CMO Go-To Digital Tools That Won’t Break the Budget

Every single tool CMOs and their marketing teams can leverage to save time, boost productivity and reduce or shorten the sales cycle is an asset with the power to dish out returns time and time again. During The Spring CMO Club Innovation and Inspiration Summit, Gina McDuffie, CMO, VER, and Hope Neiman, CMO, Tillster, teamed up to lead a breakout discussion where they asked successful B2B marketers what free or low-cost tools they use and would recommend to both their B2B and B2C marketing peers. McDuffie and Neiman added attendees’ responses to their own research and results from a pre-summit survey of CMOs. They’ve put together this index to help you and your team automate, analyze, curate, create and collaborate better.

Content Production, Management and Marketing:

• Buzz Sumo – Find content that has been highly engaged with on social media and connect with top influencers in your industry. 
• Conductor – A robust analytics tool, SEO platform and enterprise content marketing solution that is ideal for creating organic content that truly resonates with your client-base. 
• Cyfe – The go-to all-in-one-place dashboard for connecting the tools used for content marketing efforts – such as Google Analytics, Twitter, Email Marketing Software and more.
• Twine – An open-source platform that helps you produce nonlinear stories and manage the project development by facilitating teamwork.

Competitive Analysis and Domain Research:

• Built With – Find out what technology competing websites were built with, insights on their market adoption and more.
• Naming Matters – Research trademarks and domain names before you name a new product, service or website in order to get a leg up on building brand equity.
• Spyfu – A master tool for competitive analysis. Search for any domain and see each place they have shown up on Google, keywords they have paid for and all their ad variations over the last 10 years. 
• Qualaroo – Gain customer insights with website surveys that allow you to improve user experience by learning why your customers behave the way they do.

Data Visualization and Tracking:

• Crazyegg – Generates heatmaps showcasing user activity on a website. Track what’s hot and what’s not and adjust accordingly to reduce bounce rates.
• Good Data – Business intelligence, data visualization and data commercialization in one place. 
• Google Data Studio –  Build custom reports and transform your data into actionable and easy to digest information. Start Free.
• Hotjar  – Heatmapping that tracks visitors and helps you understand what they like and what they’re still missing from their web visits.
• Tableau – Attractive data presentation and business intelligence for better decision-making. 
• Bitly – Measure and manage links to track reach, CTR and more.
• Datanyze – Robust marketing intelligence and lead gen tool that is an industry leader in technographics.
• Domo – Extract actionable insight and make better decisions faster with the right data. Free trial available!
• Everstring – Predictive marketing and sales development solution to help accelerate customer acquisition by leveraging AI capabilities and tech.
• Google MFC – Track multi-channel funnels effectively with this free Google Analytics API.
• Moz – Known as the go-to SEO tool it is also great for content marketing, for outreach opportunities and more. 
• SEMRush – An inclusive marketing toolkit for competitive analysis, with one functionality being that it shows organic and paid keywords for any site or domain.

Quicker, Better and Simpler Design:

• 99Designs – Crowdsource design and logo work from a network of professionals. 
• Canva – Easy to use design templates for a variety of uses, from social media to print design. Start for Free or Pay as Needed.
• Lucidpress – Great resource to put together digital and print-ready visual content.
• Picjumbo – A huge library of free, high-quality stock photos.
• Piktochart – Make professional infographics from scratch or with the help of customizable templates. 
• Typeorm – Data mapper ORM for TypeScript and JavaScript.
• Unbounce – Build landing pages and overlays without the need for a designer or developer – it’s all template based!

Social Media Management and Publishing:

• Buffer – Schedule posts ahead of time and across various networks. 
• BuzzStream – Manage your PR outreach efforts and link building efforts with ease.
• HootSuite – Manage all your social media networks in one place, assign roles, add teams. Start Free!
• SlideShare – Share presentations, video and infographics with an engaged community – great for repurposed content.

Sales Software and Sales Funnel Management:

• Nimble – Social sales and marketing CRM tool.
• Pipedrive – Sales pipeline management solution, allows you to prioritize who you want to focus on.
• Sumo – Improve sales and traffic performance with effective lead generation. Share bar, email capture, list building and more.

Team Management and Performance:

• 15Five – Build a culture of trust and constructive feedback through OKRs, peer surveys, 1-on-1s and employee recognition tools.
• Trello – Track projects and workflow easily for team-oriented projects using movable cards that track who was assigned, deadlines, time spent working, comments and allow for file sharing. 
• Slack – A popular platform for managing internal messaging, projects and employee accounts.