If you have a small business, it can be difficult to compete with larger companies in the industry. You may face difficulties in generating traffic and high-quality leads, despite having effective marketing plans. Even if your content is engaging, it may not reach your desired audience. Additionally, measuring the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing campaigns may also be a challenge. If you are experiencing these issues, it may be worth considering the implementation of a marketing software solution.
In this guide, we provide a list of the top solutions for small businesses, taking into consideration factors such as user-friendliness, intuitive automation, popularity, and other essential marketing features. All of these options are well-suited for the budget, resources, and dynamics of SMBs.
Marketing software is typically divided into three categories: advanced workflow automation, marketing intelligence, and marketing automation. It enables the management of marketing campaigns and the optimization of resources, offering features for data collection, analytics, team collaboration, branding, phone call tracking, social media marketing, content distribution, SEO, lead scoring and nurturing, and email marketing.
Usually, marketing software providers such as HubSpot combine all three functions into one comprehensive suite of tools.
Companies of all sizes and industries can utilize marketing solutions, which have become essential tools for small-scale teams aiming to streamline the execution of difficult marketing campaigns at affordable prices. These solutions facilitate the accomplishment of marketing objectives, such as business expansion during a sluggish economy, management of large amounts of data, and digital transformation, among various others.
Using marketing software tools comes with a range of advantages that are worth considering.
- Reduces tedious tasks
- Streamlines marketing efforts
- Improves accountability
- Makes customer management easier
- Document progress faster
Next, let’s move on to our compilation of the top marketing software options for small businesses. Our selection is based on their user-friendly interface, extensive features, and widespread usage. It is important to note that the best marketing software for small businesses may not always be the least expensive, but it is crucial that they offer a worthwhile return on investment.
HubSpot Marketing
With its advanced system, HubSpot Marketing consolidates all of your marketing efforts, enabling your team to enhance traffic and augment conversions. It offers drag-and-drop functionality to create visually appealing websites that seamlessly adapt to the devices accessed by your visitors.
After website design, the software comes into play to help you in the preparation and optimization of relevant and engaging content. It also aids in distributing this content to the appropriate audiences. The software allows you to create compelling calls-to-action and personalize messages to cater to the specific needs of your visitors.
The vendor offers an attractive free trial period during which you can experiment with the features without any charges.
By providing tools such as contact forms and A/B tests, HubSpot Marketing enables you to create effective strategies for generating leads and identify the prospects who are likely to become qualified leads. Moreover, it offers the capability to customize purchasing pathways for valuable leads and convert them into paying customers. Eventually, it generates a report on how your strategy has impacted and contributed to sales.
To facilitate the end-to-end critical operations of sales teams, HubSpot Marketing offers a free plan that includes a dedicated CRM and a Sales Hub plan that also starts at $0 per month.
What sets HubSpot Marketing apart from other platforms?
- Create landing pages. HubSpot Marketing lets you create landing pages for your campaigns. It also allows you to distribute both static and dynamic HTML messages that can invoke the response you expect.
- Design workflows and prepare enticing content. Even without advanced coding skills, HubSpot Marketing will help you design workflows, prepare, and format content for publishing, and integrate information from other systems.
- Optimize your website. The system provides a variety of SEO and social suggestions for you to share content with the right influencers and audiences, and drive traffic.
- Turn leads into paying customers. HubSpot Marketing has a lead generation feature that lets you convert your website visitors into customers.
monday marketer
Monday Marketer is a marketing solution that is adaptable and thorough, designed for teams of any size. The platform offers a range of features to assist teams in efficiently managing marketing initiatives. For example, users have the ability to create a Marketing Plan board, which enables them to strategically plan marketing endeavors for the upcoming year and establish overarching objectives. This board can also encompass information regarding project budgets and performance metrics for monitoring progress. Additionally, the board offers a Gantt view, allowing for an interactive display of these timelines.
The platform aids in the streamlining of marketing workflows for teams by enhancing the process of creative requests and approvals. A Creative request form can be established for users to furnish comprehensive information regarding their design and content material requirements. Additionally, creatives can be associated with particular campaigns to simplify monitoring. Simultaneously, users can expedite the feedback and approval process by directly annotating images and videos.
What sets Monday Marketer apart from others?
- Multiple campaign views. The platform lets teams visually plan campaigns the way they want, whether in a board view or a Gantt view, which provides an interactive timeline of goals.
- More detailed creative requests. You can set up a request form that provides specific information on what is required of the content. Each form can also come with due dates and dependencies.
- Live feedback. Users can also provide live feedback by directly annotating images and videos. This feature speeds up the approval process.
- File versioning. The platform also allows users to organize every file version into a tidy timeline, so teams can always access the latest versions of files.
MailerLite
MailerLite includes both standard and advanced tools that will enhance your email marketing process. The platform offers various text editors, options to manage subscribers, and solutions for automating workflows that will help you streamline your campaigns. Additionally, it provides the capability to intelligently segment your audience based on different factors, allowing you to deliver highly relevant content to them. Moreover, MailerLite provides reporting tools that simplify the optimization of all your email marketing endeavors.
In addition to the functionalities mentioned above, MailerLite also offers built-in photo editing features, tools for managing landing pages and creating web forms. The platform also includes customizable templates to help speed up the design process. Additionally, it has API capabilities and supports various native integrations, allowing you to connect the platform with your existing software ecosystem.
What sets MailerLite apart from others?
- Powerful Campaign Tracking. MailerLite enables users to closely monitor their marketing campaigns by tracking open rates, clicks, and other metrics. Plus, it is equipped with A/B testing and click map generation to give you in-depth insights into the performance of your campaigns.
- Efficient Subscriber Management. The platform has an intuitive interface that lets you segment subscribers and organize email lists. This way, you can easily filter your customers and leads according to particular criteria and include them in campaigns relevant to them.
- Simplified Email Campaign Creation. MailerLite provides several text editors including a newsletter editor, rich text editor, a custom HTML editor, and a drag-and-drop editor. This allows users to create beautifully designed and branded emails as flexibly and conveniently as possible.
Campaigner
Campaigner is an all-inclusive email and SMS marketing solution that incorporates workflow automation, intelligent targeting, live campaign tracking, and multi-channel marketing to enhance customer journeys. Moreover, it provides advanced reporting tools that facilitate data-driven decision-making for marketing teams.
With Campaigner, your team can establish significant relationships with customers and prolong their engagement. Moreover, it facilitates smoother collaboration among teams by consolidating all email and SMS marketing data into a single hub. It also integrates with commonly used apps in your technology stack, eliminating concerns about manual data entry or isolated customer information.
What sets Campaigner apart from others?
- Produce omnichannel online campaigns. Campaigner allows users to produce best-in-class campaigns as it offers integrated email, SMS, and eCommerce campaigns. It also has a social integration tool to help you consolidate customer interactions via social media networks.
- Optimized campaigns. Campaigner comes with personalization tools like segmentation and localization to help you deliver dynamic content to customers. In addition, it supports everything from A/B testing to content testing to make sure your content will resonate with your audience.
- Simplify your workflows. By adding custom workflows and statuses, you can streamline processes and keep track of your progress in a visual, color-coded dashboard.
- Seamless integrations. Campaigner is built to play well with third-party services and applications. These include social media networks, eCommerce platforms, analytics tools, and the like.
vene dash
Vene Dash is a comprehensive performance marketing solution designed to assist businesses in optimizing their affiliate marketing campaigns. Its features include tools for campaign oversight, monitoring affiliate performance, and managing transactions with advertisers and publishers.
Moreover, Vene Dash provides users with the ability to carry out traffic risk assessments, conduct URL checking, monitor destination sites, and offer fraud protection. As a result, businesses can maximize the benefits of their affiliate programs. Furthermore, this platform offers strong API integration choices, ensuring its seamless compatibility with your current platforms.
What sets vene dash apart?
- Enhance the monitoring of affiliates and publishers. vene dash, uses traffic risk assessments, site monitoring, and fraud protection to ensure that all the conversions and clicks you are paying for are legitimate.
- Efficiently track all campaigns. The platform comes with a real-time dashboard that not only displays your metrics and KPIs but also gives you deep insights into your overall campaign performance.
- Improve file management. This solution has a unified file storage system wherein affiliates and publishers can easily but securely access your brand’s official digital assets. This ensures that you are represented correctly in all affiliate content.
- Simplify affiliate payouts. The platform supports various payment channels, including cryptocurrency. As such, affiliates can choose to claim their payouts wherever they prefer.
Mayple
Mayple, being a digital marketing platform, offers various advantages such as effective marketing strategies, paid advertisements, and conversion optimization. It enables you to manage marketing campaigns with top-notch capabilities, such as its AI-driven algorithm that connects your business with suitable marketing experts.
Mayple will consistently monitor your project performance. By utilizing the software’s marketing services, including SEO, graphic design, content building, social media management, and more, you can enhance your marketing results. Mayple has all of these services covered to guarantee optimal outcomes for your campaigns.
What sets Mayple apart from others?
- Create custom marketing strategies. Every business has unique needs, so Mayple allows you to customize your marketing strategies based on your budget and specific company goals.
- Monitor your growth using relevant data. Mayple has powerful monitoring tools that give you bi-weekly reviews, monthly audits, and real-time metrics of your marketing campaigns.
- Work with marketing experts. With Mayple’s AI-based algorithm, you get the chance to work with the best marketing professionals who have credible experiences that match your business.
- Utilize various marketing channels. Mayple has a wide range of integrations, allowing you to take advantage of popular marketing platforms like Google Ads Manager and Facebook Business Manager.
Ortto
Ortto is a marketing automation platform that aims to streamline any marketing workflow by automating omnichannel customer journeys. This platform effectively consolidates data from these workflows into a single platform, offering organizations a reliable and comprehensive overview of customer interactions.
Ortto possesses a significant characteristic of generating an up-to-date perspective on each customer. By seamlessly incorporating with third-party software for marketing, customer support, and sales, the platform gathers customer information. This enables all teams to enhance customer interactions and boost engagement by providing additional context. In addition to these attributes, Ortto is equipped with a journey builder and built-in tools for lead generation and lead management.
What sets Ortto apart from others?
- Create a unified customer database. Aside from customers’ personal details, the platform also collects data on customers’ activities and transactions. In this way, the platform helps organizations build more detailed customer profiles.
- Capture and target potential leads. The platform allows users to collect lead information through forms, popups, and surveys. Follow-ups are also automated so leads don’t get cold.
- Automatically build omnichannel customer journeys. Through the platform’s journey builder, marketers can visualize customer journeys and hyper-personalize each step of the way. These journeys can be automatically delivered through channels like email and SMS as well.
- Track relevant metrics. Ortto also comes with various marketing dashboards to make it easier for marketers to track relevant metrics. A revenue attribution feature also provides insights into successful marketing campaigns.
Marketing Creatio
Marketing Creatio is a CRM software that is modern and dynamic, specifically designed for professionals in multichannel marketing. With its wide range of apps and templates, this versatile application can cater to any marketing requirements, thus eliminating the need to switch between applications for additional features. The platform’s marketing module effectively manages interactions between back and front office staff.
Marketing Creatio caters to the needs of marketing teams who frequently face the challenge of managing the expectations and real-time requirements of potential customers and clients. As a result, marketing experts will find value in the systematic approach offered by Marketing Creatio, which enables them to effectively address all aspects of demand generation in the current era. The app was designed as a low-code platform, ensuring that technical obstacles do not hinder their progress.
What sets Marketing Creatio apart from others?
- Optimize marketing processes. Marketing Creatio’s low-code approach allows marketers to access multiple channels with ease and see which ones are generating the optimum number of leads. Alternatively, the marketing tool should let them tweak existing strategies for best results.
- Powerful integrations. Most marketing professionals come from diverse backgrounds. That could easily mean a jungle of favored applications and tools. With Marketing Creatio, integrating with a third-party app could be done at a snap, or organizations could simply pick from the bundle that works for their teams.
- Comprehensive lead management. Marketing Creatio understands that leads are the lifeblood of marketing teams. As such, the software is designed to cover all the simple to arduous processes required to manage leads and convert them to sales, from mapping, to website sessions, and data profiling, among others.
- Route leads automatically but customizes outputs. Marketing Creatio lets marketers handle lead acquisition, qualification, or distribution efficiently. It’s supported by strong lead nurturing tools so marketing teams can settle on the ones to provide the best outcomes.
Omnisend
Omnisend, a platform for ecommerce marketing automation, is ideal for small businesses. It is crucial for a small team handling a significant number of clients to have a powerful online marketing tool, considering that almost all expanding companies have an online presence. By integrating all channels, including SMS, email, social media, and others, it enables you to expand your reach to a larger pool of potential customers and increase revenue.
Additionally, it is equipped with a range of functionalities that aim to enhance your lead capturing efforts. For the purpose of collecting email addresses, you have the option to utilize Popups, Signup Boxes, and other similar tools. Seamlessly incorporating these features into forms, landing pages, websites, and various marketing campaigns is effortless. Moreover, customer engagement can be improved through Campaign Booster, the integrated Content Editor, and A/B testing.
What sets Omnisend apart from others?
- Automated marketing capabilities – Using Omnisend, you can set up smart triggers to send emails and other messages at the right time. This allows you to personalize your engagement with your customers.
- Multiple channels in one – The limited workforce is often a hurdle to small businesses. Having a marketing tool that spans various channels allows you to create a more efficient workflow. You can send emails, SMS, and even social media posts.
- Smart Send solution – Smart Send removes the uncertainty of sending a batch of emails to the right clients. You can set rules to base on.
Keap: Best for dedicated support
There are three paid plans available for pricing. The cost of these plans depends on the incremental changes in the number of contacts and the inclusion of extra users. You can choose to pay on a monthly basis or opt for annual billing to avail a discount.
- Pro: Starts at $189/month for up to 1,500 contacts (billed monthly).
- Max: Starts at $249/month for up to 2,500 contacts (billed monthly).
- Max Classic: Quote-based pricing.
Feature overview: Every Keap marketing software plan includes:
Templates for emails.
- Landing pages and forms.
- A/B email testing.
- Lead and client management (CRM).
- Automated text messaging tools.
- Ability to send one-time or recurring invoices.
- Reports with ROI data.
- 2,000 integrations through Zapier.
The Max or Max Classic plans provide customizable analytics, lead scoring, custom user roles, and lead source tracking. Keap differentiates itself by including a customer success manager at all plan levels and offering 15 hours of free migration services. Phone support is offered on weekdays, and chat support through the app is available all day, every day. Extra resources include a help center, user community, on-demand webinars, marketing blog, courses, and guides.
Constant Contact: Best for unlimited user access
There are three paid plans available for pricing, with the cost varying depending on the number of contacts. If payments are made annually or by nonprofits, discounts can be obtained.
- Lite: Starting at $12/month for up to 500 contacts (billed monthly).
- Standard: Starting at $35/month for up to 500 contacts (billed monthly).
- Premium: Starting at $80/month for up to 500 contacts (billed monthly).
The following features are included in Constant Contact plans: Feature overview.
- Customizable email templates.
- Landing pages and forms.
- AI content generator.
- Social creation and posting tools.
- Marketing campaign calendar.
- Reporting and analytics.
- Event management.
- Over 300 integrations.
The Standard plan includes subject line recommendations, A/B testing, custom segmentation, and automated resends. The Premium plan includes retargeting ads, email engagement heat map, unlimited users, and search engine optimization tools. Phone support is offered from Monday to Saturday, and chat support is available on weekdays. Additional resources include live webinars, product tutorials, user community, blogs, and FAQs.
Zoho CRM: Best overall CRM software
There are five pricing options available: a free version and four paid plans. If you choose to pay annually, a discount is offered.
- Free version with limited features.
- Standard: $20/user/month (billed monthly).
- Professional: $35/user/month (billed monthly).
- Enterprise: $50/user/month (billed monthly).
- Ultimate: $65/user/month (billed monthly).
Feature overview: The following features are included in all paid plans.
- Sales automation tools.
- Multiple pipelines.
- Email templates.
- Email insights.
- Social profile integration.
- Custom reports.
- Analytics mobile app.
- Over 500 integrations.
Higher-tiered Zoho CRM plans offer various features such as integration with Google ads, email parsers for lead information collection, and webform analytics. All paid plans include basic email support, but there are restrictions on session length and frequency. For an extra cost, users can opt for premium support which provides faster response times and more sessions. Additional resources include a knowledge base, user community, and articles.
What to look for in marketing software
Before comparing platforms, it is important to identify the features that are important to you. This will help you in singling out providers that fit your marketing plan. The best marketing software is the one that meets the needs of your small business and is affordable for you.
When choosing a marketing software service for your small business, it is important to think step by step and take into account the following factors.
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When comparing pricing between providers, it is important to consider that the monthly cost of a marketing software plan may vary depending on contacts, users, and campaign frequency. Additionally, if you choose to pay annually, there may be a discount available, but keep in mind that you may not be eligible for a refund if you decide to downgrade or cancel the service. Prior to committing to a software plan, it is advisable to sign up for a free plan or a free trial to test it out.
Characteristics or attributes
Many marketing platforms provide email features, and the most desirable ones will consist of templates, design tools, A/B testing options, email builders, and image libraries. When aiming to incorporate potential customers into your CRM database, it is crucial to have landing pages and forms that gather visitor information. In addition, digital ads, social media, and text marketing are supplemental features that complete your marketing campaign.
Reporting and analytics
Reports and analytics are useful tools for monitoring the success of your marketing endeavors. Even basic reports that track performance and trends can assist you in overseeing your email campaigns. It is crucial to consider data such as click-through, open, conversion, bounce, and unsubscribe rates when optimizing the content of your emails.
Support that continues or remains in progress.
Limited one-on-one sessions are offered by certain providers to assist with the onboarding and contact migration process, while top-tiered plans receive more comprehensive support. However, free ongoing support is a standard feature in numerous platforms. Alongside help center articles and step-by-step guides, user communities, webinars, video tutorials, and even certified courses are available as well.