10 Must-Have Software Tools for Marketers – and they are all free

Posted on 29. Nov, 2011 by Duncan Macdonald in Lead Generation, Lead Management Blog, Marketing

Trying to market, generate leads and then manage the sales process can be time consuming especially with the 101 other things you need to attend to.

That’s why finding tools that help make your business more effective, when you don’t have the time or budget is invaluable. You just need tools that work straight out of the box, are intuitive and get things done.

Here is my list of tools and apps we have found invaluable for our own efforts. See if they can help make you more productive and if you have any more suggestions? Please share them!

Timely - http://timely.is

Designed to schedule your tweets for maximum impact, to get more clicks, mentions and retweets etc. Also has a good analytics tool to show tweet performance.

What It’s Best For: Set it and forget it - Use the timely bookmark plugin to create tweets as you find great articles, it takes care of the rest.

KeyRow - http://www.keyrow.com/

This keyword tool will help you discover where your website ranks in search engines and on what keywords.

What It’s Best For: Its simple, allows for website comparison and best of all shows website history so you can track progress

Alexa Traffic Rank – Chrome extension - http://www.alexa.com/toolbar?browser=chrome

Not strictly an app but never the less when on a web page provides a pop up of Alex traffic rank, related links, and search queries that drive its traffic.

What It’s Best For: Invaluable when checking out competitor websites.

FollowWonk - http://followerwonk.com/

If you are using twitter or want to search twitter for users by profile, bio, location etc then this is the tool.

What It’s Best For: This is great when prospecting for leads, you can find on-profile targets and then follow their activity – a great way to filter and connect with new prospects or just prominent influencers.

From Hubspot , this provides an audit of your website or blog. It gives a top level grade to see how you are performing and more specific suggestions in the meat of the report.

What It’s Best For: Quick and easy way to see how your website doing and any SEO problems you need to attend to.

Clue - http://www.clueapp.com/

We all too often take for granted that prospects know what your website or campaign is all about but how wrong we can be. This is a fun and easy way to test what people remember on your website in 5 seconds. If they don’t get your point in that time they may never do.

What It’s Best For: If you want to test out new landing pages or a website change then this is an invalauble way to collect feedback.

Zopim - http://www.zopim.com/

Easy to install and adds instant Live Chat to your website so you engage with prospect and leads whilst they are at their mist receptive not when they have moved on to other projects.

What It’s Best For: Would not suggest you intrude too much too early but it offers a great way for people on your website to get in live contact and ask questions.

Google Analytics - http://www.google.com/analytics/

If you have a webiste you should be familiar with Google Analytics if not you are missing out. The new real time version give up to date stat on how your website, landing pages and campaign are performing.

What It’s Best For: If you want to make decisions based on facts then invaluable.

BoardReader - http://boardreader.com/

Boardreader is search engine specifically for Forums, Boards and blogs. It provides  fast and quality search based on keywords where that phrase may be found in comments or posts.

What It’s Best For: Great for seeking out leads in niche forums and boards. Find people asking questions, for help or recommendations about your product or market.

Rapportive - http://rapportive.com/

If you use Gmail then Rapportive shows you everything about your contacts right inside your inbox. It combines what you know, what your organization knows, and what the web knows about the contact

What It’s Best For: If you are involved in any part of the sales process, have dealing with prospects and leads then Rapportive provides invaluable background information. You know when you get that email asking you questions about the product but will little information other than an email address then this is where Rapportive comes into its own.

What’s more watch out for B12Leads own raplet coming very soon – Adding Lead information you know about the prospect.

B12Leads is an online lead management tool to capture, distribute and convert leads. Everything you would expect from a CRM tool but with a focus on keeping track of leads and your sales teams. An affordable solution that has everything you need to take control of your sales pipeline.

Tags: Lead management, Marketing