Automated marketing tools are fast becoming a staple for businesses big and small. These software tools can assist businesses with a number of day-to-day aspects, including email scheduling, pre-set social media posting and tracking client impressions, all of which help to capitalise on sales leads.
There’s an overwhelming abundance of programs to pick from, so it can be tough to decide which one is right for your business. We’ve done the research and put together our top 5 marketing tools to help you choose.
Marketo
Marketo is a beginner’s delight. The biggest challenge for new users is to figure out where everything is; the program is absolutely stacked with features.
Once you know your way around though, using Marketo becomes second nature. It provides a well-rounded arsenal of marketing aspects to help you convert leads into clients. Some key areas include inbound marketing, web forms, email marketing, SEO management, demographic data, email templates and third party integration.
For its usability and range of in-depth features to cover every nook and cranny of your business, Marketo has become one of the world’s most popular marketing tools. However, don’t think you’ll be getting a bargain here: prices differ business-to-business, but you can expect to pay a pretty penny of over a grand a month. Marketo doesn’t have fixed costs for their packages, so for an exact quote you’ll have to contact their sales team.
Mailchimp 
If email is a big contingent of your marketing approach, then MailChimp is exactly what you need.
Mailchimp vaunts a motza of email marketing specialties. Reviewers have glowed about its delivery success rate, scheduling simplicity, group sending ease and its ability to trigger responses. You can pick from a myriad of email templates, and can also see who has opened your emails in real time.
Best of all, Mailchimp won’t break the bank. Their Growing Business package starts at US$10 a month, and the premium Pro Marketer bundle runs for an additional $199 a month.
Given its blinkered focus on emailing, it’s worth considering using Mailchimp in conjunction with other plugins for an even coverage of all marketing aspects.
HubSpot 
The business cliché of “content is king” rings true with HubSpot. Boasting a content management system that helps create and manage forms, templates, landing pages and blogs, HubSpot is at the pinnacle of inbound marketing.
It also places an emphasis on outstanding SEO optimisation, ensuring that your content is found and seen more often.
In addition, the program is very strong on lead management, calendaring and analytic reporting, making it a true all-rounder. Hubspot can also integrate seamlessly with CRM systems like Salesforce.
The most basic version of Hubspot is totally free, but the Pro version is a hefty price: the cost was upped to $540AU a month on November 1. Still, in comparison to other marketing software, $540 isn’t too steep at all.
Pardot 
Pardot is another all-encompassing software tool that is intricate in its detail yet easy to use.
It passes the test for all the main areas of marketing, hosting extensive features in emailing, lead generation, campaign management, and social media campaigning and sharing.
A big plus is Pardot’s reporting and analytics abilities, which are able to produce comprehensive dashboards and both standard and custom reports. It can also integrate with CRM systems.
Pardot is no doubt top quality, but its price may make some smaller business’ eyes water. Its standard package alone retails for US$1,000 a month.
Net-Results
Net-Results is a true jack of all trades, while also being simplistic to navigate. Although it doesn’t specialise in a specific area, it does a number of things extremely well.
Some featured areas are lead nurturing, email marketing, lead scoring, CRM integration, progressive profiling, web analytics, reports and dashboards, and plugin options.
While you won’t be getting any ground-breaking new tools that its predecessors on the list don’t provide, Net-Results is a solid and reliable choice that gives you efficiency and – true to its name – actual results across the board.
Pricing for Net-Results is middle of the road for a high end program, starting at US$800 a month.
