18 Essential Inbound Marketing Tools The Experts Use

As inbound marketing grows in popularity, savvy marketers are increasingly looking for tools to give them an advantage over the

competition. Unfortunately, with hundreds of tools available promising to make your job easier and more effective, it’s difficult to know

which are worth trying.

To help you out we’ve asked a selection of inbound marketing experts what tools they use, and why they use them. These are the 17

they came up with.

1) MarketHive

"MarketHive is a hybrid mixture of a full suite of inbound marketing tools and a dynamic

integrated social network designed for entrepreneurs."

"I have always focused on building Entrepreneurs. I believe it is this mindset that will restore financial solidity to the masses, especially

to America. Here is a what if: "Schools, elementary, secondary, colleges and universities produced entrepreneurs with financial.

leadership and innovative skill sets". That these graduating classes would hit the world looking for problems to solve instead of looking

for jobs. They would be producing new technologies, systems, innovations and by doing so requiring employees that by this very factor,

would become a demanded commodity in a shrinking work force. What would that do with the cost of salaries? Unemployment? The very

relationship between smaller companies with their employment requirements? What would that do for a planet in need of solutions?

What would that do for the standard of living for the world?"

"It is happening, entrepreneurs, investors, networkers, marketers, visionaries are lining up for this historic launch. Find out how the

Alpha Founder promotion can build you a residual income for life, without recruiting and build a huge sphere of influence."

"When you understand Social Networking and how it has created "a world mind", you then began to see and understand the power that

it (Social Networking) provides to your communicating options.

You comment with your family/friends daily or whenever you get the urge to share daily activities, ideas or just something new.

Both small and large businesses in recent years have been trying to utilize the power of social networking to attract new customers and of course increase sales.

Those businesses and individuals that have/are using the internet to market their products and services, have found

many tools to assist them ( email marketing, ppc...etc ). Many of these systems are costly and not always intuitive.

What makes it even more cumbersome for the small business or individuals, is that the marketing tools are not always with the same

company. So, an individual may have several different marketing tools from as many different companies. This can

add more cost and confusion for many, even when an online business is sort after by increasing numbers of individuals,

globally.

This is now the era of the "entrepreneur". One reason is because of the increasing numbers of individuals entering the job market and

finding out that the number of well paying jobs and career opportunities are very limited. So, Most are looking for an alternative means

of earning a living. Therefore, "the era of the entrepreneur".

."

2) BufferApp

"It’s time for a confession - I hate social media promotion. It’s a crucial marketing channel,

but it’s incredibly time-consuming, especially if your target audience actively engage with a

ton of social networks. Thankfully, the good folks at Buffer (home to the famous Digg Digg social share bar) have created BufferApp - a

hassle-free social media management tool that’s allowed me to seriously streamline my SMM efforts. Posts can be scheduled at the click

of a button, and content can be queued up days in advance. It has support for all of the major social networks (and a few minor ones!),

and it can even post to both personal and company pages. It’s also incredibly easy to rearrange posts and make room for a bit of

personal engagement. It’s simple, effective and efficient – and I use it every day. "

"I use Buffer for scheduling content, mainly tweets (occasionally Facebook and LinkedIn, although I generally prefer to do them

manually). I tend to batch-read, so if I shared links to a lot of the articles and posts I read at the one time, I'd drive people crazy! Thus,

Buffer helps me to space out my content sharing on Twitter."

"I use Reeder's BufferApp integration to share my curated news to my social channels at specific times in the day."

"I've tried out several content marketing tools, but not all of them make the cut. The ones I like and continue to use generally have

three things in common: they are intuitive and easy to use, they make my business more efficient and are reasonably priced. I use

Buffer to schedule social updates to my audience."

3) Evernote

"Like everybody else, right? When it comes to curation -- of links, ideas, knowledge, even

to-do lists and important information I want to remember about individuals -- Evernote

does it all. So much about marketing is information and relationships, and Evernote is a

great place to store information that helps you build relationships."

"For ideas about articles, topics and people that I can use further down the track for blog posts or podcast interviews, I compile in

Evernote; this way, I can access on multiple devices (iPhone, iPad, laptop) at any time, any where - I'm always in need of names and

quotes and ideas, so having this 'central' virtual resource is critical in my content creation efforts."

"Evernote is pretty much where I store the contents of my brain. From to-do lists to content ideas, it's all in Evernote. It's an essential

tool in keeping me organised. I've had the best results using The Secret Weapon's organisation system on top of Evernote -- check it

out."

4) HubSpot

"HubSpot is the centre of both our own and our client's inbound marketing. It brings

together all the tools you need to execute an inbound marketing strategy, including but not

limited to: blogging, seo, social media, content management, lead management, landing

pages, call-to-action's, marketing automation, email, analytics and CRM integration. We

couldn't deliver the great business results our clients have come to expect without it."

5) MindJet

"Mindjet is a mindmapping software tool that I use when devising storylines and strategies

for content marketing for client projects (as well as my own). I like it because it’s visual

and easy to drag ideas/topics around so I can rearrange storylines and see how one persona’s story maps to another’s."

6) Piwik

"For tracking visitor data - this is an open-source alternative to Google Analytics. I monitor

analytics daily to measure how my content and marketing routine are performing. It helps

me make better decisions in my future efforts. "

7) Pocket

"If you’re lucky enough to stumble upon inspiration, don’t let it get away. Pocket is a simple

little browser extension, and it’s the perfect accompaniment to Feedly. Once you’ve found

upon a must-read resource, awesome downloadable asset or inspiring blog post, one click of

the Pocket icon saves it to the cloud. It works on virtually all websites, allowing you to compile an archive of awesome website and social

media content. You’re then free to read through it all at your leisure!"

8) Oktopost

"I am in the VERY early stages of using Oktopost, so please accept that caveat. But from

what I've seen so far, it is the most robust (and intuitive to use, amazingly) social media

management tool I've seen. I am pumped to see the extend of its usefulness, but it might alter how we manage social media at

Copyblogger. Stay tuned ... "

9) Gimp

"Including stunning imagery into your content is quite key to getting attention in social

media. I use Gimp for all the more advanced image editing needs I have like creating

graphics and adding text and text overlays to my images. It's kind of like Photoshop, just

open-source and free."

10) PicMonkey

"Is the simplest tool I've ever used to quickly create custom branded images for my

clients. In less than 20 minutes, we're able to develop and post images that we can use on

multiple social networks. "

11) Google Hangouts

"I can have private hangouts with members of my team for the projects we are working

on. Using the Google Hangouts on Air functionality I can have private client meetings,

recording a copy of the session for us to use and review later which clients find invaluable.

Of course I can also use the platform for public or private live streaming of events and

webinars which can be used as part of my lead generation process for my own business. I also find that because Hangouts on Air are

recorded and made available immediately on your YouTube account, you have an archive of content that can be re-purposed as part of

your content marketing plan."

12) Call Recorder

"I frequently record video and audio interviews via Skype; for this I use eccam's Call

Recorder (imaginative name that!) - I just hit the button and it records the interview, then

I upload the file to iMovie or Garageband for editing, and then export the final file that can

be then uploaded to YouTube or SoundCloud for publishing. A brilliant content creation tool!"

13) Hootsuite

"Allows us to easily publish client content, track social activity for multiple brands, and analyze the

effectiveness of our agency's content marketing across multiple social media channels."

"Inbound marketing success depends on using content to begin and build relationships. I need to be able to listen, broadcast and

converse with my target audience and network. HootSuite is my social media command center. It allows me to listen, to schedule posts,

to analyze and to participate easily in tweet chats. LOVE It."

14) WordPress

"I just love WordPress and use it for all my content publishing needs. I do all my writing within the WordPress post editor. WordPress is

simple to use, yet a very advanced tool too. Very well optimized for search engines as

well."

"Content marketing does not work unless you have a hub to house your content. My

Wordpress site, MarketingThink.com, is my 24-7 branding center."

15) The Tweeted Times

"Keeps me and my staff updated on the most popular topics among our Twitter followers.

This kind of information allows us to ride the coat tails of current events and create

content that will resonate with our followers in real time."

16) Reeder

"On my iPhone, I use Reeder to pull in my Feedly news feed and read my morning news and see what looks good to curate."

17) AwayFind

"Gives me freedom from my inbox and peace of mind that I'll never miss an important email.

I have alerts set up for people in my company and important friends and family members --

people whose emails I always want to read and respond to right away. Otherwise, I check my

email in batch twice a day, with an autoresponder set up so that people know how to get in

contact with me if they require an immediate response. It's made me at least 50% more

productive, maybe more. "

18) Pixlr

"We have photoshop, but why use that when you can have a simplifed and easily accessible interface. Pixlr allows us to edit and piece

together our content with ease. We found that photoshop can be an energy hog, and the multitude of tools makes for a complicated

interface. I can teach a new employee everything there is to know about Pixlr in about an hour. I could teach a 6 month photoshop class

to cover just half of the tools."

Source #MarketHive using Free Inbound Marketing Tools