There are currently more than four millions apps available for downloading. As online commerce continues to expand, usage of marketing apps has skyrocketed to the point where if you’re not using them, you’re not really marketing. But in a sea of apps, how do you find the best fit for your business?
We chat with local businesses all day, every day. Read on for our definitive list of marketing apps in 2024, why they’re important, and how to use them to their full potential.
Before that though, we’re excited to share something that a lot of Podium customers have been waiting for– we’ve launched an integration with Instagram! Instagram is an amazing way to showcase your products in a visual way and start a conversation with customers, but when things are siloed it means a heavier burden to keep up with things and longer response time. You and your customers deserve better!
The Power of Marketing Apps
Marketing software is not only important–it’s essential for local businesses, offering cost-effective automation that streamlines tasks and enhances customer engagement and interaction. Features like segmentation and analytics enable personalized communication and better understanding of customer needs, fostering stronger relationships.
By automating processes like email campaigns and social media scheduling, your team can work more efficiently, freeing up time for strategic initiatives. The right apps can empower you to punch far above your weight class by optimizing your efforts, driving growth, and facilitating exceptional experiences.
Key Features and Tools of Marketing Apps
Not all marketing apps are winners. But, there are a few ways to tell if an app is worth acquiring. Read on for 11 essential features all great marketing apps should come with and why each is important.
Social Marketing
Apps for marketers should offer robust social marketing features that enable you to schedule posts, engage with your audience, and analyze performance across various social media platforms.
App Store Optimization
Any small business marketing app should include ASO features to improve visibility and downloads in app stores. ASO involves optimizing app titles, descriptions, keywords, and visuals to increase search rankings and attract relevant users.
Analytics
Comprehensive analytics capabilities are essential for tracking marketing campaign performance, user behavior, and ROI. Analytics provide valuable insights into your audience demographics, engagement metrics, and conversion rates, enabling you to make data-driven decisions.
Content Marketing
The best app for marketing should facilitate exceptional content creation, curation, and distribution across various channels, including your websites, blogs, and social media.
Push Notifications
Effective digital marketing apps support push notifications to deliver timely and relevant messages to users’ devices. Push notifications increase user engagement, encourage app usage, and drive conversions by delivering personalized content, promotions, and updates directly to your target audience.
Creating a Landing Page
Landing page creation tools are essential for building optimized web pages tailored to specific marketing campaigns or offers. Landing pages help you capture leads and promote your products or services.
Customer Needs
Marketing apps should incorporate features for gathering and analyzing customer feedback, preferences, and behavior. Understanding customer needs enables you to tailor your marketing strategies, products, and services to meet customer expectations.
Email Campaigns
Regardless of what you hear, email isn’t dead. But it does need to be done well to get noticed. Robust email marketing capabilities are essential for creating, sending, and tracking compelling email campaigns that engage subscribers and nurture leads.
Lead Management
Effective lead management features help you capture, qualify, and nurture leads across various touchpoints, from initial contact to conversion. Lead management tools enable you to track lead interactions, prioritize follow-ups, and optimize lead nurturing efforts.
Marketing Automation
Marketing automation functionality streamlines repetitive tasks such as email scheduling, lead scoring, and campaign workflows to improve efficiency and effectiveness. Automations allow you to deliver personalized experiences at scale.
Text Marketing
Last but perhaps most important, the best apps have text marketing capabilities for sending SMS or MMS messages to customers’ mobile devices. Text marketing is the most direct and efficient way to reach audiences, deliver promotions, reminders, and updates, and drive immediate action, such as purchases or sign-ups.
The 20 Best Marketing Apps of 2024
Announcing: the best marketing apps of the year. Read on to learn what they do, why they are important, and what they’ll run you.
- Podium: This text-powered, modern customer communication platform helps you manage and improve your online reviews, messages, and customer feedback from one centralized location via text. It’s essential for businesses to maintain a positive online reputation and engage with customers effectively, and starts at $399 per month.
- Canva: This beginner-friendly graphic design platform allows you to create stunning visual content for various marketing materials such as social media posts, presentations, posters, and more. Canva offers a free version with premium features starting at $119.99 per year.
- Hootsuite: Hootsuite is a social media management platform that enables you to schedule posts, monitor social media activity, and analyze performance across multiple platforms from one dashboard. Pricing starts at $99 per month.
- Buffer: This social media management tool allows you to schedule posts, analyze performance, and engage with your audience across various social media platforms, allowing you to effectively measure your impact. It’s free to get started, and the team plan runs $12 per month.
- Mailchimp: Mailchimp is an all-in-one marketing platform that helps you create and send email campaigns, build landing pages, automate marketing tasks, and analyze results. Pricing starts at $20 per month.
- Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic, providing valuable insights into user behavior and site performance. The best part? Google Analytics is free to use.
- Slack: A highly popular communication platform, Slack enables teams to collaborate, share files, and communicate in real-time through channels and direct messages. Business pricing starts at $12.50 per month per user.
- Trello: This popular project management tool uses boards, lists, and cards to help teams organize tasks and track progress in a visual way. It ensures everyone is aligned on goals and deadlines. Trello offers a free version with premium features starting at $10 per month.
- Asana: A household name, Asana is a project management software that helps teams organize tasks, track progress, and collaborate more effectively. It’s essential for businesses to streamline workflow processes and prioritize tasks to meet project deadlines. Pricing starts at $10.99 per month per user.
- Grammarly: This writing assistant tool helps you improve your grammar, spelling, and punctuation in real-time. It helps you maintain professional and error-free communication in emails, documents, and social media posts. Grammarly offers a free version with premium features starting at $12 per month.
- HubSpot: A widely-used inbound marketing and sales software, HubSpot helps you attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers. It provides tools for email marketing, lead generation, CRM, and analytics. Pricing starts at $800 per month for businesses.
- Evernote: This note-taking app allows you to capture ideas, organize thoughts, and collaborate on projects across devices. Evernote offers a free version with premium features starting at $10.83 per month.
- Sprout Social: Sprout Social is a social media management and analytics platform that provides quantitative and contextual data for all your social profiles across platforms. Pricing starts at $199 per month.
- Google Ads: The online advertising platform you know and love, Google Ads allows you to create and manage ads that appear on Google search results and other Google properties. Many local businesses use it to reach their target audience and drive relevant traffic to their website. (Pricing varies depending on the advertising budget and bidding strategy.)
- LinkedIn: This professional networking platform helps your business build brand awareness, generate leads, and recruit talent. LinkedIn offers various advertising options with pricing based on campaign objectives and audience targeting.
- Ahrefs: This comprehensive SEO toolset allows you to analyze your website’s backlinks, keyword rankings, and competitor strategies. It helps you improve your search engine visibility and drive organic traffic to your website. Ahrefs offers subscription plans starting at $99 per month.
- Basecamp: Basecamp is a project management and collaboration tool that helps teams organize tasks, share files, and communicate effectively by providing unique feedback opportunities for your staff and spaces to collaborate on documents. Pricing starts at $299 per month for unlimited users.
- Hangouts: This communication platform enables you to make video calls, send messages, and collaborate in real-time. It facilitates remote communication and collaboration among team members or clients. Hangouts is available for free as part of Google Workspace or as a standalone service for local businesses.
- Feedly: Feedly is a content discovery and curation platform that helps you stay updated on industry news, blogs, and trends. It keeps you informed about relevant topics and up-to-date on competitor activity. Feedly offers subscription plans starting at $6 per month.
- Later: Later is a social media scheduling and influencer management tool that allows you to plan, schedule, and analyze posts across various platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest and work effectively with top influencers. It offers a free version with premium features starting at $16.67 per month.
Future Trends in Marketing Apps
To stay ahead in the marketplace, it’s wise to know not only the best apps now but where mobile app marketing trends are headed. Marketers and app creators are researching and leaning into app development around public relations, hyper-personalization, influence marketing, thought leadership, and geolocation optimization.
Most importantly, AI is set to take on an increasingly integral role in marketing apps in coming years. Augmented reality is also expected to continue rising in marketing strategy alongside AI marketing apps.
How Podium Can Improve Your Text Marketing Strategy.
Over 150,000 local businesses use Podium to offer hyper-personalized, automatic, unbeatably convenient service to their customers and carry out high-performing, compelling campaigns that actually get results.
Ready to level up your text marketing strategy with the best of the text marketing apps? Try Podium today.
