendation level: 10/10 

Most marketers, like myself live and die by Canva and to create high-quality marketing materialis, Canva is the place to go.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a must-have tool for those starting out in marketing. The free-to-use tool provides you with a holistic view of your website to help gain a better insight into how your website is performing. This is done by collecting data from user information, time spent on web pages, bounce rate, etc. The data collected can be used to generate in-depth reports about your website, allowing you to gain a better understanding of your website. The data you will receive from this tool is invaluable to growing your business. Not only will you understand the parts of your website that are keeping users engaged, but will also help you find ways to improve your site overall. The interface is incredibly easy to use, so you won’t have to spend hours figuring out what each pesky button does. With this tool, you can finally solve that ‘How do I get more traffic to my site?’ issue and bring your website to new heights.

£££: FREE! 

Are we seeing a common trend here? Google Analytics is completely free to use and with no pricing plans involved, you’re guaranteed to get all the features at no extra cost.

Recommendation level: 10/10 

Another 10/10! There’s a reason why thousands of businesses use Google Analytics worldwide.

Uber Suggest

For a beginner marketer, SEO, also known as search engine optimisation, seems like the most complex task in the marketing world. What do you mean I need to optimise my metadata? How do I even add image alt tags? Many tools on the market can help you with this. SEMrush and Moz are just some of the fantastic tools that are available on the market. However, none are simpler to use than Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest. Ubersuggest, not only has an easy-to-use and organised interface, but its simplicity does not compromise on the features. With Ubersuggest you can:

• Easily manage your SEO from one simple window
• Track the rankings of your keyword 
• View the volume of each keyword
• Manage your backlinks
• View organic traffic
• Keep an eye out on your competitors (for those who are nosy!)

…and much much more.

This tool is an investment you won’t regret. 

£££: There are many pricing plans involved, but the one I recommend is the £290 lifetime one.

Recommendation level: 8/10 

There are many SEO tools on the market so it’s completely up to personal preference. However, I find this to be the most beginner-friendly and helps to get a true understanding of SEO.

Yoast

With 43.1% of the internet consisting of websites built on WordPress, it is safe to say that WordPress is an incredibly popular CMS, used by businesses worldwide. If you use WordPress or Shopify, to build your site, Yoast will be your best friend. Yoast is one of the most popular WordPress plugins that are available on the market and its main purpose is to help users optimise their website for search engines. With this plugin, you can add SEO titles, Focus key phrases, meta descriptions and so much more. The Premium SEO analysis is a complete game-changer as it shows you what’s good within your SEO, the aspects that need improvements as well as the problems and issues within your SEO. The interface is incredibly user-friendly and the analysis is laid out in a simple, easy-to-comprehend bullet-point list, making things easy for those who are just starting out in their marketing career. 

With the help of Yoast, you can:

• Help your page rank higher on search engines
• Create high-quality content your audience will love
• Helps you clean up your content based on the readability score tool provided, giving you another pair of eyes
• Optimise your images and videos so you know every part of your content is SEO-approved

£££: Free! (Unless you’re using it for a Shopify site, then it’s £15/month).

Recommendation level: 10/10

Yoast is a must-have in any WordPress site, and while there are other free SEO plugins to choose from, I’ve found that none are as effective as Yoast. It’s extremely beginner-friendly and will probably take you a 10-minute YouTube video or a quick 5-minute blog for you to become a pro!

Trello

Are you a marketer trying to wrap your head around the different projects you’ve been assigned? Trello is a free kanban-style, project management tool that helps you take your organisation game to the next level. Kanban boards are known for their columns (lists) and cards, which allow users to track the progress of tasks from ‘To Do’ to ‘Done’.This highly visual and organised tool helps to showcase all the projects you have pending and easily track all your projects from one window. This helps you to better prioritise your tasks so you’ll never fall behind.

Top tip!: Automation will make your marketing career much much easier. Trello’s automation bot allows you to create workflows to automate tasks, as well as integrate with other apps so that you can create workflows that combine with tools you may use every day, such as Slack and Jira.

It is incredibly easy to customise, so you can really make your Trello board your own. The readily available templates are designed to save you time, so make the most use out of them! 

£££: FREE!

Just like the other marketing tools mentioned in this blog, the free version is jam-packed with many features that is perfect for a beginner marketer. With the ability to create up to 10 boards combined with unlimited storage, the free version has you covered for all your organisation’s needs. 

Recommendation level: 5/10

This is completely up to preference in the way you’d like to organise your projects. I know Kanban-style project management tools aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and I sometimes get overwhelmed by them, so I would suggest giving it a go and seeing how you find it.

AnswerThePublic

Your business thrives on the attention of your audience and creating engaging content is the number one way to capture your audience’s attention. This is why content marketing will be the backbone of your marketing strategy. However, creating click-worthy content that is insightful is tough. Especially, when you don’t have the ideas, it may feel as if you’re getting outpaced by your competitors who seem to be pumping new and improved content like there’s no tomorrow. If you feel this way, a simple Google search may just be the answer to all your problems. Answer the Public is a keyword search and content ideation tool designed to help you figure out what type of content users are looking for. A quick search into your industry or topic can broaden your content marketing horizon so that you can reach a new audience you’ve never reached before. This tool can then be used to create things such as blog posts, articles, newsletters, social posts, and much much more so you’ll never ask yourself ‘What the hell do I even write about?’ ever again.

£££: FREE 3 Daily searches when you sign up! (and in my opinion, that’s all you need)

Recommendation level: 7/10

Answer the public is not a tool you’d use day in and day out, however, it’s a quick and easy tool for whenever you’re stuck on ideas and need a little bit of inspiration.

Hotjar

I think marketing is the only purpose where stalking is acceptable – in fact, it is encouraged! Stalking your audience is the best way to get a better understanding of them and their needs. While I don’t mean you should go to their house and peek through their windows, what I do mean is using a tool that’ll help you understand your customers better. And Hotjar is the ultimate stalking tool. 

Hotjar is a data analytics tool that takes screen recordings of each user session so that you can see the way users are interacting with your website and gain a better understanding of your user’s journey. You can then make improvements to your website based on the recordings to create a website that is easy-to-use and extremely user-friendly.  This is an amazing beginner-friendly tool as there’s no deeper analysis needed and everything is there in front of you. 

£££: FREE! There are pricing plans available to unlock more features, but the free version does the trick.

Recommendation level: 6/10

Hotjar is amazing, but it’s not exactly a necessity for every marketer. I would only recommend this if one of your KPIs is to:

• Get more traffic to your site
• Understand user behaviour
• Make continuous improvements to the site

SurveyMonkey

Your customers have a lot to say about you, and their words can help you better understand their needs and wants. However, unless you ask them for their feedback, they aren’t gonna tell you how they feel about your business (unless they’re ringing to complain, then they won’t stop talking). Individually asking every one of your customers is difficult, time-consuming, and most importantly annoying. Annoying for you to make the same phone call over and over again, and annoying for your customers, who don’t always have the time to answer a long list of questions. Imagine there was a way to send mass emails to a large group of people that is easy to create and takes max 5 minutes to answer. *Cough* SurveyMonkey *Cough*.

SurveyMonkey is a free tool that allows you to create high-quality surveys in minutes. Gain rich and insightful data from customers in no time. While with the free version, you are only subjected to 10 questions, I find this to be perfect as a survey with more than 10 questions is often a major turn-off! 

With this tool, you can analyse the responses in a way that makes sense to you, thanks to the built-in reports and advanced dashboards that have a range of customisation features.

£££: FREE! 

Recommendation level: 10/10

Feedback is crucial for any business, which is why this tool is a 10/10 on my recommendation scale. It’s free, easy to use, and provides you with insightful data. What’s there not to love?

Zoho One

A CRM and a marketing tool, all in one? Count me in!

Allow me to recommend Zoho One.  The all-in-one tool that I believe every business needs. The wide range of applications combined with the usage, and price makes it one of the best business platforms on the market. Say goodbye to paying subscriptions for  I could honestly go on and on about Zoho One but for now, I’ll focus on just the marketing tools Zoho has to offer:

• Email marketing – Create segmented email lists and send gorgeous-looking campaigns that you can track and gather data to ensure your email campaigns are meeting your KPIs. 
• Social Media – Post and schedule content, generate in-depth reports, and monitor your engagement, in just one tool.
• Surveys – Send out high-quality surveys to your customers so that you can always meet their wants and needs.
• Live chat -Turn your one-off website visitors into high-paying customers by engaging with them instantly.
• Website builder – Create a lasting impression on your visitors by creating high-quality websites that convert almost instantly.

And these are only some of the marketing tools Zoho One has to offer.

£££: Pricing varies, but the one I recommend is the £37/employee/month ​billed annually​ option.

Recommendation level: 10/10

It’s practically an all-in-one marketing suite that allows you to keep all your campaigns in one place. It’s like having a digital personal assistant that you can take full control of.

Meta Ad Library

As I mentioned above, stalking is acceptable in marketing. However, we don’t exactly call it stalking in the marketing world (or else we would all look like creeps). Instead, we call it fancy terms such as ‘data analysis’, ‘market research’, and much much more. This is why I urge you as a beginner marketer to start stalking your competitors (also known as competitor research). Meta Ad Library is a tool that helps you with exactly just that. By searching for a keyword related to your industry or product, you’ll find a whole library of ads that other businesses are posting. That means you can borrow the language they use, their calls to action, and how they are getting people to click! You can also see the graphics attached to those ads gather ideas and create mood boards to ensure your ad pops.

£££: FREE! 

Recommendation level: 6/10 

While the ad library can be pretty limited depending on the type of industry you operate in, it is still a great tool to find ways to enhance the Facebook ads you put out.

You may also like: The Role of CRMs in Marketing!

ChatGPT

ChatGPT has truly opened up a new way to do marketing. While there isn’t much new information I can share about this beloved tool that hasn’t been said already, here’s a quick rundown on how to use ChatGPT for beginner marketers. With ChatGPT, you can get unique content ideas, gather research for the piece of content you’re working for, improve your SEO, and pretty much anything else you can think of. While I don’t recommend copying and pasting word for word everything that’s generated, it is a good foundation for all your marketing needs. 

£££: FREE! 

Recommendation level: 7/10 

AI can be a marketer’s best friend. This tool helps come up with content ideas, helps you with research, and even helps to keep you up to date with the recent marketing trends. Despite the amount of features ChatGPT offers, I wouldn’t rely on it as your only source as the information and ideas can sometimes be generic and outdated.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is another free tool that allows you to input keywords related to your business and industry or input your website URL to get an in-depth analysis of relevant keywords. By inputting this data, it will generate a bunch of keywords including data about the keyword such as average monthly searches, level of competition, as well as cost per click data. This will help you find the right keywords for your next Google ad, as well as be used in your SEO content.

£££: FREE! 

Recommendation level: 10/10

This is the best option for those looking to improve their keyword research, without having to break the bank on paid research tools. It gives you insightful data on each keyword and can really help you in all aspects of marketing. Whether it’s SEO or content marketing, Google Keyword Planner has your back.