Let’s face it – digital marketing can feel overwhelming. It’s still one of the younger marketing disciplines and experiences change more quickly than other channels.
To help navigate the digital landscape and the opportunities it offers, we’ve compiled 10 resources we use most often for our clients and in-house for our firm. Whether starting from scratch or rounding out an established tech stack, these resources can elevate your brand’s presence while saving your team’s valuable bandwidth.
Website
A website remains a primary hub for prospective customers to learn about your business. The scale of your site can depend on many factors, falling anywhere from a simple one-page landing page to a robust site with hundreds of pages. (Most small businesses’ sites are between 5-20 pages.)
There are many website platforms on the market though Wix and WordPress are our favorites. Wix can be easier to navigate for less experienced users and offers a one-stop solution for most of your site’s needs. WordPress is highly customizable and powerful though these sites require more technical expertise, especially in their initial configuration and ongoing maintenance.
Adding a page builder tool to a WordPress site makes page development much easier and doesn’t require coding expertise. Our favorite is Elementor* though Divi and Avada are other popular choices.
Sites on more advanced platforms benefit from a fast and reliable hosting vendor. Our favorite hosting vendor for WordPress performance is WPEngine*. Bluehost is a fair alternative offering somewhat cheaper plans.
Check out our checklist for new and established websites.
Social Media
Social media is critical for reaching and engaging with shoppers. There are numerous platforms though your organization doesn’t need to be active on each one. Start with one (or a few) of the popular platforms you can realistically manage and ultimately choose the platforms that your target audiences use.
For most businesses, Facebook and Instagram are still the core platforms. LinkedIn is also a great option, especially for B2B brands. TikTok has experienced exponential growth and can be impactful in reaching younger audiences though continues to face long-term uncertainty in the US market. Other popular platforms include YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), Snapchat, Pinterest, and Reddit.
Consider using a management tool such as Buffer or Later* to publish content to multiple platforms simultaneously and to schedule your posts in advance.
Discover our social media best practices.
Canva
Canva has become the go-to for quick and easy design projects, including social media graphics, posters, and presentations. The platform contains numerous helpful templates, elements, and visuals to aid in crafting projects. While a paid plan is available with premium elements and capabilities, most businesses will find more than adequate use of the free plan.
Google Business Profile
A Google Business Profile (or Google Maps listing) is imperative, especially for local businesses with a physical location. A free listing provides high visibility in Google search results and helps customers easily find information about your business, including your address, phone number, and operating hours.
Other search engines and map platforms, including Bing and Apple, offer similar listings so consider creating profiles on those platforms. Once you’ve claimed these listings, keep them well-maintained including any needed updates to your business’s hours and contact information.
Learn more about Google Business Profiles.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free platform that provides insights into your website’s visitors and their behavior while on-site. Once added to your website, you’ll be able to answer where your visitors are arriving from – both in terms of their sources (search, ads, social media, etc.) and their geographic locations. You can also set up custom events to track important actions taken on your site such as purchases, form submissions, and phone calls to measure return on your marketing efforts.
Check out our guide to website analytics.
Email remains a top marketing channel for maintaining prospect engagement and driving conversions. Before diving in, start by determining the purposes of your campaigns. Do you want to announce new products or upcoming events? Would you need a “drip” campaign to progress new prospects through their buying cycle automatically?
Next, you should develop your subscriber list. An overall list often starts with existing customers and leads though you should continue to grow subscribers through your other marketing channels. Your list should also be as complete and up-to-date as possible before uploading to your chosen platform (including removal of typos, broken email addresses, etc.)
Numerous email platforms are on the market, most offering free plans at certain criteria. Our favorite providers are MailChimp and HubSpot.
Explore email marketing tips.
Google Search Console
Search Console is another one of Google’s free resources that can be integrated into your website. Within its dashboard, you can submit your site and its sitemap to Google. Once configured, Search Console helps to measure your site’s performance in search results including which searches are bringing visitors to your site. The platform also helps to identify key issues that could be impacting your site, including mobile usability.
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager is a free and powerful tool for adding code to your site, all from one dashboard. After adding its singular script directly to your website, you can then add and manage additional code snippets through that lone script rather than adding them individually and directly to your site.
Many sites run their Google Analytics configuration, custom events, custom HTML, and more all through a Tag Manager container. Its Tag Assistant tool is a powerful resource (especially in troubleshooting) to identify when individual events occur and their associated properties.
Check out our guide to Goole Tag Manager.
Ad Managers
Google and Meta are powerful platforms for reaching prospective customers. Their ad manager tools offer granular targeting to precisely reach your target audiences and maximize your return on ad spend. The platforms have also become more helpful in automatically suggesting certain elements such as ad messaging.
A caveat is that while these platforms make it relatively easy to launch advertising, use caution if you are unfamiliar with digital advertising. Without proper setup and management, campaigns can be irrelevant to their intended purpose and waste your marketing funds.
Learn more about Google Ads and social media ads.
ChatGPT
No list would be complete without mention of AI resources. ChatGPT has become one of the most popular AI tools and is incredibly powerful for several purposes. When provided with proper prompts and resource aids, these platforms can handle requests ranging from simple time-consuming tasks to generating content for your website. Caution is again advised with these platforms as their output requires human review and can be inferior or outright incorrect compared to what a human expert might generate.
Explore our guide to using AI for your business.
Summary
These powerful resources can provide a solid foundation for online marketing efforts and elevate your brand’s presence over competitors. However, they’re only as powerful as the effort and maintenance provided to them. Revisit your presence and data insights often to ensure you’re making the most of opportunities to enhance your brand and better serve prospective customers.
