• Best Campaign Management Software: Content marketing software helps businesses to design and deliver interesting content programs to capture the attention of their prospects and customers. Marketing units use this app to generate, source, and distribute content to their target audience.
• Best Content Marketing Software: Content marketing software helps businesses to design and deliver interesting content programs to capture the attention of their prospects and customers. Marketing units use this app to generate, source, and distribute content to their target audience.
• Best Demand Generation Software: Demand generation software helps marketing teams to reach new markets, attract customers’ attention, present new services and products, create PR buzz, and strengthen their relationships with existing customers. The goal of this software is to produce and nurture promising lead and customer relationships for as long as possible.
• Best Email Marketing Software: Email marketing software is used by enterprises to send promotional emails to leads and customers. Email marketing is utilized for brand personalization, flexibility, and to cater to diverse audiences.
• Best Marketing Automation Software: Marketing automation software helps marketers to automate repetitive tasks. Marketing teams can use it to identify criteria and outcomes for tasks and activities to be completed by the program.
• Best Mobile Marketing Software: Mobile marketing is a cost-effective and quick method to reach out to prospects and customers via the mobile phone. You can use mobile marketing software for a number of tasks such as recruiting new customers, informing them about an upgrade, advertising a new product or service, promoting special deals, etc.
• Best Search Marketing Software: Search marketing software helps businesses to improve the ranking of their website in search engine results. Organic search marketing systems offer backlink tracking, trend analysis, and keyword analysis features to boost a website’s search outcome.
• Best Social Media Monitoring Software: Social media monitoring software helps marketers to focus on customers’ impressions and feedback on social media platforms. Marketers are notified about keyword usage, they can reply to customer inquiries without delay, and they can learn precisely what customers like or dislike.

There are scores of good quality marketing tools out there. Top marketing software providers tout their system as the best in the online business environment. But, do not go by the marketing gimmicks of the vendors. You know best what your business needs are. We have prepared this buyer’s guide to help you select the best marketing software app for your requirements. You can also check out our article about top 10 marketing software platforms to do a comparison of the best tools on the market.

Get to know each product with free trial

Shortlist a few top vendors and try out their products by subscribing to their free trial or demo. You can select the list of apps that have the highest SmartScore rankings and customer satisfaction rating in our marketing software reviews. Get feedback from your company’s users and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each software objectively to zero in on the right app for your needs. The best thing to do when looking for the best among a number of marketing tools is to try services that currently have the highest results in our SmartScore and Customer Satisfaction Rating in the Marketing software category: Infusionsoft reviews, Offerslook, Firecart, Inboundli, RankActiv, RedCappi, Campaign Monitor, OSI Affiliate Software, Hatchbuck, and ActiveCampaign.

Targeted Businesses

Before jumping on the bandwagon and deciding on your next online marketing system, try to understand the details of your marketing needs, and check whether you fall within some of the following categories:

• Small Businesses automating marketing for the first time. Small companies want to generate a higher return on investment, which is why they are the ones that can recognize the success of such software the most. These systems simplify their strategies, and streamline campaigns to reach customers at a fraction of what they’re currently investing.
• Medium Businesses looking to improve efficiency. Medium companies are in a constant development process, and they need to improve lead management by nurturing buyers to a sales-ready position, and by scoring them to examine which ones are more willing to buy. They need marketing software to automate the process, and to let agents focus on more attention-demanding aspects.
• Large Businesses in need of marketing analytics. Large companies have long surpasses initial marketing automation, and are looking to upgrade their software with powerful analytic features. Accurate analytics will accelerate and improve lead management, allow them to track ROI and optimize their fractional attribution models.

Marketing Software For Enterprises

Large Enterprises use marketing software tools to draft, manage, and maintain their complex promotional strategies, the same as their campaigns and marketing resources. The critical function they’re pursuing is automation of their marketing processes, cross-channel marketing engagement, and the compulsory analytic capabilities which forecast opportunities and  showcase the full picture of their marketing results. As these systems are usually enabled with digital asset management, web content management, and the standard campaign tracking, enterprises manage to save time, efforts, and money without compromising their promotional techniques. Purchasing such marketing system is way more cost-effective than running several programs to cover the functions in question.

What are Examples of Marketing Software?

• Infusionsoft: A proven marketing automation leader for small business, centralizing all daily activities and customer interactions in a single productivity set.
• HasOffers: A great performance marketing app that supports agencies, advertisers, and networks in managing direct public relationships.
• Moz: A popular SEO tool provider with admirable analytical features that helps companies improve their SEO programs, develop better SEO practices, and drive more traffic to their websites.
• KISSmetrics: A powerful platform that enables companies to determine, monitor, and enhance marketing and other metrics relevant to their business.
• Similarweb: A web measurement leader with highly competitive online intelligence, used by companies to review and compare performance against their competitors.

Read about other widely used apps in this category in this article on the top 15 marketing solutions.

Types of Marketing Software

Many types of marketing software are widely used. The following ones are among the most popular: Account Based Marketing, Call Tracking, Campaign Management, Content Marketing, Demand Generation, Digital Signage, Email Marketing, Event Management, Kiosk, Marketing Automation, Marketing Resource Management, Mobile Marketing, Print Fulfillment, Public Relations (PR), Search Marketing, and Social Media Management.

Depending on deployment, you can choose one of these popular marketing software options:

• On-premise – You pay a one-time license fee to install the software on your server in your office premises. You pay only once and can keep the system under your control. But, you have to pay high upfront costs for the license fee, servers, maintenance, and IT support team.
• SaaS and Cloud-Hosted – The vendors maintains your data on their server. You only need to pay a relatively low monthly or annual fee based on the number of users who access the system via the Internet. The benefit is the cost is low. Plus, you don’t have to worry about maintaining the server and using a technical support team. The vendor takes care of maintenance and upgrades, and some offer regular data backups as well. SaaS package prices are calculated based on the number of users and clients, as well as features used. Large companies can make use of enterprise solutions for which vendors offer pricing by quote.

Key Features of Marketing Software

A top quality marketing software app can help you make the most of your leads and maximize sales. Look out for the following essential components while selecting a suitable system:

• Lead Management – The software should enable you to attract buyers and nurture them with personalized campaigns. You can then pass them on to sales to close deals. You should be able to identify promising leads to be able to close faster. Improve your marketing efforts by tracking effective campaigns. Use automated, personalized campaigns to engage potential buyers at all stages of their lifecycle.
• Sales Insight – The marketing software should help your sales team to prioritize and interact with promising leads to close deals faster. You should be able to identify hot leads and engage them with smart campaigns. Understand the moments when a lead shows interest in buying your product. This can help your reps be prepared at all stages of the sales cycle to engage promising leads at the right time for effective results, as well as to maximize conversion ratios and boost profitability and customer satisfaction.
• Email Marketing – The marketing software should have a useful email marketing component. You should be able to prepare a detailed profile of your target customers and engage them with relevant email marketing messages based on their demographics, preferences, and individual behaviors. The app should offer smart automated A/B testing to help your improve the outcomes of your campaigns. It should provide in-depth reporting and analytics features that help you get a clear idea of the impact and ROI of the emails you send to prospective customers.
• Social Marketing – The software should help you use social media websites effectively to learn about your customers. You can use these networks to get new customers, engage existing customers and create brand advocates by engaging them using referrals programs, sweepstakes, polls etc. You should be able to offer shareable videos and social media sharing buttons to enable your customers to share your content with their social contacts. Plus, the software should offer social metrics to see which social marketing activities drive conversions and sales, and should cover traditional media in an equally good and personalized way.

Benefits of Marketing Software

Our in-depth comparisons indicate that these are the main benefits companies experience when using a solid online marketing system:

• Focusing on the final business mission. The first effect of optimizing and automating marketing is free time to focus on more important aspects of the business flow. Without such system, poring proper analytics and researching marketing opportunities would take significantly more time and money.
• Marketing consistency. Automated marketing eliminates the risk of human error, as there is only software to control the wheel, and such cannot be influenced by opinions and feelings, or interrupted as an employee could. Therefore, the entire marketing strategy is smoother and more consistent, and you have a variety of tools to promote your business even when you’re not directing it.
• Quality reporting. Quick and efficient reports are the dream of every busy company struggling to outreach and identify changes and optimal decisions. Marketing software is tailored for the purpose, as it usually comes with a set of advanced reporting tools, which are as well customizable and easy to personalize.
• Lead nurturing. This is a benefit many companies don’t expect, but marketing software is indeed empowered for lead generation and nurturing. Assuming that your business relies on leads too, you can use these systems to reach as many people in the cyberspace as your business needs.
• Multi-channel efficiency. The internet is good because it allows us to connect with people in many different ways, which can be even more valuable in the business sense of the word. You can use your marketing automation system to reach people through emails, social media, remarketing, ads, and so on.
• Eliminating practices that don’t work. Obtaining a perfect batting average is the blessing of few, and that’s not because most marketers don’t work, but rather because they don;t have a clean insight on what they’re doing. Soon after implementing a marketing automation software you will see the difference in the performance of your campaigns, and you can use its valuable analytics to improve the least efficient ones.

Latest Trends

Good quality marketing software systems are evolving and reinventing themselves to keep up with the changing times. Here are four important trends in the continuing development of marketing software:

• Systems are Becoming Easier to Use – Many users are put off by marketing software systems with complicated interfaces. As more and more businesses are opting to use marketing automation over standard email marketing, vendors are making it simpler for these companies to adapt by making sure their systems are easy to learn and use.
• Computing Everywhere – Mobile devices are becoming more popular and this trend is creating major challenges for businesses. Good quality marketing software apps are catering to this trend by ensuring their systems are accessible on popular mobile platforms to enable users to be productive even in the field.
• Social Intelligence – Canny marketers are making use of social intelligence to stay ahead of the pack. They are using social media channels to listen to their customers and become more responsive to their needs and feedback. Social intelligence is helping marketers to look into the future and optimize their products effectively to cater to changing customer requirements.

Potential Issues

It is also important to evaluate the drawbacks of marketing software vendors while you go about making your choice. Watch out for these potential issues and check if the vendor is vulnerable to any of them:

• Data Security – You have entrusted your data to a third-party service provider. This data is accessed by your employees with mobile devices everywhere. So, it is important to ensure only the right people get access to the sensitive data. Make sure ex-employees are prevented from accessing the system after leaving the company. Do your homework and a select a vendor that uses the latest data security technology.
• Outages – A lengthy outage can play havoc with your company’s productivity and revenue. Therefore, read the vendor’s SLA (Service Level Agreement) carefully and analyze their historical performance before entrusting your applications and data to the cloud. The vendor should guarantee a very good uptime percentage and ensure outages are kept as less as possible.
• Compliance – Since your data is stored in a third-party vendor’s datacenter, it can be a problem to comply with government data-protection rules. Do research and find out which regulations have to be followed by your business. Engage the SaaS vendor and ensure their solution helps you meet statutory regulatory requirements.
• Data Mobility – The SaaS vendor you select may go out of business or you may need to change your service provider for some other reason. For these reasons, make sure you will be able to easily move your processes and data from one vendor to another. Avoid getting locked in with one vendor by preparing an effective exit strategy for data mobility.

• Things to consider when you invest in a SaaS

  Picking a an appropriate SaaS program from the numerous good quality platforms out there can be a hard task. To assist you, we have prepared this quick primer. Find out if the SaaS vendor offers the following benefits:

  Reduced Cost: Most SaaS systems are pay as you go, and you don’t have to worry about added expenses for system maintenance or IT resources, upfront licensing fees, or in-house IT staff.

  Fast Set-up Time and Minimized Risk: You should be able to implement the SaaS software quickly and easily. Make use of the free trial to understand if the app fits your needs. If you choose a wrong system, you can bail out easily with minimum losses.

  Customization and Integration: Pick a vendor that offers a wide choice of software packages and modules. You should be able to pay only for the functionality you use to meet the current needs of your organization.

  Security and Control: The solution should provide robust security. Select a vendor whose databanks are more secure than those in your office to maximize the benefits.

  The Infrastructure: The provider should provide the needed infrastructure so that you need not host anything in-house or need the support of internal IT resources.

  Web Access: Your employees should be able to access data anywhere, anytime. To assist them be productive on the go, choose a vendor that offers mobile apps that are compatible with leading operating systems.

  Consider all the six important elements mentioned above to pick the best program for your needs.

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