With 2020 nearly in the rearview, it is time to look ahead at the digital marketing tools that will help grow your business in 2021. Below are the five tools I think are the pillars of any digital marketer’s toolkit. The bread and butter, if you will.

Google Analytics

The release of Google Analytics 4 in October of 2020 only increased the importance of GA. The tool has grown up a lot since 2005 – tracking scroll depth, engagement, and attribution, Google Analytics is a crucial complement to any company website. After all, it’s tough to improve something if you can’t measure it. If you are unfamiliar with the tool, here are some great resources to get you started:

https://www.optimizesmart.com/category/google-analytics/
https://backlinko.com/hub/content/google-analytics
https://cxl.com/blog/google-analytics-segmentation/

Once you have all that data, it’s useful to report it. Stakeholders are always looking for actionable insights in a bite-sized format, which brings me to the next tool(s) that every great marketer needs in 2021.

Data Visualization/Business Intelligence

It’s time to graduate from Microsoft Smart Art and Excel Charts. Yes, these are great aides to data, but visualization/business intelligence tools allow you to use data to tell a story. There are ample data viz tools out there; more on that here. My recommendation is that every marketer gets intimate with Google Data Studio. GA4 only proves that Google is pushing that product.

Digital Media Editor

Photos, Videos, Fleets, Stories, Toks – the media onslaught never ends and is continuously evolving. Such speed requires that marketers juke as fast as Saquon Barkley. There are many graphic designers housed in marketing departments, but what about the little guys? They don’t have time to learn photoshop (do that here). Enter tools like Canva, Crello Befunky, Lumen5. All of these tools allow marketers to pass as graphic designers. Perfect for when you need to crank out that sponsored post or branded video quickly.

Podcasting Tool

Podcasting is growing.

….podcasts could be a US$3.3 billion-plus business by 2025. (Stewart et al.)

You may want to get on that. Not only is that a great way to reach your audience, but it is also a triple threat in terms of content, as Gary V says. You can record it via audio, record via video, and transpose the episodes into blog posts. Luckily podcasting is pretty easy to do. You could go low budget and use your headphones and skype. Or you can use a podcasting tool for a more polished approach. These tools are not something you need to take a masterclass in to use. They make the recording and editing process easier so that you can crank out that content!! Check out two of my favorites here:

Squadcast
Zencaster

SEO/SEM Tool

Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. As a digital marketer, you must be well-read in this area of the industry. There are some great tools out there that will help you examine backlinks, keywords, page rank, competitor advertising, and competitor content. The two goliaths on the market are SEMRush and aHrefs. As a user of both tools, I think they are both FANTASTIC. I like the UI of aHrefs, and the academy over at SEMRush provides excellent training to get you up to speed.

SEMRush
aHrefs

Did I miss any tools? Let me know what you’re using today and plan to use in 2021.