Did you know that there are over 8,000 distinct growth marketing tools to choose from, according to Scott Brinker’s yearly marketing technology infographic?
Wading through all of these tools can feel like a fulltime job. So to make things easier, I’ve compiled 5 types of tools that I believe every growth marketer should have at their disposal.
I’ll try not to pick favorites, but rather give you a few options in each of these 5 marketing tool categories, so you can make the choice that is best for your next project.
Landing pages
To kick things off, every marketer probably knows what a landing page is. If not, it’s a dedicated page that helps you convert your traffic into leads and customers.
Back in the “old days” of digital marketing—a.k.a. 10 years ago—building landing pages often required hiring a developer and going through a complicated process that could take weeks or months. This just wasn’t working for marketers, so along came landing page builders that make it easy to build and launch pages without digging into the code.
Some popular landing page tools in 2020 include:
Unbounce — Get more leads, sales, and customers using this drag-and-drop landing page builder that is trusted by over 15,000 brands. This is what I currently use to build landing pages for myself and my clients.
Instapage — Instapage is a service that lets you build landing pages for your online marketing and promotion campaigns with ease. It offers features such as A/B Testing, multiple campaign management, easy page building, and a lot more.
Leadpages — Leadpages helps small businesses connect with an audience, collect leads, and close sales. Easily build websites, landing pages, pop-ups, alert bars, and beyond.
Regardless of which tool you choose, most of these landing page builders also allow you to easily set up A/B tests so you can figure out what’s working and what needs to be improved. That’s a surefire way to get better conversion rates and more leads and sales!
Popups
Popups are annoying, but they work. That’s why marketers love using them on their sites. So it makes sense that if you want to fully optimize your website experience and capture as many leads as possible, you’ll want to have a solid popup tool.
Some popular popup tools in 2020 include:
ConvertFlow — The all-in-one platform for converting your website visitors using forms, popups, surveys, landing pages, and more. This is what I currently use here on the GrowthMarketer site.
OptinMonster — Instantly grow your email list, get more leads and increase sales with this powerful conversion optimization toolkit.
Poptin — Create engaging popups and forms for your website in minutes. No coding skills required.
In addition to standard popups, a lot of these types of growth marketing tools also let you create sticky bars, slide-ins, interactive popups, full-screen “welcome mats” and more. You’re not limited to just one format!
Marketing automation
If you’re not using marketing automation, you’re missing out. Think of it as the next giant leap in the evolution of email marketing.
While there are plenty of email marketing tools that let you send “blasts” out to your list, this tactic is quickly becoming outdated. Marketing automation on the other hand lets you personalize your emails and create much more segmented and timely campaigns. That way, you’re always sending the right message to the right person at exactly the right time.
Some popular marketing automation tools in 2020 include:
ActiveCampaign — Get the email marketing, marketing automation, and CRM tools you need to create incredible customer experiences. This is what I currently use to send out my growth marketing newsletter.
HubSpot — From the company that invented the phrase “inbound marketing, ” this marketing, sales, and service software suite can help your business grow without compromise.
Klaviyo — Klaviyo is an email marketing platform created for online businesses, featuring powerful email and SMS marketing automation. It is very popular among ecommerce brands specifically.
Whatever growth marketing automation tool you decide on, one thing is certain: this is an essential part of virtually every growth marketing playbook if you want to succeed in 2020 and beyond.
Qualitative analytics
Google Analytics is great for finding out what is happening on your website or landing pages. But it won’t help you figure out why those things are happening.
That’s where qualitative analytics and feedback comes in. Think of it as the other half of the analytics equation.
Most qualitative analytics and feedback tools allow you to create heatmaps, clickmaps, scrollmaps, record user sessions, launch polls, and conduct surveys. The data you’ll gather will then help you determine exactly what needs to be fixed so you can fix your conversion rates.
Some popular qualitative analytics tools in 2020 include:
Hotjar — See how visitors are really using your website, collect user feedback and turn more visitors into customers.
FullStory — Deliver exceptional experiences by pinpointing when, where, and how users struggle with your site and how it’s affecting revenue and retention.
Smartlook — Smartlook records users on websites and in mobile apps, with features that allow you to find useful information even in thousands of recordings in no time.
Data and analysis can be intimidating, especially if you’re not a “numbers person” like me. But that’s why I strongly encourage you to explore these types of qualitative growth marketing tools. It’s less about reviewing the numbers and more about reviewing the user experiences.
Conversational chat
Last but not least, I have to mention the importance of conversational chat tools. This is a relatively new category, but it’s an essential one for sure.
From building chatbots that help you generate leads, to giving your website visitors a different option for engaging besides just forms, phone calls, and email, conversational chat is the new kid on the block.
Some popular conversational chat tools in 2020 include:
Chatra — Simple live chat, email, and social messaging for business.
ManyChat — ManyChat combines Facebook Messenger, SMS, and email to automate personalized communication for every customer.
Landbot — Engage leads, capture data and personalize client journeys in real-time with this intuitive no code chatbot builder.
A couple of years back, everyone was talking about Facebook Messenger as the replacement to email. While that certainly didn’t happen—and email is here to stay—it’s important to stay on the cutting edge in this category and explore what’s working with conversational marketing.
Choosing your growth marketing tools
Well, I’ve covered a lot in this article, with 5 categories of tools and 3 tools in each. That’s 15 tools to explore!
Will you need each one? Of course not. But hopefully, you’ll find just a few that are useful enough to try.
And if they help you improve your campaigns and become a better growth marketer, then consider it a meaningful investment of your time.
PS: If you want even more growth marketing tools to explore, I share at least 3 new tools every week in my newsletter.
