4 Digital Marketing Tools For SME Owners

SME owners require the best digital marketing tools to succeed online.

Whether it be due to a lack of budget or expertise, many SME websites are basic and fail to utilize best practices for digital marketing success.

Websites can be slow to load, are not intuitive to navigate, or lack vital information. Meanwhile, the business listing might feature outdated information, which prompts Google to bury your result where it will never be seen in SERPs.

The fortunate news is that SME owners can remedy all of these issues today with free or low-cost digital marketing tools.

Here’s a quick list of four essential digital marketing apps for small businesses to help you get started.

1. Google Analytics

Analytics drive digital marketing, which is why we listed Google’s free online marketing software first.

Google Analytics allows any user to constantly track data for your website, funnels, or landing pages 24/7. All you have to do is create a free account here and verify ownership of the website you wish to track. After you create your account, you’ll be able to analyze:

• Daily/weekly/monthly website traffic
• Average session duration
• Website traffic sources (how users find you)
• Which pages receive more clicks
• Which pages have high bounce rates
• Common navigation routes users take within the site

In addition to this, you can also utilize this digital marketing tool to set up custom goals for better conversion tracking. You can analyze how often users take specific actions, the success rates for filling out forms, adding items to a cart, making a purchase, etc.

All SME owners require this data if they wish for their websites and campaigns to perform well. Without these essential metrics, you’ll be operating blind and be unable to understand what parts of your marketing efforts are getting results and which require a bit of TLC.

The Google Analytics dashboard is exceptional. It’s intuitive, easy to navigate, and provides everything you need. But, if you want to future proof how your company operates, you may also benefit from additional software such as DashClicks’ Analytics application.

This marketing analytics software is also free for users and allows you to consolidate all of your analytics trackings into one dashboard.

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For example, if you start using GA and expand into Google Ads or Facebook Ads, you can simply log in to one account as opposed to managing three separate accounts for each.

Nevertheless, Google Analytics alone will provide everything an SME owner needs to start entering a competitive space online.

2. A Listings Profile Manager

Online directory listings are essential for SME owners.

These listings allow you to profile your company on countless websites throughout the web. When a user performs a search for businesses within a specific industry, they can identify names, hours, phone numbers, addresses, and more.

Examples of listings websites are Yelp, Yellow Book, and Google My Business. These are some examples of listings we would consider essential, but there are effectively 80+ possible listings sites you can utilize in the USA.

Not only do these sites allow users to discover your SME in new ways, but it’s also an easy way to acquire some high-quality backlinks that point back to your website.

However, if you wanted to leverage all of these listings websites, you would need to actively keep manage those accounts and keep them up to date at all times. This is not a very realistic task, which is why most brands will settle for a handful of essential listings.

DashClicks offers White label business directory software for small businesses that addresses this exact problem. For a small monthly fee, you can syndicate all of your available listings by using one profile.

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Users can complete their business profiles, upload images, and make edits at any time with one account. The software automatically publishes those changes and updates to every available listing in your area. Then, you can easily review the status of each listing at any time within the same dashboard.

Be aware that this digital marketing tool is only available to small businesses in the US, UK, or Australia at this time.

3. A Sales CRM

Once you start increasing your amount of qualified traffic, you need effective tools to aid your sales team in driving conversions.

A sales CRM is not unlike a traditional contact tracking application. However, instead of managing individual user data, a sales CRM focuses on helping sales personnel track all of your deals within your various sales pipelines.

Popular examples of these digital marketing apps for small businesses would be Pipedrive, Salesforce, or DashClicks’ very own Sales CRM System (Deals App). Within your platform of choice, you’ll be able to track:

• Deal status
• Deal values
• Deal stages
• Success/failure rates by sales rep

Certain apps like Deals offer a more seamless experience by connecting your free sales CRM directly with your free Contacts book. Instead of managing leads in one place and your deals in another, you can automatically integrate data from either app at any time. This saves time and offers quick access to any data you need within the same platform.

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Furthermore, Deals allow you to automate every routine task that’s involved in deal management. You won’t need to manually scribe emails, text messages, or generate reports for every prospect that moves on to the next step of the sales journey. You simply drag the deal record to the next stage and the software automatically completes the tasks you have set to automate.

This grants your sales team a better visualization of the entire sales process and affords them more time to focus on strategies that work. You’ll have access to additional sales metrics to analyze each step of the sales journey as well as the performance of each team member.

4. Campaign Management Software

When they graduate beyond your website and listings, SME owners are likely to look toward additional marketing channels that allow them to run customized campaigns.

Here are just a few examples of essential ad campaign platforms SME owners can use depending on their needs:

• Facebook Ads (PPC ads)
• Google Ads (PPC ads)
• CallRail (for phone campaign)
• ClickFunnels (sales funnels & landing pages)

There is no one-size-fits-all solution as each digital marketing platform helps in key areas. Facebook is a low-cost advertising space that allows brands to connect with users on social media. Meanwhile, ClickFunnels will grant you the ability to create elegant landing pages that promote highly-personalized offers to qualified users.

Any of these recommendations are excellent places to begin and will accommodate a large variety of budgets for small business owners. Paid ads are highly common as they allow brands that do not have strong organic results to remain competitive by paying for premium ad space.

These platforms range from being free to sign up (Facebook Ads, Google Ads) to having paid membership plans.

As you begin to leverage these different channels to promote your SME, you’ll further benefit from having an app that can consolidate your campaign tracking into one dashboard. Fortunately, DashClicks provides such a tool with its Lead Management Software or Inbound application.

Inbound is free to use, and SME owners can quickly integrate and track marketing campaigns from:

• Facebook Ads
• ClickFunnels
• CallRail
• Instapage
• Kartra
• PhoneSites
• ManyChat
• Unbounce

After you create your campaigns and integrate them with Inbound, you and your sales team can track all of them simultaneously at once. You’ll also be able to pause or terminate campaigns within the same dashboard.

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The Inbound app is also part of the same free ecosystem as some of the apps described above. This makes it easier for all branches of your team to communicate, leverage vital information, and gain critical insights that make your SME more effective as a whole.

Leverage Free Digital Marketing Apps for Small Businesses Now

Getting your brand started online can prove a challenge, but it’s simultaneously never been easier. There are free, high-quality options of each tool mentioned in this article for SME owners to start using today.

Some of these naturally scale with your unique business budget, while others offer paid subscription plans that grow with your brand as you increase your customer base.

Because all of these digital marketing tools are accessible, there is no excuse to delay any longer. Start exploring some of these key suggestions today, sign up for your free accounts, and find the best way to coordinate them into your existing marketing strategy.

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