Any company that plans on making it big needs an arsenal of powerful tools.
Leads, conversions, traffic and engagement are key parameters that measure online success. Amplifying these tactics without a handful of effective tools will require more effort than the rewards are worth. Most of us don’t have the luxury of a monster team these days; instead, we turn to apps and digital services to do the lion’s share of the heavy lifting.
The market, however, is flooded with tools that tout their unparalleled abilities to increase whatever it is you are after. So how does one go about separating the efficient and must-have tools from those that are a proverbial waste of time and energy?
Start with this epically helpful list; we’ve done the legwork for you. These tools can truly help catapult your productivity and accuracy.
1. TLDR
Businesses these days still attempt to gather leads through implementing outdated pop-ups or information collecting banners. These usually only serve to annoy visitors and diminish the user experience; especially if they are implemented on more than one page. This is a great way to boost your bounce rate, which is obviously a metric you don’t want to see increase.
TLDR takes a different approach to lead generation. This tool, which was created by HubSpot’s Global Head of Growth and SEO, Matthew Barby, generates custom summaries for your website’s content and implements relevant CTAs. Employing a content summary will help to keep visitors engaged; most individuals will only skim an article as opposed to reading the entire post. Providing this is convenient for users and greatly enhances UX. By embedding a unique CTA you can capture a visitor’s attention almost immediately by offering content upgrades, eBooks on related topics, and similar offerings. The only catch is that the visitor must input their email address and other data to obtain additional content. Since the user has already clicked on a related article, you stand a much greater chance of getting their contact information.
Related: A Slew of New Technologies Is Making a Science of the Art of Sales
2. Yotpo
When it comes to making a sale, possessing an ample amount of user reviews is an absolute must. 90% of individuals read reviews before making a purchase. 88 percent of these people regard a review as highly as a personal recommendation. If you don’t have a sizable number of positive reviews, you aren’t making enough sales. Enter: Yotpo.
This customer content marketing platform helps businesses build user generated content and trust among consumers through engendering online reviews. The company’s algorithm determines the optimal time to send out emails requesting user product assessments. Yotpo says their technology leads to a 40-50% email open rate with a 6-11% response rate. For each review that is left, Yotpo implements a “trust badge” so consumers know if the review came from a buyer, reviewer, or merchant; a great feature for brand transparency. Reviews also include author demographic, which creates an even deeper sense of trust and credibility. The user generated content cultivated with Yotpo can also help amplify marketing efforts, SEO, and much more.
Reviews are only one channel of UGC that Yotpo helps cultivate. Community Q&A forums, enabled commenting, and gamification modalities all help to manifest high levels of engagement and discussion, which assist in your retention and acquisition efforts.
3. Leadfeeder
Promising leads can be extremely challenging to accrue; especially when you consider that 98 percent of site visitors leave without supplying their contact info. Now there’s a way to circumvent the process of begging visitors for their email addresses -- Leadfeeder to the rescue.
Leadfeeder connects to your Google Analytics account and fetches data about your visitors so that you don’t have to. With the ability to view the details about the folks that visit your page, their LinkedIn contacts, B2B connections, and more, you can construct an ample list of leads to help you gain scads of sales. Leadfeeder also integrates with several CRMs, provides customizable notifications, and allows an unrestricted amount of users to participate so that you can turn your company into a lead generation powerhouse.
4. Improvely
Advertising your business on sites like Facebook and Google can cost a pretty penny; and it can completely drain your ad budget if click fraud is occurring. Click fraud is when a person or computer program continuously clicks on an ad in order to send advertising costs sky high. This malicious activity could cost marketers as much as $7.2 billion this year alone.
Improvely is a critical tool that can help put an end to this mischievous practice.
This software monitors every click that takes place on your business’s ads to verify that no fraud is committed. If Improvely does detect any suspicious activity, you will be notified immediately. Additionally, this tool generates fraud reports which include IP addresses, locations, exact times and dates, and other pertinent information for you to submit in order to recoup losses.
Improvely isn’t just a prevention tool as the system also supplies conversion tracking features to uncover the source of each signup or sale to help you understand which ads are working, and which are floundering.
Related: 3 Low-Cost Sales Lead Tools for Startups
5. HotJar
Looking for an analytics platform that will supply you with metrics that you can’t get from Google Analytics? HotJar is where your search ends.
HotJar is a powerful tool when it comes to understanding user behavior. The service tracks each user’s visit to a site and displays the information through heat maps, which depict sections of websites that are most popular. Everything from scrolling to tapping, clicks, and other actions are all documented so that your site can be optimized to its fullest.
HotJar also provides recordings to capture a visitor’s exact session, polling and survey features, sales funnel optimization tools, and a plethora of other resources to help you maximize conversion rates.
6. InfusionSoft
InfusionSoft is one of the industry’s leading CRM, sales, and marketing platforms for small business owners. The software features everything from marketing automation and lead generation tools, a stellar customer relationship management (CRM) interface, social media engagement features, and everything else you need to engage audiences and score conversions. Additionally, InfusionSoft houses a plethora of ecommerce elements to help generate sales, meet fulfillment expectations, and keep customers coming back again and again.
7. Unbounce
A landing page is often the first impression a prospect has of your business; and first impressions are crucial. Unbounce is an incredible tool designing landing pages to ensure that first-time encounter is a lasting one.
The software touts that it was “designed with conversions in mind” and helps marketers achieve exactly that through A/B testing features, a robust drag-and-drop design interface, a myriad of page templates, and integration with more than 60 commonly used applications like Google Analytics and Salesforce.
Related: When You're Hungry for Sales, Consider These Lead-Gen Tools
8. SpyFu
A vital element to gaining traffic is ranking for the right keywords. SpyFu is the ultimate tool for identifying the keywords competitors rank for as well as the ones they purchase through AdWords. Simply by entering a competitor’s website domain, users are presented with an abundance of data including total paid and organic keywords, estimated value of organic traffic, organic competitors, and virtually any other data points you need to formulate a strategy. SpyFu provides comprehensive keyword data on all fronts so that you can drive the masses to your site and not waste money fighting battles you will never win.
The virtual space is bursting with great tools to help businesses reach their goals. No matter if it’s engagement, conversions, or a new trick or trend, there is a tool to help elevate your business’s performance and reach peak levels of optimization; you just have to know where to look.