It can be hard to decide on a digital marketing platform. There are so many on the market. Many of them offer the same services so it can be hard to decide on what the best choice can be. What are the best digital marketing platforms? I don't believe that there are 'best' platforms, I believe that there are 'best for you' platforms. Even so, I am going to be giving my preferred platforms and why I prefer these platforms. Most of these will work best for small-to-medium-sized businesses.
Most of these are platforms that I have used or currently use in my marketing work. I am absolutely not being paid to list any of these platforms. These are my opinions only. I encourage you to research to figure out what the best platforms are for our business, but of course, keep my opinions in consideration.
Website Building
WIX
WIX is superior in my opinion because of a few things. The design interface is just better and it is easier to navigate for beginners. I like training business owners on the WIX platform because it can grow with them as their skills grow. They put thought into the user interface and it shows. Second is that all of the additional 'apps/widgets' are native to WIX. If you are using WordPress, often you have to use different widgets from different companies for things. You have one for forms, one for galleries, and one for SEO on WordPress. Often time these come from different developers and you have to check compatibility and make sure they stay up to date. With WIX, it all comes from WIX and I know it will work with my website flawlessly (most of the time). The argument used to be that WIX lacked advanced SEO capabilities, but WIX has since implemented a wide range of advanced SEO tools for beginners to developers. That argument is just not valid anymore. For the majority of small business owners and people looking to build a website, WIX is the best solution for them.
Email Marketing
MailChimp
There are so many email marketing platforms on the market and this is one that truly is dependent on your business. With that being said, for general purposes and for most businesses I recommend MailChimp. It is an email platform that seamlessly integrates with many other marketing platforms which allows you to easily automate some of your email marketing. It is an easy platform to use, it has a very intuitive user interface. You can manage a lot of your customer journey through this platform. There are no specific features that MailChimp offers that others do not, but they have the most robust of offerings that I have seen. They can do more things with one login which is important for many people.
Social Media Management
Buffer
This one was probably the hardest decision for me. I chose buffer because it's a scalable solution with a better user interface. You can start on their free platform and have a lot of capabilities with that. You can also upgrade to their paid versions which offer more functionality and they have additional services for analytics and reputation management. There are a lot of services that offer these things but for me, the user interface for buffer makes more sense than their competitors. The pricing of buffer is great for what it offers. It isn't revolutionary pricing, but it is a value. I recommend buffer to clients unless they have a truly unlimited budget and then I push them to spend the money on SproutSocial. If you have the budget, it's worth it.
Task Automation
IFTTT
There are two main competitors in this space Zapier and IFTTT. I prefer IFTTT because there is a bit more open-source functionality that allows you to get creative with your automation. It is a great platform for automating social media sharing, inbox management, communication, and more. I use IFTTT in my personal and work life.
Project Management
Trello
Trello makes sense to my brain. The way that you can organize your projects and attach everything you need to cards just makes sense to me. I will say that without paid Trello some of the functionality is rather hindered. But paid Trello is a lifesaver. I can see everything in multiple views so I can visualize my to-do list as a calendar as well as a bulleted list. If you are still keeping track of your projects in an Excel document I highly suggest that you look into Trello for project management. It is great for single users and teams.
Don't forget that these are just my opinions. Please do your own research on marketing platforms to find the best fit. Are there other types of platforms you want to know my preferences on? Reach out and let me know!
Comments