Digital marketing is a broad function encompassing many responsibilities, so if you’re in charge of it, you’re probably handling many things at once. Using Mailchimp’s marketing platform can really simplify your day. It’s like your one-stop shop for everything from email marketing and landing pages to social media management.
Many tools in this guide integrate with Mailchimp, making your campaigns even better. So, as you forge ahead, be sure to search for them in the integrations directory to build your perfect tech stack. And remember, you can also use these online marketing tools on their own if you wish. Just choose whatever setup fits your needs best.
Now, let’s dive into the essential tools that can take your digital marketing to the next level. Whether you want to enhance your Mailchimp experience or build a custom tool kit, these solutions can help you create more effective campaigns. Ready to explore? Let’s get started.
Customer research
Customer research tools help you understand who’s buying from you and why. They let you gather info about your audience, build detailed profiles of your typical buyers, and determine the steps they take before purchasing. This info is incredibly helpful when trying to develop marketing strategies that click at just the right time.
For an in-depth understanding of your target audience, consider using SparkToro. This digital marketing tool tells you about your audience’s demographics, online behaviors, and the influencers they follow. You can then refine your buyer personas and craft targeted messages using this data.
To simplify the next step, use a buyer persona template to sketch out who your customers are. Sometimes, a single customer profile isn’t enough to capture everyone you’re targeting, so feel free to create several personas to cover all your bases. Don’t forget to try Mailchimp’s Customer Journey Builder to visualize how these personas interact with your brand over time.
Customer relationship management systems
Customer relationship management (CRM) systems are key for keeping track of your interactions with customers. They help you organize customer information, keep tabs on conversations, and manage relationships from a central hub.
Mailchimp has a CRM system that works well with its email marketing tools. It allows you to see the effectiveness of your email campaigns from one central dashboard. You can easily track customer interactions, manage contact lists, and follow up on leads.
You can make this CRM system even more powerful by using Zapier to connect it to other web services. It’s like building a bridge between all the tools in your tech stack. This lets you do things like automatically update customer info across all your apps and set up custom workflows that handle repetitive tasks for you.
Website builders
Website builders simplify the process of creating and managing a website. They often include drag-and-drop interfaces, templates, and hosting solutions. These options help you make a professional-looking site, no coding experience necessary.
If you’re looking for a website builder that’s both powerful and easy to use, try Wix. It has a user-friendly interface, advanced design features, and seamless integration with Mailchimp. You can choose from hundreds of stunning predesigned templates or start from scratch to create a site that perfectly reflects your brand.
Content management systems
A content management system (CMS) helps you create, manage, and publish digital content on your blog or website. It offers a user-friendly interface where non-technical users can add or update content easily.
More than just a website builder, Wix also functions effectively as a CMS. This platform allows you to organize content, schedule posts, and manage multiple contributors.
Plus, Wix’s integration with Mailchimp lets you sync your website content with your email marketing campaigns. This means you can easily use your website content in your emails or add custom signup forms.
Content curation tools
Content curation tools help you find, organize, and share relevant content from around the web. They also save time on content creation by helping you discover trending topics and articles in your industry.
Here are some options to consider:
- BuzzSumo: Find popular content and influencers in your field to guide your strategy.
- UpContent: Share quality content from others directly in your Mailchimp campaigns.
- Scoop.it: Organize content by topic for newsletters, social media posts, or your website.
For content creation, tools like Google Docs and Microsoft Word offer collaborative writing environments. They allow multiple team members to work on documents together, making the content creation process smoother.
Consider using editing tools like Grammarly or Hemingway Editor to polish your writing. Grammarly checks for grammar, spelling, and style issues, while Hemingway Editor helps simplify your writing for better readability.
Stock photo libraries
Stock photo libraries provide a vast collection of high-quality images for your marketing materials, website, and social media posts. You can choose from free or paid services, with paid options typically offering more images and extra features.
Some popular stock photo libraries you might want to check out include:
- Unsplash: Get free, high-resolution photos, including unique, artistic images.
- Pexels: Download professional-quality photos and videos for free.
- iStock: Buy royalty-free images, illustrations, and videos.
- Shutterstock: Search for images, videos, and music in one of the largest paid stock photo libraries.
Remember to select images that align with your brand and message. Also, always check the licensing terms to ensure proper usage of the images in your digital marketing materials.
Graphic design software
Graphic design software helps you make eye-catching content for your marketing campaigns, social media, and other promotional materials. These digital marketing tools are great whether you’re just starting out or a pro designer.
Here are some graphic design tools you might like:
- Canva: Create designs using a huge library of templates for social media posts, presentations, and more.
- Photoshop: Edit photos and craft detailed graphics using professional-grade software tools.
- Issuu: Convert your PDFs into interactive flipbooks for digital publishing.
- Pixlr: Make quick edits and simple designs with help from generative artificial intelligence (AI).
- Inkscape: Design logos and illustrations using a complete set of vector graphic editing tools.
These digital marketing tools cater to diverse needs and skill levels. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different software or watch tutorials to find what works best for you.
Search engine optimization tools
Search engine optimization (SEO) tools help you improve your website’s visibility in search results. These digital marketing tools can assist with site audits, keyword research, competitor analysis, and more.
Here’s a selection to consider for your tech stack:
- Screaming Frog: Crawl your website to identify and fix common SEO issues.
- SpyFu: Research keywords and analyze your competitors’ SEO strategies.
- Ahrefs: Analyze backlinks, research keywords, and perform comprehensive site audits.
- AnswerThePublic: Discover popular questions people ask about certain keywords.
- Keyword.io: Find relevant long-tail keywords to enhance your content strategy.
For Wix users, several free SEO tools are available in the Wix App Market. These can help improve your SEO strategy and boost your pages higher on search engine results.
Video creation and hosting platforms
Video creation and hosting platforms help you create, edit, and host videos for various digital marketing activities. You can post the completed videos on your website, email campaigns, or social media platforms.
Explore these digital marketing tools to create high-quality video content:
- Vimeo: Edit, host, and share high-quality videos with advanced privacy settings and analytics.
- Wistia: Create, host, and deliver videos to specific audience segments and analyze their engagement.
- Hippo Video: Produce and send personalized video emails to boost engagement.
- Show By Animaker: Design animated explainer videos with easy-to-use templates.
- VEED.IO: Edit and enhance videos quickly for sharing on your website and social media platforms.
Using videos encourages more people to open your emails, click on your links, and engage with your content. So, it’s well worth the time and effort to learn how to create high-quality videos your audience will enjoy.
Social media marketing tools
Social media marketing tools help you manage your online presence across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. You can use them to create, schedule, and analyze posts to ensure your content gets the most attention and interaction possible.
To manage your social campaigns from a central platform, check out Mailchimp’s social media marketing tools. You can schedule posts, track performance, and align your social media strategy with your email campaigns, all from one place.
For an additional boost, consider using tools like Rewards Fuel, ViralKit, and AppyReward to set up contests and giveaways. It’s a quick way to make your online presence more interactive and exciting, enhancing the overall success of your social media marketing strategy.
Email marketing tools
Email marketing tools help you create, send, and analyze email campaigns to connect with your audience. They’re essential for building customer relationships, promoting products, and driving traffic to your website.
With Mailchimp email marketing tools, you can create professional-looking emails even if you’re not a design expert. Email templates make it easy to customize your campaigns, ensuring they align with your brand’s look and feel. You can also segment your audience, schedule emails, and track performance metrics like open rates and clicks.
Do you already have a library of marketing emails you love on Beefree, Tabular, or TOPOL.io? Integrate these tools with Mailchimp to seamlessly bring your favorite designs into your email marketing efforts.
SMS marketing tools
SMS marketing tools allow you to send targeted text messages to customers, such as appointment reminders, shipping updates, or special offers. Many platforms also let you track analytics like open rates, clicks, and responses to measure your efforts’ success.
Mailchimp now lets you add SMS marketing to your campaigns, meaning you can send text messages along with your emails and social media posts. This helps you create a consistent experience across all your channels.
In this platform, you can send tailored messages based on customer behavior or preferences, ensuring your outreach feels more personal. Location-based texts let you target customers in specific areas to make your offers or updates more relevant to them. You can also automate texts, like abandoned cart reminders, to keep customers engaged without extra effort.
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Pay-per-click ad platforms
Pay-per-click (PPC) ad platforms allow you to create and run targeted online advertisements. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, making it a cost-effective way to reach potential customers.
The most popular PPC ad platforms include:
- Meta Ads: Create ads for Facebook and Instagram to reach a wide, diverse audience.
- Google Ads: Display your ads on Google search results and across its network of partner sites.
- Amazon Ads: Promote your products directly on Amazon, reaching shoppers when they’re ready to buy.
These platforms have their own ad management tools, but you can make things even easier with Mailchimp’s LeadsBridge integration. It connects your account to Facebook, Instagram, and Google Ads, letting you manage your PPC campaigns from your all-in-one marketing dashboard.
Influencer marketing platforms
Influencer marketing platforms help you connect with social media personalities who can promote your products or services to their followers. They often provide tools for managing contracts, payments, and campaign tracking.
Take a look at these commonly used platforms:
- Social Cat: Connect with micro-influencers to create authentic content for paid and gifted campaigns.
- Cameo: Book personalized video shout-outs from celebrities and influencers to create unique content for your audience.
- Upfluence: Discover influencers, manage campaigns, and analyze the results of your campaigns.
When using influencer marketing, aim for authenticity. Choose influencers whose values align with your brand and who can genuinely speak to the benefits of your products or services.
Marketing automation tools
Marketing automation tools handle repetitive marketing tasks, giving you more time to focus on big-picture strategies. These digital marketing tools help send emails, score leads, and track customer interactions.
Mailchimp is known for email marketing, but it also has strong automation features that set it apart from other digital marketing tools. You can set up workflows that trigger based on your audience’s actions, like signing up for your newsletter or making a purchase.
If you run an e-commerce site, you can use integrations like Square and Stripe to make your marketing automation even better. These integrations let you automatically send welcome emails to new customers, suggest products based on past purchases, and ask for feedback.
Marketing analytics and reporting tools
Marketing analytics and reporting tools help you track and measure the performance of your marketing campaigns across various channels. You can see valuable insights like website traffic, email open rates, social media engagement, and conversions.
Mailchimp has built-in analytics for email campaigns so you can easily see their performance. You can also create custom reports and visualizations to match your specific goals. This lets you focus on the numbers that matter most to your business and quickly identify areas that need improvement.
For a more holistic view of your multichannel marketing performance, you might want to integrate Mailchimp with specialized tools like:
- Cyfe: Compile data from multiple marketing channels to create a big-picture overview.
- Klipfolio: Build dashboards that update in real time to track your key performance indicators (KPIs).
- DashThis: Automate your reporting process with customizable dashboards and scheduled reports.
Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) are must-have tools for tracking website traffic and user behavior. When integrated with Mailchimp, GA4 becomes even more powerful, helping you see how your email campaigns affect website visits and conversions.
Conversion rate optimization tools
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) tools help increase the percentage of website visitors who take desired actions, like signing up or making a purchase. These digital marketing tools offer various features to help you test, analyze, and refine your strategies to boost conversion rates.
- A/B testing: Test different versions of your emails or website elements to see which perform better with tools like Mailchimp A/B tests and Optimizely.
- Heatmaps: Get visual insights into where users click, scroll, or focus their attention while on your website with Email Heatmaps and Hotjar.
- Eye tracking: Analyze where users’ eyes go on your web page or email for detailed insights into what grabs attention using EyeTracking.
Exit-intent pop-ups and retargeting can also help boost your conversion rates. These catch users’ attention just as they’re about to leave your site or if they’ve shown interest but haven’t made a purchase yet.
Poptin and OptinMonster can create your exit-intent pop-ups. These pop-ups offer visitors one last reason to stay on your site, such as a special offer or discount. And they work because it’s hard for many people to pass up a good deal, especially on something they’re already considering.
Retargeting tools like Meta Pixel work a bit differently. They repeatedly show your ads to former site visitors, even as they’re browsing other websites. This keeps your brand on their mind, nudging them to return and finish their purchase. It’s a smart way to remind potential customers about what they’re missing out on.
Online customer survey platforms
Online customer survey platforms help find out what your customers think. They let you hear directly from your audience to understand their likes, tweak your products, and make smarter business decisions.
Mailchimp has an easy-to-use survey tool that lets you quickly create and send surveys right to your email list. You can ask multiple-choice, rating scale, or open-ended questions to gather insightful data. Maybe you want to know what people think about a new product or get an idea about what content to create next.
Since it’s all in Mailchimp, the answers from your surveys are automatically linked to your audience info. This means you can segment your audience based on their responses and create targeted follow-up campaigns. Plus, if you link your surveys with your CRM and customer journey tools, you’ll understand your customer relationships better and can tailor future interactions to meet their needs.
Brand monitoring and social listening apps
Brand monitoring and social listening apps help you track people’s opinions about your company online. When you use these digital marketing tools, you’ll get to know what people are saying, how they feel about you, and what you can do to make them even happier.
Here are a few trusted apps to explore:
- Keyhole: Monitor social media mentions, track hashtags, and measure the impact of your campaigns with analytics and reporting.
- Mention: Track mentions across social media, news, and blogs so you can proactively manage your brand reputation.
- Brandwatch: Get in-depth analytics and visual reports on brand perception, audience insights, and market trends.
Remember to check popular review platforms for customer feedback regularly. Reviews let you know what customers think about your products or services and can point out where you might need to improve.
Plus, you can use the positive feedback to your advantage. People often follow what others do, so consider sharing good reviews in your emails with Mailchimp integrations like Yelp for Business. This can boost your credibility and help convince others to try your products or services.
Marketing presentation software
Marketing presentation software lets you create compelling visual stories to engage your audience and showcase your brand. Effective presentations help you win clients, pitch ideas, and communicate your digital marketing strategy clearly.
Options you might like include:
- PowerPoint: Create detailed slides with charts, graphs, and infographics that make data easy to understand at a glance.
- Google Slides: Work together with your team to edit and refine presentations on the fly and from anywhere.
- Powtoon: Bring your ideas to life with animated videos and presentations that add a touch of fun and creativity to your message.
- Keynote: Craft elegant and impactful presentations with Apple’s sleek and user-friendly presentation software.
- Slidesgo: Access a wide variety of professionally designed templates to create polished presentations for any occasion.
No matter which tool(s) you choose from this list, you’re setting yourself up for success. Each offers unique features that can take your presentations to the next level. Try them out and see which helps you connect best with your audience.
Project management and collaboration tools
Project management and collaboration tools are the secret to effectively managing tasks, deadlines, and team communication. They keep everyone on the same page and timeline, helping your team achieve great results.
Let’s look at some tools that might fit your team’s needs.
- Airtable: Track different stages of your project using an intuitive color-coded system.
- Monday.com: Visualize project progress with customizable boards, timelines, and calendars.
- Asana: Break down projects into manageable tasks, assign owners, and track progress in real time.
- Trello: Manage your projects with flexible Kanban boards, moving tasks through different stages as they progress.
The right project management and collaboration tool can transform your team’s productivity and efficiency. So, explore these options to find one that suits your team’s needs and working style.
Productivity tools and techniques
Productivity tools and techniques enable you to accomplish more in less time. They help you stay organized, focused, and motivated, allowing you to efficiently tackle your digital marketing tasks.
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to staying productive, but these tools might help:
- Shift: Streamline your workflow by organizing all your apps, email accounts, and extensions into a unified workspace.
- Inbox When Ready: Regain control of your Gmail inbox by limiting email access and prioritizing focused work time.
- Instapaper: Save articles and web pages to read later, decluttering your browser and reducing distractions.
- Pomofocus: Apply the Pomodoro Technique to break down work into focused intervals, followed by short breaks.
- FocusBox: Block distracting websites and apps during designated focus periods to maintain concentration.
- Habitica: Gamify your to-do list and track your habits with this engaging and motivating productivity app.
Using these tools can help you manage your time better and increase your productivity. Before you know it, you’ll be completing your tasks more efficiently and finding extra time for other activities.
Employ the best tools to elevate your marketing campaigns
The right tools can take your digital marketing results from good to great. Whether you’re looking for standalone tools or want an all-in-one platform like Mailchimp, you can streamline your efforts, expand your reach, and unlock your full potential.
If you’re just getting started, an Onboarding Specialist can help you make the most of Mailchimp’s features and set you up for success. So, don’t wait another moment—start exploring the tools that fit your needs and watch your marketing soar. With the right digital marketing tech stack, there’s no limit to what you can achieve.