If you’ve got a business, you’re definitely trying to stand out from the crowd, doing everything you can, and more, investing in technology that can sometimes exhaust your budget and putting lots of effort into brainstorming sessions with your teams, in hopes of coming up with something cutting-edge and all around great.

But what happens if you’re a Small/Medium Enterprise (SME) and have little to no knowledge of Marketing Technology (MarTech)?

This article is here to clarify everything and give you a solid idea of various MarTech tips and tools for SMEs, whether your pain point is email marketing, social media or CRM platforms.

What is MarTech?

Marketing Technology (MarTech) is a general term used to describe the marketing software and the tools used to help with the marketing endeavors of any business: planning campaigns, creating, executing, measuring analytics and determining KPIs and so on and so forth.

This means that MarTech automates processes otherwise done manually, from collecting data and issuing reports, to creating high engagement levels and resulting, eventually, to higher conversion and brand awareness.

Therefore, all useful tools fall under that umbrella, from CRM tools to content management software and so on and so forth.

The tools you may need

You won’t need just a couple if you’re in for the kill (ie, if you’re ready to do a proper job and see conversions fly off the roof). Managing marketing endeavors is no easy task, especially with an SME that aims to grow and become successful in due time.

Let’s see what the arrows in your quiver are called.

Email Marketing Software

Email marketing is the first thing on the list and email marketing software is your first tool, seeing as it can give you unlimited possibilities, such as forwarding a campaign to a friend. For example, Moosend (which is a great alternative to MailChimp by the way) gives you this option.

But let me be more specific on that one. First and foremost, email marketing is the most cost-effective of all marketing tools, that can generate an ROI of 3800%. Therefore, you’ll get 38 dollars in revenue for every dollar spent.

This, of course, makes email marketing the most profitable strategy.

So long as, of course, you’re not a spammer and you’re not using email blasts or bought lists. Sit down with your team and brainstorm, check and segment your data. Entice prospects to subscribe with fantastic design, a freebie with every order after they become subscribers and perhaps segmented newsletters, like this:

Buzzfeed’s “Subscribe to our newsletter” page and philosophy follows that principle. The designs are relevant to each newsletter topic, but still consistent with the brand’s fun and youthful voice. And by letting subscribers pick and choose as they wish, you’re creating tailor-made content, without even trying.

Buzzfeed even took it a step further:

By letting the subscribers know when they’ll be receiving their updates, Buzzfeed is practically training the subscribers to expect the newsletter.

This example shows how useful email marketing really is, seeing as this type of newsletter could definitely increase conversion, especially if it were to be coupled with some fantastic offers.

Social Media Management Software

Social Media is another, very powerful tool that can also do pretty much anything: score sales, increase user engagement and make brands go viral.

Of course, these things don’t come on their own and you’ll need a great deal of effort to make them happen. And since all marketing endeavors need a great deal of effort, practice and continuous testing, you won’t be able to achieve too much without some management tools.

One of the tools you could use in order to increase your Social Media performance without focusing on menial tasks, is Buffer. This tool will help you build more interesting content, plan the best time of the day to post it, analyze performance and engage with your customers.

Of course, a tool is not something that will work on its own, and you’ll need, down the line, to come up with more strategies than posting content, but here’s one to get you started: find some user-generated content (UGC) and urge your followers to create some themselves and tag you. That can work wonders with any and all brands.

You see, UGC is a valuable tool on its own. It can make contests go viral, especially that Instagram giveaway that can increase brand awareness and give you tonnes of new followers.

Normally, these tasks would take a lot of time, and you’d need more people as your brand grew, in order to make it and have happy customers, which is the end goal. And this would go heavy on the resources.

So, for SMEs, social media management software is much needed, in order to find, create and use UGC as it’s supposed to be used, create a stunning feed and get those timelines and content ideas on point without breaking a sweat!

Not to mention creating a successful sales funnel, down the line.

Tools for SEO

Is SEO important for SMEs?

Let me start by saying that search engine optimization is one of the best techniques out there, seeing as it can boost your SERPs (much like influencer outreach) and your chances to be discovered by more people than you could imagine.

SEO is the technique, through which a page can get traffic from organic search results. This means that you don’t utilize tools such as Pay Per Click ads (PPC). On the contrary, through SEO, you can get to the first results of Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

Which means more traffic, more engagement and, ultimately, better conversion rates for your SME!

Of course, SEO needs to be done by experts and you need to remember that you’re in for the long game, since the very beginning. But this also means it’ll take time and resources, if you want it done properly.

So, what you can do is invest in an SEO tool that will help you out with the SEO basics. Through that, you can automate your endeavors and have more free time to observe and take the right steps to determine which keywords are worth the time and effort.

The statistic above shows the most effective SEO tactics that you can use, in order to give your SEM that boost it needs, in order to perform in the most optimal level.

Survey Tools

Let me tell you, first and foremost, that surveys are something you need to use, in order to reach more people, get more engagement and find out what your followers really need.

Surveys work wonders for that, as they make people feel valued and your business will come across as a brand that is there to serve its followers and not make a profit out of them.

Through surveys, you can discover what your customers want, what their needs are and even what they love or loathe about your business. All in all, through surveys, you can better your business in less time than you’d think.

But again, coming up with the questions, the templates and the timing is not easy, and it can take time, much like coming up with the perfect email template takes time. So, let’s see what you can do, in terms of tools, in order to automate the whole process:

Use a tool that can help out with building custom surveys and nailing the content that will be correct and appropriate for your brand and your goals.

For example, Nicereply is a fantastic tool that is affordable, has great features-for example, you can run a Customer Satisfaction survey with customizable wording, which will set your survey apart from everyone else’s- and offers you the opportunity of a free 14-day trial, to make sure that it suits your SME’s needs.

Hint: It will suit you. No question about that.

Oh, and while we’re at it, don’t forget to use the “freebie” method. Incentivize your efforts. This will be the way to understand and respond to the “Why” question: Why would someone take the time to answer your questions?

Why, for a little thing that won’t break the bank, of course! It could be a free product, a free consultation session (try it if you’re a SaaS company, or even a fashion brand! Free tips from stylists never go amiss!)

In conclusion

There are a lot more you can do, of course, in order to boost your SME’s performance and lead to conversion rate optimization and there are a lot more tools for you to use. The ones stated above are personal favourites.

Of course, you need more tools, like Google Analytics, in order to determine whether your performance is good or not, but these are the ones I picked out for you.

Just remember: Out of the plethora of tools that exist out there, there definitely is something that suits your business’ needs!

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